Courts, Police, public disclosure

SPD’s Obstructive “Grouping” Policy “Violates the Public Records Act,” Judge Rules

By Erica C. Barnett

King County Superior Court Judge Sandra Widian ruled on Monday that the Seattle Police Department routinely “violates the PRA”—the state Public Records Act—by refusing to work on more than one public disclosure request by the same requester at a time.

The ruling was a partial win by the Seattle Times, which sued SPD after the department slow-walked reporter Mike Carter’s requests by Times by choosing to respond to a single request while providing end-of-year “placeholder” dates the other six. As they have done with all but one of PubliCola’s outstanding records requests, SPD bumped this generic December 31 date forward a year at the end of each year without doing any work on any of the “inactive” requests or providing an actual date when records would be available.

In 2023, SPD signed a pre-litigation agreement with the Times in which they committed to stop grouping multiple requests that were more than eight weeks apart. Although the agreement applied broadly to all requesters, SPD later told PubliCola that it only applied to the Times, and decided it applied to as few as two requests made by any requester, including the Seattle Times, over any period of time—so that, for example, a person who filed two requests over two years could have their second request placed in inactive status indefinitely with no actual estimate date for disclosure, which is required by law.

At a hearing at the Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent last Friday, SPD’s outside attorney, Jessica Goldman, argued that SPD is “inherently different” than an agency at a smaller city, because they get thousands of requests; for that reason, “we’re not going to make requesters happy sometimes. And I want to say on behalf of the Seattle Police Department that every single one of them wishes they could they had more resources and could provide responsive records the day they’re requested. Who doesn’t? This is not an issue of trying to hide the ball.”

By making five records requests in one day, Goldman added, Carter was “gaming the system”—asking for too many things at once to cause “excessive interference with [the] agency’s functions” and make it harder for them to respond to other requesters. As we’ve reported, SPD’s media relations office frequently directs reporters to file records requests for extremely basic information, such as a full police report or a person’s Outlook schedule, the subject of one of Carter’s long-delayed requests.

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The Times’ attorney, Kathy George, countered that SPD can’t simply complain that it has too many records requests. “And this notion that somehow, if you actually process every request when it comes in, that’s harmful, that’s backwards. It’s not harmful to actually fulfill your duties under the PRA—it’s exactly what the PRA requires.”

One fact that came out in discovery is that SPD’s public records office does treat media requests differently than other requests, by assigning them to “analysts” with lower records production requirements, rather than the “assistants” to whom non-media records requests are assigned. This raises the possibility that media requests get answers more slowly because they’re assigned to people who move through records requests at half the pace of lower-level public records employees, an especially troubling possibility if public records officers are also giving preferential treatment to “friendly” media, as the Times’ lawsuit alleges.

Judge Widian wrote that SPD’s defense of its “grouping” policy—that “because the requests are all grouped together …  providing installment updates as to one request fulfills SPD’s obligation to provide reasonable installment estimates as to all the other requests it has declared ‘inactive’—is a novel argument that has not been endorsed by the PRA or caselaw.” In other words, SPD can’t just pick one request to work on, ignore all the others, and fail to give real estimates of when the others will be fulfilled.

But the judge declined to overturn the 2017 administrative rule, adopted at the behest of then-mayor Ed Murray, that allows grouping in the first place, saying that was something the city would have to determine on its own.

Nor did she determine SPD showed preferential treatment to KOMO, a TV station owned by the conservative Sinclair network, when it quickly provided a KOMO reporter with travel records for former police chief Adrian Diaz and his chief of staff Jamie Tompkins within a month after failing to provide the same records to Carter for nearly two years. Whether SPD showed favoritism to KOMO and deliberately ignored the Times, and when SPD must change its public records practices, is still on the table.

PubliCola was unable to find the original hearing or rationale for the administrative rule that allowed city agencies to “group” multiple records in the first place, but the language of the rule itself makes clear that it was intended to address bots, DDoS attacks, malware, and malicious “extraordinary requests,” none of which apply to the media requests SPD has been de facto denying.

Mayor Katie Wilson has the unilateral authority to repeal the “grouping” rule through an administrative rulemaking process that requires a public hearing but no legislation.

Mental Health, Police

Two Years In, CARE Chief Amy Barden Says Her Crisis Response Team Still Faces Roadblocks

By Erica C. Barnett

On Seattle Nice this week, our guest is Amy Barden, director of the city’s Community Assisted Response and Engagement (CARE) department.

Barden has been on the job for just over two years, running the city’s 911 operations while also setting up an unarmed team of social workers who respond to emergency calls that don’t require police—the CARE Team.

The CARE Team is expanding to 48 members this year, and their size will no longer be capped under the city’s contract with the Seattle Police Officers’ Guild (SPOG), which has historically resisted reducing the duties that legally have to be performed by police, like directing traffic and responding to 911 calls.

Barden has not had a single one-on-one meeting with Police Chief Shon Barnes since former mayor Bruce Harrell appointed him as police chief in late 2024, PubliCola separately confirmed.

Barnes, who frequently speaks at length to friendly TV and radio outlets, told two KIRO hosts shortly before last year’s election that SPD officers typically don’t seek assistance from CARE on crisis calls because they are “problem solvers” who resolve most crises on their own.

“It doesn’t make sense to get to a call and then realize, well, this is something for the CARE Team. When you’re already there, you just counsel [the person in crisis, you solve the problem, then you move on to something else,” Barnes said. “So it’s not that the officers don’t like it, it’s that if they’re assigned to a call, when they go there, they’re going to do what we pay them to do—to solve that problem.”

Barden said officers frequently that people in crisis tell them that they don’t want services. “My colleagues in CARE are, like, yeah, they don’t want services from you. … Why would [they] say yes to an officer? And again, that’s not the same skill set. No matter how cross-trained they are, they can’t have the same conversation that these [Mental Health Professionals] can hav. And our understanding of the resources and the system is totally different. So that’s something we really need to work on.”

But the contract also includes new constraints on CARE that limit where the team is allowed to go and when they have