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Audit finds inflation, wages drove Seattle’s $1.7B budget increase

Josh Cohen — Thu, 02 May 2024 05:01:35 PDT

Seattle’s city budget grew 29% over the past five years, mostly because of increased labor costs plus high inflation.

About $90 million of the budget increase — from $6.1 billion in 2019 to $7.8 billion in 2024 — came from the creation of new programs such as the Clean City Initiative to pick up trash and the Unified Care Team that does homeless encampment outreach and clearance.

Though $1.7 billion is a far cry from pocket change, it averages out to a 5.8% annual increase over the five-year period, a time when annual inflation was about 5%.

“We’re barely treading water there. [The budget growth] is primarily driven by baseline and technical adjustments, responding to historically high inflation,” said Aly Pennucci, deputy director of the City Council’s central staff at an April 17 Budget Committee meeting.

Those are the topline takeaways from the staff’s new five-year budget analysis. The analysis comes as the city grapples with a projected $241-million-and-counting budget deficit beginning in 2025.

Released April 30, the 224-page analysis digs into every department’s budget from 2019-2024 to understand how and why the city budget has changed — a far deeper dive than the City Council usually performs when tackling annual budget writing.

“What we have before us is something that’s never been done by central staff in the last 25 years,” said Councilmember Dan Strauss at a May 1 Finance, Native Communities & Tribal Governments Committee meeting. “This document is going to inform our work throughout the remainder of the year.”

A chart from the Seattle City Council showing total budget growth.

The projected deficit loomed over last year’s City Council elections, and Councilmembers Joy Hollingsworth, Bob Kettle, Cathy Moore, Maritza Rivera, Rob Saka and Tanya Woo all promised to perform an audit of the city budget before taking any other steps to close the gap.

Seattle is legally required to have a balanced budget, and has relatively few tools available when its revenues don’t match spending. City leaders can cut staff and services, they can raise taxes, loosen restrictions on taxes earmarked for certain programs, and they can nibble around the edges with things like hiring freezes, which Mayor Bruce Harrell implemented in January. The new Council majority has said they’d prefer to find places to cut before considering any new taxes. and the deep analysis is meant, in part, to help them figure out where to do so.

The analysis is organized in an upside-down pyramid, with each layer showing how much the budget has grown over five years. The top layer is total budget growth from 2019-2024. The next layer separates departmental budgets into six policy areas — Administration; Arts, Culture and Recreation; Education and Human Services; Livable and Inclusive Communities; Public Safety; and Utilities, Transportation, and Environment — and groups each city department into one of them. And finally, the document looks at each department’s major program areas to identify where the growth stems from.

The Livable and Inclusive Communities policy area — which includes the Office of Housing, Construction and Inspections, Economic Development, Civil Rights and more — saw the largest five-year growth. Budgets in that grouping grew by $363.8 million or 174% since 2019. Much of that comes from the $270 million growth in the Office of Housing budget as the city has rapidly expanded its investment in subsidized affordable-housing construction.

The Education and Human Services policy area had the next largest five-year growth, up $196 million or 65% since 2019. More than $142 million of that increase comes from the Human Services Department, which contracts with nonprofits to provide social safety-net programs to address homelessness, food insecurity, elder care and more.

The city’s internal operations costs have also risen sharply in the past five years. The Administration policy bucket — which includes IT, human resources, the mayor’s office and the legislative department, among others — grew by $387.2 million, a 33% increase. At the May 1 Finance Committee meeting, Strauss said he was interested in digging much further into that policy bucket to understand the cost increases.

Rounding out the policy areas: Arts, Culture and Recreation grew by $109.7 million or 28%; Utilities, Transportation and Environment grew by $573.6 million or 17%; and Public Safety grew by $115.1 million or 16%.

A chart from the Seattle City Council showing budget growth by policy area.

Tom Mikesell, a central staff policy analyst, explained at the April 17 meeting that about 75% of the five-year budget growth stemmed from budget amendments meant to keep up with inflation — whether from expenses and fees the city pays or from worker wages. Those labor costs include wage increases for city employees as well as for workers the city has contracted with to provide services.

Pennucci pointed out that although labor costs have increased, the city’s workforce has not expanded significantly. Between 2019 and 2024 the city added only 591 full time employees.

The City Council recently voted unanimously to increase wages for about 7,000 unionized city workers along with another 3,000 non-union city workers. The roughly $10 million in additional costs for the city is already reflected in the $241 million projected deficit for next year. That deficit will increase further thanks to significant back pay the Seattle Police Officers Guild just negotiated in its recently approved contract.

Although the central staff analysis is far more in-depth than normal, it does not provide granular details about whether a given program should be deemed successful or might be susceptible to cut. At the May 1 Finance Committee meeting, Strauss and Councilmember Maritza Rivera both encouraged their colleagues to dig even deeper into the departments that fall under their committee assignments.

A chart from the Seattle City Council showing revenue versus inflation over 10 years.

The city’s budget deficit stems from pandemic fall out. After a decade of steady growth and low inflation, tax revenue dropped precipitously in 2020. Tax revenues have recovered some since, but property, retail sales, business and occupation, and public utilities taxes are all still lagging. High inflation is exacerbating the deficit.

Council staff chose the 2019 budget as the baseline for their analysis because that was the last year the city’s revenues matched spending. During the pandemic, Seattle relied heavily on one-time federal grants to close the deficit. The city also took money from the Jumpstart Payroll Tax on large businesses, which has continued to outperform expectations.

Jumpstart revenues are meant to be spent only on affordable housing, economic revitalization for small businesses, the Equitable Development Initiative and Green New Deal climate programs. For the past several budget cycles, however, the Council has voted to allow one-time uses of Jumpstart to close gaps, including shifting the 2024 budget $85.6 million of the roughly $395 million Jumpstart is projected to raise this year. The Council could draw from Jumpstart again to close next year’s deficit, though doing so takes money away from its intended housing, climate and economic development goals.

In addition to taking on the deeper budget analysis, the City Council is diverting from the normal budget process by starting things much earlier. In a typical year, the Mayor’s Office drafts its proposed budget in the spring and summer before passing it off to the City Council for amendments, balancing and final adoption in September. This year, the Council held its first Budget Committee meeting in April.

Topics: Seattle City Budget, Seattle City Government

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Whatcom County to investigate handling of sexual harassment case

Isaac Stone Simonelli — Wed, 01 May 2024 14:30:18 PDT

The Whatcom County Council unanimously voted on Tuesday to launch a formal investigation into the county’s handling of sexual harassment and retaliation allegations against a former Public Works director and subsequent settlement of $225,000 to a female employee.

“The system needs to be looked at from stem to stern,” Chairman Barry Buchanan said ahead of the vote.

During the special session on Tuesday, April 30, Council members openly struggled with understanding the scope and scale of the problem, as well as what oversight — if any — the Council has on such personnel matters and complaints. Members had told Cascadia Daily News last week they were unaware of all of it.

Tuesday’s meeting was the latest chapter in a 10-day firestorm of statements, rebuttals and, now, official actions as county leaders grapple with calls for change and more transparency in the wake of a Cascade PBS investigation.

“You’ve made all of our jobs harder by not communicating,” Council member Ben Elenbaas told members of the county administration. “The public questions our abilities to do our jobs in the future.”

The Council repeatedly voiced frustration with the county prosecutor’s office and County Executive Satpal Sidhu for keeping them in the dark about the allegations from several women about former Public Works Director Jon Hutchings and the county’s response, as well as the 2023 settlement.

In a letter to Council members last week, Sidhu confirmed that he did not bring the issue before the Council but instead worked alongside the county’s human resources and legal teams to ensure county policies and procedures were followed.

Council members underscored their concerns about not having a clear understanding of oversight or responsibility when complaints deemed significant are made to human resources, or when payouts are made.

Council members and the general public became aware of the county’s handling of Hutchings’ resignation — including a glowing “letter of introduction” to potential employers — in a Cascade PBS investigative story published on April 19.

On Monday, facing continued pressure from the public, Sidhu stated the county’s handling of the allegations points toward “systemic issues in reporting protocols, transparency and action steps.” Sidhu, who had initially defended his actions in the matter, apologized for writing the letter in his statement on Monday, calling it an error of judgment.

However, George Roche, speaking on behalf of the prosecutor’s office on Tuesday, said, “We’ve got good policies and bad humans.”

Roche previously handled the Hutchings incident for the county’s Human Resources Department. He told Council members Tuesday that his dual role did not present a conflict of interest.

Sidhu largely sat quietly through the three-hour meeting, in which Roche took a lead role addressing the Council. Sidhu had agreed to an interview with a CDN reporter following the special meeting, but on Tuesday he changed his mind, said county spokesperson Jed Holmes.

While Roche said the Council had no legal liability in the situation, Council members pointed out that their constituents feel strongly about accountability.

“A lot of the feedback I’ve gotten is: ‘Well, if you don’t know about any of this, what else goes on in county government that you don’t know about and how can we trust you guys are doing your job?’” Elenbaas said.

Council member Todd Donovan attempted to get a solid sense of how pervasive such harassment incidents were within the county government and how often the county was making payouts connected to personnel issues. Ultimately, he said he wanted to know “How is our HR system working or not working that we don’t know about as a Council?”

Roche failed to provide a direct answer to the question, saying “Each one of those cases takes a different course.”

He did say there were a variety of “educational opportunities” the county experienced during the process that couldn’t be discussed in the public forum.

In the Hutchings incident, Roche explained that the settlement was reached within 72 hours of the county receiving a “threatening letter” from the complainant’s lawyer alleging a pattern of harassment and discrimination that the county failed to properly address.

That letter alleges that the county protected Hutchings despite his creation of a hostile work environment, sexually harassing multiple employees and retaliating against the woman who received the settlement for reporting harassment to Human Resources.

Multiple times throughout the meeting, Roche explained to the Council that in order for him to share a more complete picture of the situation, they would need to be in an executive session.

Members voted 5-1 to go into executive session due to “potential legal liabilities.” Council member Donovan was not present for that vote; Jon Scanlon was the only dissenter.

Earlier in the meeting, Scanlon explained that he had spoken with the woman who received the settlement and that she’d expressed her desire — like so many victims have — to simply be believed.

Hutchings signed a letter of resignation in early November 2022 and was hired into a similar role in Lynden in summer 2023.

The Council is expected to present the scope and process for the outside investigation at the next regular meeting on May 7.

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Topics: Labor

How PNW trans swimmers are finding comfort in and out of water

Frankie Beer — Wed, 01 May 2024 05:00:00 PDT

Torrey Stephenson, 30, never learned to swim.

As an 11-year-old growing up in Colorado, Stephenson tended to avoid his neighborhood pool. He was uncomfortable with the idea of being made to wear a bikini as someone assigned the female gender at birth.

Years later, as a college student at Colorado State University in 2014, Stephenson was told his sports bra and shorts were against the rules, and he was “thrown out” of the pool, he said.

“I was just like, ‘You know what, swimming isn’t for trans people. I’ve decided. I’ve made the executive decision,’” said Stephenson, now a doctoral student in environmental science at the University of Idaho.

But things can change.

After undergoing gender-affirming surgery in 2020, Stephenson became more comfortable with the public display of his body that swimming requires. Last year, after two decades, Stephenson, already a competitive runner and cyclist, decided it was time to learn to swim.

He was going through a breakup at the time, which was the catalyst to a “New year, new me” mindset, he said.

“I thought, ‘Well, I guess this is my sign from the universe. It’s time to swallow my pride and admit that I need some help,’” Stephenson said.

Searching for representation

More than half of Americans cannot swim, according to the American Red Cross. For transgender people, public pools present a particular challenge as bodies are on display and locker rooms remain a controversial territory. Pools have become the frontlines of a roiling debate on transgender athletes and sports.

On April 8, the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics released a policy barring transgender women from competing in women’s sports if they have started hormone therapy. Out of 250 NAIA colleges across the United States, The Evergreen State College, Walla Walla University and Northwest University are three Washington universities where the policy is scheduled to go into effect on Aug. 1.

Walla Walla University confirmed that it will adopt this policy by that date. The Evergreen State College told Cascade PBS it will adopt the policy, but it is awaiting updates to Title IX and working with the Attorney General’s office to see if it conflicts with Washington’s discrimination law. Northwest University did not respond to Cascade PBS’s questions by press time.

In 2022, the International Swimming Federation ruled male-to-female transgender athletes could compete only if they transitioned before turning 12 years old or reaching a certain stage of puberty. A few months prior to the policy, college swimmer Lia Thomas became the first transgender swimmer to win a national title, and critics claimed she had a physical “edge” over her opponents.

Last year, 23 states had laws banning transgender athletes from high school sports, with 21 of those states banning transgender athletes in college from any sport.

These policies and legislation that deny transgender swimmers’ identities have had a chilling effect. A father, who helped raise his transgender son in Eastern Washington and prefers to remain anonymous to protect his son’s identity, said his son enjoyed swimming as his main athletic outlet throughout elementary and junior high school until the son started transitioning in seventh grade.

“The fact that he felt like to be comfortable, he had to wear the chest binder and a T-shirt was something that kind of pegged him as being different or other, and I think that was not easy,” the father said.

While his son’s peers, church and family accepted his transition with open arms, pools were one of the only spaces that heightened his discomfort before he underwent gender-affirming surgery in high school, the father said. After a long time away from the pool, his son, now in his early 20s, slowly lost his connection to swimming and has not returned to the sport.

Truly inclusive spaces to swim can be hard to find. At Seattle’s Orca Swim Team, an LGBTQIA+ club with more than 100 members, there is less pressure to “put people in boxes,” said Paul Ikeda, the team’s 64-year-old coach.

Still, Ikeda said Orca is only one of two queer swim clubs in the Pacific Northwest, the other in Portland, Oregon. Last year, Ikeda saw a swimmer with scars on their chest joining the club, but it was several weeks of practice until Ikeda realized the scars must have been from top surgery. It made no difference to him.

“Once people get on the [pool] deck, gender doesn’t make a difference,” he said.

But even here, one club’s inclusivity can’t open all doors. Most Orca members use the sport as a tool for fitness while about 10% of its members compete in formal U.S. Masters Swimming events, Ikeda said. U.S. Masters Swimming is a national nonprofit that hosts swim clubs, workout groups and competitive swimming for adults.

U.S. Masters Swimming requires competitors to identify as male or female. There is no option for nonbinary swimmers.

Torrey Stephenson checks the 100 Mile Club leaderboard at the University of Idaho Swim Center. (Frankie Beer for Cascade PBS)

Training for a triathlon

In April 2023, Stephenson took his initial strokes in the UI Swim Center’s shallow end during the Moscow Chinooks Masters’ Adult Learn-to-Swim course. The swim team began teaching adults to swim in 2017, and coaches Debbie Bell and Sue Kappmeyer instruct about 20 adults per year, Kappmeyer said. The volunteer-run program was funded by the Palouse Sprint Triathlon and previous grants from the U.S. Masters Swimming and USA Swimming Foundation.

Bell pushed Stephenson to achieve a specific goal — something he responded well to after years of competitive running and cycling. His first informal bike race was at age 9, and he began running competitively in high school. Stephenson said he was used to pushing himself and trusting his body, which he applied to learning to swim.

“This is a new skill, but I know how to suffer,” he said.

It had always been in the back of his mind to compete in a triathlon, and he realized his hopes of “one day” could quickly become “never” without the ability to swim, he said. Stephenson had four months to prepare for the Palouse Sprint Triathlon in September in Moscow, where he would swim 500 yards in the community pool, ride a bike through town and run a 5K.

To prepare, Stephenson raced against a volunteer, an “extremely tough, 70-something-year-old lady” who “absolutely smoked” him at the end of each swim lesson, he said. During one of his last lessons, he began to swim in the 14-foot end of the pool.

“[The coaches were] like, ‘You’re ready, kid, get in there,’” he said. “Kind of, you know, pushing ya out of the nest and making ya learn to fly.”

Stephenson finished the swimming program in two weeks and visited the pool twice a week for four months to train for the triathlon. He and a group of friends met each Thursday at 7 a.m. to run and train as a unique way to spend time together, encouraging each other toward their final goal. The day before registration, Bell emailed Stephenson to check in, and he said he could not “let Debbie down.”

Months after conquering the deep end, it was race day.

Slogging through a slow “hour of suffering,” Stephenson made it to the finish line as one of the top 10 overall competitors with a time of 1:02:11, finishing the swimming portion in 9:37.

“He swam so well, I couldn’t believe it,” Kappmeyer said.

Stephenson said he hopes to compete in the triathlon again this fall and “go even faster this time.”

Navigating the gender binary

Most locker rooms have no gender-neutral changing area, and UI is no exception. Stephenson has made his peace with locker rooms and found his “little safety and quiet corners,” but discomfort often lingers in the back of his mind.

In October 2023, an Idaho law stated that transgender high school students must use locker rooms according to the sex they were assigned at birth. Although that rule doesn’t apply to him, Stephenson said changing in UI’s empty men’s locker room still felt like he was “doing something wrong in the eyes of the law.”

Gradually, Stephenson learned no one else was paying attention to him, instead focusing on their own locker-room discomfort that “everyone with a body” goes through. Although he is not going into pools with the same body or swimwear he had as an undergrad, Stephenson feels swimming is finally accessible to him, though he acknowledged that his physical appearance gives him some privilege.

“There’s no question if I walk in somewhere with my deep voice and stubby little facial hair,” he said. “Nobody gives me a second look if I walk in like I belong there, whereas [for] somebody who doesn’t really ascribe to either of those stereotypical gender roles, that can be a lot more challenging.”

Nick Koenig, a 25-year-old graduate student at UI, would rather talk about their climate research than the legislative debate surrounding bathrooms. However, they said the buildup of “slow violence” in locker rooms became a barrier to their college swimming experience, and Koenig stopped visiting the pool in September.

When Koenig moved to Moscow in 2022, they swam nearly a mile every day, reaching 70 miles on the UI swim center’s leaderboard. They said they chatted with the women’s dive team on Tuesdays and Thursdays, feeling included and safe.

They wanted to reconnect with the electric feeling they had when “wild swimming” with a close friend in Cambridge, England. There, people often swam naked in the river running through the town, even in winter. The pair would shuck their clothing down to their “skivvies” and plunge into the freezing water, Koenig said.

“It was just a beautiful, unexplainable amount of joy we felt when we swam together,” Koenig said. “We were very free.”

Koenig said they still feel comfortable and euphoric in their body, but it is how people treat and look at their body that makes them uncomfortable.

As their heels “click-clack” into the men’s locker room and they take off their leather skirt or form-fitting clothing, Koenig said they receive stares and weird looks.

“Then that’s where I’m like, ‘I’m done. This is stupid. I don’t want to do this anymore,’” they said.

Koenig said they are working on overcoming this mental barrier while finding community in spaces like drag shows. They hope to swim outdoors in Moscow’s community pool and sign up for the fall Palouse Sprint Triathlon, participating alongside Stephenson and their friend group.

As for the indoor pool, Koenig does not know when they will return.

“I wish I had better advice because I would give it to myself,” they said.

Topics: Equity, Gender & Sexuality, news, Sport, Sports

Podcast | Civic leader Vivian Phillips talks Black Arts Legacies

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Is Seattle a walkable city? Pedestrian death rates show otherwise

Jadenne Radoc Cabahug — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 04:59:00 PDT

Twenty-four years after Washington became the first state to commit to decreasing pedestrian traffic deaths to zero, the numbers continue to move in the wrong direction. Last year was one of the worst years ever for Washington traffic deaths, including pedestrians.

Accounting for a full 20% of traffic deaths in Seattle is Aurora Avenue North, aka State Highway 99, Seattle’s north-south alternative to Interstate 5, according to Elisabeth Wooton, Seattle Department of Transportation senior capital projects coordinator.

This major arterial is known as the city’s High Injury Network; many drivers speed down the not-very-pedestrian-friendly highway. A skinny concrete median is the only thing separating wide northbound and southbound lanes. But it’s more than a highway; it’s also a busy commercial route with lots of foot traffic associated with local businesses and restaurants in some parts.

And that’s a big part of the problem: A highway with foot traffic and minimal protections for pedestrians has meant deaths have been scattered along the route, from Westlake north to just past Bitter Lake. “In terms of reaching our Vision Zero goals and providing safety, Aurora is critical,” said Wooton.

Vision Zero is the city’s plan to end all traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2030.

Anne Vernez Moudon, University of Washington urban design and planning professor emeritus, has studied pedestrian safety for 25 years. She explains that a majority of Seattle traffic deaths are on or around arterial roads like Aurora, where cars go faster and there are fewer pedestrian crossings.

Moudon says one dataset explains the danger: The chances of a person dying when hit by a car going 20 mph is 5%. At 30 mph, it’s 45% and at 40 mph, chances of death are 85%. If struck at 50 mph, there is a 100% chance of death for pedestrians, she said.

Seeking solutions

The Seattle Department of Transportation began the Aurora Ave Project in 2021 to address those safety concerns. It splits the corridor, more than seven and a half miles long, into five segments between Harrison and North 145th Streets. The goal is to make the area safer for all road users and to create a pedestrian-friendly area with walkable boulevards, wider sidewalks, safer crossings, appropriate infrastructure and greenery. The city wants to add bus-only lanes, bike lanes, pedestrian crossing signals, center medians and dividers and more.

This effort comes as city data shows that pedestrian deaths have been at an all-time high since 2021, despite the city’s Vision Zero goals.

“We’re looking at every part of this corridor knowing that there have been fatalities within every one of these segments,” Wooton said.

The construction start date has not been set, but SDOT said they received a $1.5 million grant from the WSDOT Pedestrian and Bicycle program; and Wooton said they have spent roughly $2.5 million to date for community engagement, analyzing existing conditions, concept development and evaluation as well as interim spot safety improvement design, like pedestrian-first signals and “No Turn on Red” signs.

It is unclear how long the project will take and what further costs there might be, according to Wooton.

A pedestrian crosses the intersection of North 45th Street and Aurora Avenue North on Thursday, March 16, 2023. A pedestrian was involved in a hit-and-run in this intersection. (Amanda Snyder/Cascade PBS)

What the numbers show

Data from the Washington Traffic Safety Commission’s fatalities dashboard shows pedestrian deaths began rising in 2017 and since then have stayed above 100 per year across the state. The numbers peaked in 2021, when 146 pedestrians died across Washington; 2022 was the second highest, at 134.

Pedestrian death tolls in 2023 are expected to beat 2021 or be a close second, said Mark McKechnie, external relations director for the Washington Traffic Safety Commission.

Compared to other states, McKechnie said Washington fares pretty well when it comes to fatalities. Pedestrian fatalities increased 14% nationally between 2019 and 2023, according to the Governors Highway Safety Commission. In Washington, pedestrian deaths increased 25% during that time period, but the numbers are still well below those of the worst states like California, Florida and Texas.

From 2020 to 2022, the national fatality rate for pedestrians and bicyclists combined was 2.5 deaths per 100,000 people. McKechnie said that the state’s fatality rate for pedestrians and bicyclists in this same period was 1.83 per 100,000.

There is a discrepancy between the two data sets because of reporting delays. McKechnie said numbers from the Commission are preliminary and could change, since causes of death are still after investigation.

“But if you look at it from the perspective of no pedestrian fatality is acceptable, then we’re very troubled by seeing our numbers increase when our goal is to get them to zero,” McKechnie said.

In Seattle, pedestrian deaths also rose steadily over the past few years according to the SDOT: 16 in 2019, 14 in 2020, 20 in 2021 and 26 in 2022. McKechnie says key factors include city design, time of day, speeding and distracted driving. Seattle and King County have the most pedestrian traffic deaths in the state, because these deaths are usually closely correlated with population, but the next highest county, Yakima, does not have the next highest population.

“We don’t do enough,” said Moudon, when asked why pedestrian death tolls aren’t decreasing significantly. “You don’t have to deal with the whole city, you can just deal with these areas … these hotspots where a lot of people are walking and the same old problems of speed, lack of safe crossings.”

Seattle's approach to Vision Zero

Seattle has adopted the U.S. Department of Transportation Safe Systems Approach, according to Venu Nemani, Seattle Department of Transportation safety officer and city traffic engineer. The focus is on preventing crashes, but also minimizing their harm and making places safer for all road users.

“Safety is a shared responsibility,” Nemani said. “I want to emphasize the responsibility that the Safe Systems Approach recognizes is the shared responsibility between ourselves.”

Seattle has not released its updated 2024 Vision Zero Action Plan.

Nemani said the number of pedestrian deaths have fluctuated in recent years, which allows SDOT to understand which approaches have worked and which haven’t. Through these projects, they’re able to see which direct actions have decreased pedestrian deaths.

Two actions Nemani cited were installing no-turn-on-red restrictions and pedestrian headstart signals along Aurora.

Nemani said they have installed around 675 pedestrian head start signals, which support 70% of all intersections. Since testing no-turn-on-red signals at specific intersections in the city, they have expanded to around 200 locations in the city, or 20% of all signalized intersections.

“So we have projects across the city that promote safer pedestrian infrastructure and contribute to overall safer outcomes,” said Nemani. He said some of these additions, which the city added prior to directly following the Safety Systems Approach, are also backed at the national level by the Federal Highway Administration.

Another approach that seems to be making a difference in Seattle is lowering the speed limit on most arterial streets in the city to 25 mph from 30-35 mph, Nemani said.

Other approaches that have been proven to increase pedestrian safety are adding sidewalks and curb ramps; accessible push buttons or separating pedestrians and vehicles at signalized intersections; and predicting where cars often turn. This includes unprotected left turns or places where cars turn right on red. City officials believe these changes will help keep pedestrians safe without making traffic worse.

As part of the Aurora Ave Project, the city added pedestrian headstart signals to let people walk before cars start moving and put up no-turn-on-red signs at some intersections. Other projects in the area include upgrading sidewalks and preserving trees and identifying neighborhood streets.

These changes are slowly coming along after community groups have pushed to improve the area on and around Aurora.

“We’re trying to make sure we have everything, all the ideas on the table before we go into this next phase of planning where we’ll be evaluating and stitching them together for a more cohesive design,” SDOT’s Wooton said.

What people on the street are saying

Other parts of the city that Moudon considers good candidates for improving pedestrian safety include Lake City, Fourth Avenue in Downtown, Martin Luther King South from Seattle to Skyway and South Rainier. A Rainier Improvements project started with community outreach and planning in 2015 and construction began in 2019.

Gordon Padelford, executive director of Seattle Neighborhood Greenways, agrees that the city needs to do more since the numbers aren’t improving.

“I often think about both ends of the age spectrum, as an 8-year-old and an 80-year-old. If we design a city that works for both of those age groups, it’s a really bright city for all of us,” Padelford said.

Seattle Neighborhood Greenways is a grassroots organization that pushes to make streets safer for people to bike, walk and roll. Padelford thinks it is possible to reach Vision Zero. An example he gave is Jersey City, New Jersey, which accomplished going a full year without a single traffic fatality. In neighboring Hoboken, there hasn’t been a single traffic death for seven years. Both are cities with sidewalks on every street and a well-established and well-used public transit system.

“That’s a really hard truth, that we are not on track to keep people safe as they’re walking, biking or rolling, driving or taking transit on our streets,” Padelford said.

CORRECTION: This story has been updated with pedestrian fatality death counts in Seattle from the Seattle Department of Transportation rather than the Washington State Traffic Commission. This story has been updated with correct numbers and to clarify that Aurora Avenue North accounts for 20% of traffic deaths in Seattle, not all Washington state traffic deaths.

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Hanford’s new plan to clean up 56 million gallons of nuclear waste

John Stang — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 04:58:00 PDT

State and federal officials on Monday released another new plan to clean up Hanford, the Western Hemisphere’s most polluted site, a full 16 years behind their previous schedule to turn most of the 56 million gallons of nuclear waste into benign glass.

The tentative new plan, announced after four years of closed-door negotiations, includes limited adoption of an alternative technology called grouting, which involves mixing radioactive fluids and chunks into a type of cement.

The plan will be open to public comment at the end of May.

In the early 1990s, state and federal officials decided Hanford tank waste should be mixed with glass flakes and melted together so the radioactive substances cannot escape for 10,000 years. The original $4 billion glassification plant was supposed to be ready by 2009 and the work completed by 2019. But both budgets and deadlines have been busted several times in recent decades.

Currently, Hanford’s legal target calls for glassifying all wastes by 2052. DOE has internally moved those targets back to 2069, according to a 2021 report by the Government Accountability Office. That date was not reflected in Monday’s announcement, but those deadlines could be changed in the future.

“This agreement will get more tank waste retrieved, treated, and disposed of on schedule and gives us a roadmap for Hanford cleanup through 2040 and beyond,” said Laura Watson, director of Washington’s Department of Ecology, in a news release Monday.

(Bechtel National)

Brian Vance, Hanford’s U.S. Department of Energy manager, said in the same release: “We have alignment on a plan that lays out a realistic and achievable path forward for Hanford’s tank waste mission.” DOE, Ecology and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency signed a pact in 1989 to govern Hanford’s cleanup. This agreement has been modified several times, with Monday’s announcement being the latest. The four years of talks were also prompted by a federal judge’s order that the three organizations needed to revamp the cleanup schedule.

These are just proposed changes. A 60-day public comment period begins May 30, which could lead to further modification. Then a federal judge has to rule on the changes.

The Tri-City Development Council is studying the details of the tentative agreement before commenting on it, said David Reeploeg, TRIDEC's vice president for government programs. He noted that DOE, Ecology and EPA have not always been on the same page regarding how to approach Hanford's cleanup. With the tentative agreement, all three agencies now appear to be aligned on their approaches, Reeploeg said

The U.S. government set up Hanford in 1943 to create plutonium for the nation’s atomic bombs, including those exploded in New Mexico and over Nagasaki in 1945. That development work created many billions of gallons of chemical and radioactive wastes, the worst 56 million gallons of which were pumped into 177 underground tanks. About a third of those tanks leak. At least a million gallons of radioactive liquid have leaked into the ground, seeping into the aquifer 200 feet below and then into the Columbia River, roughly seven miles away.

Over years of debate and timeline changes, the glassification project’s budget has grown from $4 billion to $17 billion, and is expected to expand to more than $30 billion. No budget figures have been calculated yet for the proposed changes unveiled Monday, said DOE spokesman Geoff Tyree.

The timeline for beginning glassification of low-active wastes remains the same, August 2025. Hanford is currently preparing melters within the first plant, testing them with non-radioactive materials.

In this May 9, 2017, file photo, signs are posted at an entrance to the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Richland, Wash. (AP Photo/Manuel Valdes)

The first low-activity-waste glassification plant is expected to handle only 40% to 50% of the low-activity wastes, depending on who is doing the estimating. That means it is likely another plant will need to be built, unless another solution takes its place. Meanwhile, glassification of high-level wastes is also expected to begin in the next decade, said state ecology department spokesman Ryan Miller.

Adding grouting to the solution list may help

The GAO has been gung-ho about grout. Since 2017, the GAO issued three reports strongly recommending that the DOE look at replacing the second low-activity-waste glassification plant with a plan to grout the roughly 50 percent of low-activity wastes not handled by the first low-activity plant. Grouting is theoretically faster and cheaper than glassification.

Washington officials have always been skeptical about grout, citing its lack of a track record with the types of wastes found in Hanford’s tanks. DOE has been close-mouthed in the past about its preferences.

Monday’s tentative agreement calls for grouting to be used on low-activity wastes found in 22 tanks that also contain high-level wastes. A decision on grouting technology — which will then lead to budgeting and scheduling — is due by the end of this year.

Meanwhile, all 149 single-shell tanks and the majority of the 28 double-shell tanks are way past their design lives. So far, only one double-shell tank has sprung a leak in its inner wall, and thus can no longer be used.

The 2021 GAO report said DOE believes there is a 95% chance that Hanford will run out of space in its 27 remaining double-shell tanks before the next steps happen. If leaks occur in more double-shell tanks, that could delay glassification by several years and create further problems. It would take seven years and $1.5 billion to build four million-gallon double-shell tanks, the GAO reported. Since 2018, the Hanford Advisory Board has been pushing DOE to get started on this contingency plan.

Monday’s announcement calls for Hanford to add 1 million gallons in tank space by 2040. It has not been decided yet whether that will be one big tank or a group of smaller tanks.

There are also calls to revamp some of the piping system that sends waste from the tanks to the glassification plants, and to redesign the approach for processing wastes before they enter the future high-level waste-glassification facility.

Topics: Hanford

Podcast | Meet the clam, the PNW’s most beloved bivalve

Sara Bernard — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 04:57:00 PDT

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Students in UW tent encampment demand divestment from Israel

Scarlet Hansen — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 16:50:57 PDT

Around 25 demonstrators gathered Monday morning on the quad of the University of Washington’s Seattle campus to establish an encampment in solidarity with Gaza, joining a wave of similar efforts on campuses across the nation.

Student organizers from UW’s Progressive Student Union say they are demanding the university cut ties with U.S. weapons manufacturer Boeing, materially divest from Israel and end the repression of pro-Palestinian students, staff and faculty.

The university posted no-camping signs on campus, which protestors changed to read “University of Palestine” and “Camping allowed.” (Genna Martin/Cascade PBS)

“Once we saw encampments starting at Minneapolis, at Emory, and across the nation, we really just realized this is something we have to move on now,” said Mathieu Chabaud, UW second-year student and PSU member. "We’re going to be here until we see a written commitment from the president of this university, Ana Mari Cauce.”

The encampment was originally scheduled to begin April 25, but was delayed after backlash over the group’s lack of consultation with Arab, Muslim and Palestinian student groups. Chabaud said after long discussions with other student groups on campus, PSU decided to establish their encampment.

During 10-minute increments as students passed through the quad between classes, demonstrators chanted “Free free Palestine,” answered questions about the encampment and offered free pizza and snacks donated by community members to students. The encampment had grown to about 40 participants by late afternoon.

Students stand near the encampment established Monday, April 29, 2024, on the University of Washington campus to protest the Israel-Hamas war. (Genna Martin/Cascade PBS)

After Columbia University students established their Gaza solidarity encampment earlier this month, students at dozens of universities across the nation have followed suit. The movement has put university administrators under a microscope as they weigh students’ right to protest against campus safety.

Student encampments have led to thousands of student arrests. Meanwhile, University presidents like Harvard’s Claudine Gay and the University of Pennsylvania’s Liz Magill have resigned following Congressional probes into antisemitism amid growing tension on college campuses.

“We will monitor the situation throughout the day and respond as appropriate to maintain a safe and secure environment for our campus community,” University of Washington spokesperson Victor Balta said in an email.

Students sit inside and outside of a tent at the encampment on the University of Washington campus established on April 29, 2024, to protest the Hamas-Israel war. (Genna Martin/Cascade PBS)

Demonstrators who arrived on campus around 8 a.m. Monday morning said they were met with signs stating “No camping allowed.” The signs have since been marked up by demonstrators to read “University of Palestine” and “Camping allowed.”

Throughout the afternoon, demonstrators chanted “Resistance is justified when people are occupied,” and “UW you can’t hide, you are funding genocide,” calling out the UW’s ties to U.S. weapons manufacturer Boeing, which has supplied thousands of bombs to Israel for the country’s response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.

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Next stop: Sound Transit East Line now links Bellevue to Redmond

Jadenne Radoc Cabahug — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 14:02:00 PDT

Sound Transit’s long-anticipated East Link debuted over the weekend, connecting Bellevue with Redmond via light rail.

The train, which will eventually travel across Lake Washington, has been a long time in the works. The extension project, formally approved by voters in 2008, was expected to cost about $3.68 billion for the line. By next year, Sound Transit expects to connect Bellevue to Seattle – where Link Light Rail opened in 2009.

Passengers take in the view of the Bellevue skyline during an innagural ride on Sound Transit’s 2 Line. (Jason Redmond for Cascade PBS)

The current configuration of what’s called the 2 Line is expected to move about 6,000 riders between Bellevue and Redmond daily on trains with two cars each, according to the agency. That number is expected to rise once the connection to Seattle is completed. Currently, Eastside riders can connect between South Bellevue and Downtown Seattle via bus.

More expansions are coming in the next few years. Light rail connecting Shoreline, Mountlake Terrace and Lynnwood to the existing 1 Line in Seattle is scheduled to open in the fall. Two more Eastside stations – Marymoor Village, next to the popular Marymoor Park, and Downtown Redmond – are anticipated to open next year.

Trains arrive at the Bellevue Downtown Station on opening day of Sound Transit’s 2 Line light-rail service in Bellevue on Saturday. (Jason Redmond for Cascade PBS)

The original plan for East Link was for a mid-2023 opening, but construction delays pushed the opening date back one year. Then, plans to open this year all the way from Seattle to Redmond over the Interstate 90 bridge were derailed when the agency announced last year that the rail line’s I-90 supports had to be redone due to faulty concrete. That connection, which will include stations at Judkins Park and Mercer Island, is expected to open in 2025 at the same time as the Redmond stations.

King County Councilmember and Sound Transit board member Claudia Balducci said the agency opted to get use out of the completed stations, and perhaps give people who had never taken light rail the chance to experience it.

“Option 1 was to mothball the stations and pay for security for a year. Option 2 was to open it to the public and get some use out of it,” said Balducci, who pushed for the East Link partial opening.

Sound Transit Interim CEO Goran Sparrman speaks at the opening of Sound Transit’s 2 Line light-rail service. (Jason Redmond for Cascade PBS)

The crowd listens to speakers at the opening of Sound Transit’s 2 Line light-rail service. (Jason Redmond for Cascade PBS)

King County Executive Dow Constantine, second from right, and U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell applaud remarks at the opening of Sound Transit’s 2 Line. (Jason Redmond for Cascade PBS)

From left, former Sound Transit CEO Joni Earl (seated); Bellevue Mayor Lynne Robinson; U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell; Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith; U.S. Sen. Patty Murray; King County Executive Dow Constantine; King County Councilmember Claudia Balducci (holding scissors); Gov. Jay Inslee; Redmond Mayor Angela Birney; and Lynnwood Mayor Christine Frizzell at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the opening of Sound Transit’s 2 Line light-rail service. (Jason Redmond for Cascade PBS)

Balducci also pointed out that the 1 Line between Tukwila and Seattle originally opened only between Tukwila International Boulevard and Westlake Station, with extensions to the south and north following in the decade afterward.

Balducci, who has been working on the East Link extension since she was a Bellevue City Councilmember in the late 2000s, said she was delighted to see the trains start moving.

“I’ve been working on this for almost two decades. All this work is finally turning into service,” she told Cascade PBS a few days before the official opening of the line.

Redmond Mayor Angela Birney said ever since the locations of the stations were identified, the city has approved multifamily housing and other amenities nearby to capitalize on the transit option.

“We put a lot of housing right around our stations and many of those families … would rather not use their cars. That’s intentionally that they moved to those areas. So I’m really excited for them to actually be able to get on the train and leave their cars behind,” Birney said.

The city also added two bike/pedestrian bridges for the Redmond stations.

“And so we’re really making another option for people to ride, bike, get on the train and get through the Eastside,” Birney said.

Passengers exit as others wait to board Sound Transit’s 2 Line. (Jason Redmond for Cascade PBS)

Hundreds of people attended the ribbon-cutting Saturday at the Downtown Bellevue station, despite the gray skies and cold rain, although many more boarded at other stations just to ride the rails. Royal-blue balloons and booths lined the station adjacent to the Bellevue Transit Center on Northeast Sixth Street near Meydenbauer Center, with local booths lined up as well as food trucks from local businesses.

Redmond resident Gary Fujioka boarded the train with his electric bike at the Redmond Technology Station on opening day and rode it south to celebrate.

“It’s busier than I thought it would be, but that’s a good thing. I’m surprised by the turnout; I hope all these people return and use it regularly,” Fujioka said. “Everybody should be open-minded to our public transportation in the region and I invite them to come out and try it, it’s much nicer than you think it is.”

Sound Transit says the trip between Redmond Technology Center near Microsoft and Bellevue Downtown should take about 10 minutes. The trains come by each station every 10 minutes seven days a week, from 5:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.

Passengers take in the view from above State Route 520. (Jason Redmond for Cascade PBS)

On Saturday public officials from Bellevue, Redmond and King County were in attendance alongside Gov. Jay Inslee and both U.S. Senators Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray. Representatives from Microsoft and Amazon, which have built up their workforces on the Eastside over the past decades, also attended.

Attendees of all ages – from small children wearing Thomas the Tank Engine train conductor hats to groups of the elderly – came to the Bellevue downtown station to celebrate. Many took photos and videos to commemorate the opening of the line that took two decades to complete. Although it’s not yet connected to other regions around Puget Sound, people traveled from Mercer Island or Seattle and even as far as Vancouver, B.C., to experience the moment.

People crowded each station entrance to watch the ribbon-cutting and cheered all the way down the tracks as two trains pulled in. Riders were excited as they filled cars, many with no specific destination in mind.

Most riders were taking the train to enjoy the journey, or to stop at each station and look at the artwork, only to hop on the next train and repeat the process across the eight stations.

People explore the Redmond Technology Station. (Jason Redmond for Cascade PBS)

Jenny Pai and her family drove down from Bothell for the event. Her family wanted to take the line for an adventure. Pai said that if more lines open, she’d be open to taking the train to work.

Like Pai, retiree Sand Stron from Mercer Island came for the opening day just to travel south to north and vice versa to his parking spot in the South Bellevue parking garage.

“I think this is an important thing for our region and we’re looking forward to it coming from Mercer Island. We’ll probably use the transit a lot.”

University of Washington student Yoshi Takano came with a group of 25 from the university chapter of the Institute of Transportation Engineers, a group passionate about improving transportation in the state. Takano said attendees from the University of Oregon also came for the opening day. The groups were going up and down the line, stopping at each station to explore.

“There’s been construction delays and I think that’s frustrating, but I’m glad they were able to open this segment. I think they wanted to be able to show voters that their tax dollars are going to something that’s positive and show the benefits of the light rail,” Takano said.

He hopes that people will continue to use it regularly, but worries that they’ll still opt to drive instead due to the abundance of parking in Bellevue.

“But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a failure, it’s a product of past policies and it’ll require additional new development and as they finish the line to Seattle; I think ridership can increase,” Takano said.

Topics: news, Transportation

The Nosh: Meet the dogs trained to sniff out Washington truffles

Rachel Belle — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 05:00:30 PDT

Topics: Multimedia, Video, Food, Seattle, local business, animals, Environment, Trees

Whatcom County official refuses calls to resign, welcomes inquiry

Isaac Stone Simonelli — Fri, 26 Apr 2024 14:00:00 PDT

Whatcom County Executive Satpal Sidhu is refusing to resign following a demand from the Whatcom Democrats’ board that he step down for his handling of sexual harassment allegations against a former Public Works director.

Sidhu said he welcomed a formal inquiry into the facts of the situation, including the county’s actions in addressing misconduct complaints against former Public Works director Jon Hutchings, an associated $225,000 settlement to a female employee and writing a glowing letter of introduction for Hutchings, who moved to a similar role for the City of Lynden.

The latest public comments cap a week of revelations, political fallout and rebuttal stemming from the county misconduct scandal, first revealed by a Cascade PBS investigation on April 19.

On Tuesday, several County Council members confirmed to Cascadia Daily News that they were left in the dark about Sidhu’s handling of the allegations and the settlement, raising questions of accountability and oversight. Only county human resources and legal teams were involved in decisions, Sidhu confirmed.

“The Executive never informed Council about the matter, never scheduled an executive session to discuss it as a personnel matter, and never informed us about the fund the settlement was paid out of,” Council Member Todd Donovan told CDN.

Late Wednesday, Whatcom Democrats’ Executive Board called for Sidhu’s resignation, stating in an open letter that his actions were “indefensible” and “betray basic shared values.” The county executive position is nonpartisan, but Whatcom Democrats had previously endorsed Sidhu in his 2023 campaign for re-election.

“We invite Democratic elected officials to weigh conscience and basic values against party loyalty and political expediency and join us in calling for a resignation,” the Democrats’ letter stated. “Apart from a courageous minority, the other party refuses to hold its own elected officials accountable.”

On Thursday, Sidhu stated that he would not step down and the Democrats’ letter included numerous factual errors.

“I welcome calls for more clarity and transparency around this situation, and if the County Council wants to conduct an inquiry, bring more light to the situation and assess the facts, I will fully support that,” Sidhu said in a prepared statement.

“However, I have no intention of resigning in response to the Whatcom Democrats’ Executive Board’s letter, which is based on incomplete information and misrepresentation of the facts.”

Council members were blindsided

Sidhu, in the letter to council members Tuesday, confirmed that he did not bring the issue before the council, but instead worked alongside the county’s human resources and legal teams to ensure county policies and procedures were followed.

“We acknowledge that Council did not participate nor make decisions on the outcome of the situation outlined in the recent article. The Executive, through HR, Legal, and staff is in charge of making personnel decisions and ensuring policies are followed. We take this responsibility very seriously and I want to assure you that the unique facts of the situation and timing of decisions played a role in how it was ultimately handled. Always with the goal of supporting staff and the county as a whole,” Sidhu stated in the letter.

Instead, the county helped Hutchings secure a new position with a glowing “letter of introduction” to the City of Lynden, where Hutchings now works as the public works director.

Hutchings was confirmed by the Lynden City Council as public works director in May 2023. On Tuesday, Lynden City Administrator John Williams said the city was not aware of any allegations against Hutchings until it was first reported by Cascade PBS.

“The City hired Mr. Hutchings in June 2023, following a thorough hiring and background check process. This process included background checks conducted by both internal and external agencies. No indications of any misconduct allegations against Mr. Hutchings were found in any of the background checks.

“Since then, the City has learned that an investigation and review was recently concluded by the County, which found that Mr. Hutchings did not violate County policies against sexual harassment,” he said.

The county’s outside investigation was never finalized, and “absent a response” from Hutchings, the county declined to issue any findings, according to a letter sent by the county to Hutchings on Feb. 20, 2024 and obtained by CDN.

In his prepared letter to the council Tuesday, Sidhu stood by the content of the Hutchings’ letter of introduction, which he called a “difficult” decision.

“Ultimately, we do not believe that a person is solely defined by their mistakes, and Mr. Hutchings had faced the very real consequence of losing his job,” Sidhu stated. “We understand that not everyone will agree with our decision.”

The November settlement, paid with money in the county’s Tort Fund, was authorized by the prosecuting attorney’s office, the county confirmed. The county manages liabilities with other counties through the Washington Counties Risk Pool, and the settlement was within Whatcom’s $250,000 deductible.

Jed Holmes, the Executive’s spokesperson, noted that the executive is not involved in negotiations or approving settlements and does not have authority to pay out of the county’s Tort Fund.

Speaking with CDN on Wednesday, Donovan said that he was unsure of when or if such consultation for is required or discretionary, particularly with personnel matters that are not litigation.

“That’s a question for the attorneys,” he said.

Donovan raised the issue of the executive’s handling of the actions before and after Hutchings’ departure at the council’s meeting on Tuesday, April 23.

“What I’m seeing in the email that Satpal sent to us is not consistent with what we’ve been hearing from our attorney, who was the attorney on the settlement, which raises some awkward questions,” Donovan said.

He said that there might be a need to consider some things in the county’s charter with regards to where the council is liable for human-resource issues.

“There was a failure here and I think we are in the dark about how this happened,” he said.

A ‘Name Clearing Hearing’

Tuesday’s letter from Sidhu detailed the county’s actions after the executive office learned of the allegations.

He said when the office was made aware of the complaints, “we took swift action.” Hutchings was placed on administrative leave on Oct. 18, 2022 and an independent investigator was retained by the county. Once the investigation was completed, the county adjudicated the complaint.

After receiving multiple public record requests in 2023 targeting material related to the allegations, the county invited Hutchings to participate in a “Name Clearing Hearing.”

Hutchings’ comments in the hearing on Jan. 31 were later described in an email from the county to him as “impactful,” “meaningful” and “emotional.”

“You told us in detail about many issues you were contending with in your personal life throughout all times relevant to the allegations,” the email states. “If the County would have been aware of those circumstances in your personal life, when they were occurring, the County would have provided you typical employee support in the form of professional employee assistance services and options for a leave of absence.”

Hutchings comments were found to be “mitigating,” though not entirely so. Based on the evidence presented, the county determined that he was in “some degree” of violation of its code of conduct. However, the email stated that there was not sufficient evidence to rise to the level of harassment.

“We now consider the complaints levied against you to be resolved,” the county stated in the email.

Refusal to resign

Whatcom Democrats’ Executive Board demanded that Sidhu step down for his handling of the sexual harassment allegations against Hutchings.

The open letter issued Wednesday also stated hundreds of public employees have had to work in an environment that “fails to protect them from harassment because administrators — both appointed and elected — place their relationships with each other ahead of their duty to employees and the public.”

Holmes said Whatcom Democrats Executive Board’s statement inaccurately reflects the information shared by the executive in his letter to the council.

“Executive Sidhu is disappointed that the Executive Board of the Whatcom Democrats adopted a statement with factual errors,” Holmes said. “Situations such as these are always nuanced and with many layers of complexity, and political rhetoric does not help bring clarity.”

The letter by the Democrats states that the executive’s actions “undermine trust in his ability to ensure the level of change needed to prevent this from happening in the future.”

It goes on to accuse the executive and his team of covering up the conduct that led to Hutchings’ departure and continued to do so by providing him with the letter of recommendation.

“We find these actions indefensible,” the letter from Whatcom Democrats stated. “The executive — who signed the key documents — was an active participant in covering up sexual harassment of employees.”

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Topics: Labor

Washington’s gray wolf populations are making a strong comeback

Laurel Demkovich — Fri, 26 Apr 2024 05:00:17 PDT

Washington’s wolf population increased by 20% last year, the 15th year in a row that the number of endangered gray wolves in the state has grown, according to new state figures.

As of the end of 2023, Washington had 260 wolves in 42 packs. That’s up from 216 wolves in 37 packs the previous year.

“Recovery is happening right before our eyes,” said Ben Maletzke, statewide wolf specialist at the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Maletzke presented the state’s annual wolf report during a Fish and Wildlife Commission meeting on Saturday. The results are likely an undercount because of the difficulty identifying every animal in the state, especially lone wolves without a pack.

The 2023 increase follows steady upward trends since the first Department of Fish and Wildlife survey in 2008. The gray wolf population has grown by an average of 23% every year since then, according to the agency.

The increase has led the agency to consider lowering gray wolves’ protection status from “endangered” to “sensitive” under state law. Environmentalists say the move is premature.

Even if the state makes the policy change, wolves would still be protected in the western two-thirds of Washington under the federal Endangered Species Act.

The Fish and Wildlife Commission is expected to decide on the reclassification in July.

The decision would be another step in the long-controversial management of wolves in Washington since the first breeding pack was confirmed in 2008. Environmentalists say the state is not doing enough to protect the endangered animals, while ranchers say the state is not doing enough to protect their livestock, which wolves can injure or kill.

“The department says reducing wolf protections would show it’s making progress towards recovery, but this report tells a different story,” Amaroq Weiss, a senior wolf advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement.

The annual report shows a continued lack of wolves in Western Washington and fewer breeding pairs than in previous years, she added. Last year, 25 of the state’s wolf packs were considered successful breeding pairs, down one pair from 2022.

Wolf populations have steadily increased in Eastern Washington and the northern Cascades. But Weiss said the state should not consider downlisting wolves until they’ve established territories in other parts of the state where they historically roamed, including from the southern Cascades to the northwest corner of the Olympic Peninsula.

Maletzke said there were signs of wolves gaining more of a foothold in Western Washington last year. One known wolf spent significant time there, likely looking for a mate, and more wolves began to move south of Interstate 90.

“This likely means it is only a matter of time before new packs begin to establish in that recovery region,” Fish and Wildlife Director Kelly Susewind said in a statement.

‘Promising’ wolf/livestock conflict data

Three dozen wolves died across the state in 2023, one fewer than the previous year, according to the report.

Most of those deaths were from legal tribal hunting. Vehicles hit and killed five wolves, a cougar killed one. Another four were killed illegally, and those deaths are still under investigation.

The number of wolves killed following livestock conflicts – one of the most controversial pieces of wolf management – was also down in 2023. In 2022, nine wolves were killed by either the state or ranchers following a conflict with livestock.

According to the 2023 report, only three wolves were killed because of livestock conflicts, two by the state and one by a livestock owner.

Nine of the 42 known wolf packs, about 21%, were involved in at least one confirmed or probable conflict with livestock last year.

“The majority of the packs out there aren’t involved in conflicts even though they overlap with livestock,” Maletzke said. “That’s promising.”

But, he added, that doesn’t come without a cost.

The state estimates it spent more than $1.6 million last year on wolf management. More than $1.3 million of that went to research. The rest pays for lost livestock, lethal removal of wolves, and efforts to prevent wolf/livestock conflicts.

These efforts have kept the number of conflicts with livestock low compared to the population growth over time, Maletzke said.

Washington State Standard originally published this article on April 22, 2024.

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Mossback’s Northwest: Keep Clam and Carry On

Knute Berger — Fri, 26 Apr 2024 05:00:00 PDT

According to the Haida First Nations people of the northern British Columbian coast, the origins of humanity began on a beach. Raven found a large clam shell and noticed some creatures protruding from it and squirming inside. He coaxed the reluctant creatures to come out and join the rest of the world. They were the first men.

It seems apt that a clam shell would be part of an origin story in the coastal Pacific Northwest. Thousands of years of shell middens — old refuse deposits — are testament to shellfish’s role in sustaining people here. The variety and abundance of clam shells show they were a crucial source of food, proof of the old adage “When the tide is out, the table is set.” Let’s hear it for the quiet, unsung — well, barely sung — bivalve, the clam.

The receding of the glaciers left behind a pleasant homeland for shellfish. Clams were accessible on sandy beaches. On Haida Gwaii, the Haida’s island homeland, people were living sustainably on game and shellfish as early as nearly 11,000 years ago, not long after the ice retreated and Raven coaxed humanity into the daylight. Indigenous people throughout the Northwest coast dug for clams, carrying special clam baskets and using digger sticks to chase them down. Many middens were the result of processing large numbers of clams, which were often smoked and dried for later consumption or trade. Dried and smoked clams made their way over the mountains. People far from the sea could still enjoy some briny goodness.

The cultivation of clam beds by Indigenous people is one phenomenon that is being revived. Many Native peoples made “clam gardens.” Some argue the term is a misnomer because the gardens involved a variety of techniques and serious heavy lifting. Shorelines were re-engineered to expand sandy beaches. Rocks were removed to increase clam habitat. Walls and revetments were erected to improve cultivation. Aquaculture here is thousands of years old.

Nuu-chah-nulth (formerly “Nootka”) women with baskets for hunting clams. (Northwestern University)

Another, more local, origin story involving clams relates to the beginnings of modern Seattle. The Denny Party, Euro-American settlers credited with starting the city, landed at Alki Point on a chilly, wet November day in 1851. They marked a new wave of settlers on Puget Sound. Among the party was a baby, Rolland Denny, just two months old. His mother, Mary Ann, was sick and couldn’t produce milk, so Duwamish women taught her to nurture tiny Rolland on clam broth until she could. It worked. He lived to be a ripe 87 years old, the last survivor of the original Denny party.

Members of the original Denny Party in 1905. On the right, in the derby, is Rolland Denny. (Wikimedia)

Restaurateur Ivar Haglund capitalized on clams and kept the virtues of clam broth — or clam nectar — on menus with a winking suggestion that it might be an aphrodisiac. But he also promoted an old frontier song that said that the abundance of clams was the essence of the good life in Puget Sound country — especially for those not prosperous in farming, prospecting or any other frontier endeavor.

Haglund sang folk songs on the radio, and one of these was called “The Old Settler.” It was written by an Olympia lawyer, Francis Henry, and published in 1877. It ends like this:

“No longer the slave of ambition,

I laugh at the world and its shams

As I think of my pleasant condition,

Surrounded by acres of clams —

Surrounded by acres of cla-a-ams,

Surrounded by acres of clams,

A poor boy will never go hungry,

Surrounded by acres of clams!”

In other words, one could be as happy as a clam here. There are a number of different versions of the song, and the original had some objectionable lyrics. Haglund named his waterfront restaurant “Acres of Clams,” though he hardly gave up on ambition as an entrepreneur.

Ivar Haglund surrounded by acres of clams. (Ivars Restaurants)

The Olympia connection is interesting in a couple of ways. One is that in the 1860s, when the Washington Territory stretched as far east as Idaho, western Montana and a bit of Wyoming, political observers in the eastern parts felt a division of power between east and west. Today, people might complain about the Cascade east/west divide, but back in the day they grumbled about the politicos throwing their weight around in “clam country,” their epithet for Olympia-dominated politics.

And my college alma mater is The Evergreen State College in Olympia, whose founders named the geoduck as school mascot and the school motto is Omnia extares — translated as “Let it all hang out.” Which all made sense for what was launched as an alternative school in the 1960s.

No clam is more identifiable or as great a conversation piece than the geoduck, a Lushootseed word that relates to the clam’s prodigious digging abilities (it can go deep) and because of an appendage that cannot fit into its shell and can extend up to three feet. It is not a reproductive organ, by the way, but rather the clam’s “neck” through which it breaths and siphons sand and water. The geoduck is considered a delicacy and is used in sushi among other things.

And then there is chowder. In the Northwest, the popular version that caught on was creamy New England-style chowder — back in the day the region was not known for tomatoes, the basis of Manhattan-style clam chowder. Food historian Jacqueline Williams says by the 1880s New England-style chowder recipes began appearing in the first local cookbooks. Territorial cooks could reliably come by more ingredients, like flour, thanks to shipments from back East, and it’s a damp-weather, gut-warming tonic.

Men at a clambake in Fairfax, Wash., in the 1910s. (Washington State Historical Society)

Happy as a clam, quiet as a clam, “Keep Clam and Carry On.” Clams are the symbol of steady, contented existence. They’ve been feeding us for thousands of years — long after they attended our birth on a beach.

Topics: History, Mossback, Mossback's Northwest, Multimedia, Video

ArtSEA: All aboard for art at Sound Transit’s new East Link

Brangien Davis — Thu, 25 Apr 2024 17:55:34 PDT

When Sound Transit unveils the newest link in the light-rail system this weekend (April 27, 11 a.m. - 4 p.m.), the Eastside station celebrations will include live music, food trucks, a “Baby Sasquatch on the loose” and a communal mural painting — in addition to a new way to get from Redmond to Bellevue and back.

And thanks to the STart Program (which designates 1% of construction budgets for art), riders will also discover a new crop of public art installations along this 6.6-mile, eight-station segment. Some of these works have been waiting a while for their big debut. Due to various construction delays, several of the art installations have proved faster to complete than the rail itself.

In early 2023, I wrote about two artworks (a Jimi Hendrix mural by Hank Willis Thomas and cut-metal nature scenes by Barbara Earl Thomas) already in place at the Judkins Park Station — a crucial point in the Lake Washington crossing, delayed and now slated to open in 2025. When I drive by the empty station entrance these days, I feel like Jimi’s eyes have glazed over with the wait.

But the artworks along the new East Link are officially open and, if legend holds true, should be easier to spot than a baby Sasquatch. You may have already seen “Verdant” by Seattle artist Leo Saul Berk, which opened earlier this year. The installation of hand-painted louvers douses the Overlake Village Pedestrian Bridge in a bright-green forest path — images that shift and gather as you move through it.

“Verdant,” by Seattle artist Leo Saul Berk, at the Overlook Village station. (Sound Transit)

At the South Bellevue station, look for local artist Katy Stone’s “Slough Wave” spanning the facade of the parking garage. Inspired by the Mercer Slough, these abstract patterns evoke grasses swishing and light dappling through leaves. The play of light is a key element in several of the installations (a subconscious nod to light rail?). At the Bellevue Downtown stop, longtime local glass artist Paul Marioni created “woven” etched glass panels through which sunlight filters, as well as a splattered glass homage to our weather in “Light Rain.” See also “Moving,” his sparkling mosaic of reflective tiles. You’ll find more light reflected in Phillip K. Smith’s “Four Corners Extruded.” The Coachella Valley artist is known for placing reflective and LED-lit boxes in unexpected locations — in this case, it’s a 40-foot-tall, mirrored, x-shaped pole at the Wilburton station. The piece will change according to shifts in the weather, the traffic and the seasons, and take on different color patterns at night.

“Four Corners Extruded,” a reflective light installation by Phillip K. Smith, stands in front of the Wilburton station. (Kurt Kiefer)

Eighth Generation founder Louie Gong celebrates mixed heritage (he is Nooksack and Chinese) with his “Dragon and Phoenix” cut-metal murals at the Spring District stop. A blend of Coast Salish and Chinese art traditions, these curving creatures of legend are joined by one that’s only slightly more domesticated: a housecat. And at the Redmond Technology station (the end of the line, until Downtown Redmond opens in 2025), look for “Move Your Boulder,” a hefty rock piece by Seattle wood sculptor Dan Webb. Crosscut profiled Webb and this endeavor — his first foray into stone carving — when he was finishing it back in February 2020. On each of the three boulders (two weighing in at 12 tons and one a mere three tons) is carved a giant hand, suggesting the daily struggles each of us contends with — and, given the context, perhaps those faced by a massive transit project too.

L-R: Terrance Hayes, Gabrielle Zevin and Octavia Butler. (Seattle Arts and Lectures; Seattle Public Library)

If you aren’t riding the new light rail back and forth on Saturday, consider creating your own transit route to a few favorite bookstores. Seattle Independent Bookstore Day (April 27) returns for its 10th anniversary with 28 participating Puget Sound bookstores, from Edmonds to Burien, Poulsbo to Redmond. Getting your event “passport” stamped at all 28 by May 6 earns you discounts and major book-nerd bragging rights. It’s a great reason to support local book shops — in our UNESCO City of Literature — which have survived against all kinds of odds.

Most participating stores have treats planned for the occasion, from literary tote bags and fancy pencils at Paper Boat Booksellers in West Seattle to a special showing of first-edition Ernest Hemingway novels (previously owned by his first wife Hadley Richardson) displayed beneath the beautifully arched ceiling at Arundel Books in Pioneer Square.

While we have books on the brain, consider a few upcoming literary events of note: Tonight! Novelist Gabrielle Zevin will speak as part of Seattle Arts and Lectures (April 25, 7:30 p.m. at Town Hall Seattle; live streaming tickets also available). I never thought I’d be emotionally invested in a novel about video-game creators, but boy was I wrong. Her 2022 book Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow totally hooked me with its evocative exploration of different ways and motivations for artmaking. Also coming up at Seattle Arts and Lectures is Terrance Hayes. If you’ve heard this stellar poet read his work aloud before, you know: This appearance is not to be missed (Rainier Arts Center, May 2 at 7:30 p.m.; live streaming tickets also available). His latest collection So to Speak reflects his signature mix of pop-culture references (from Bob Ross to Lil Wayne), allegory, strict poetic forms and historical truth telling.

Finally: This year’s “Seattle Reads” selection is Octavia Butler’s uncannily prescient novel Parable of the Sower (published in 1993 and partially set in 2024). Within this dystopian tale, the “grand dame of science fiction” and MacArthur genius predicted many current social issues regarding climate change, civil unrest, distrust of police and space travel. The book marks the first time Seattle Reads has selected a work of science fiction for the city to read “together,” and only the second time a local author has been chosen. (Butler spent her final seven years living in Lake Forest Park.) Seattle Public Library has lots of related events planned, leading up to what would’ve been Butler’s 77th birthday on June 22. That includes the launch party and panel discussion of the book (Downtown Library, May 1 at 6 p.m.; free registration required).

Speaking of Black arts legacies... Have you signed up for the Black Arts Legacies newsletter yet? Season 3 is in full swing, with our first artist profile — Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence — launched earlier this week. Discover a new artist “reveal” each week through June via the newsletter and on BlackArtsLegacies.com.

Topics: Arts, ArtSEA, Features, Things to do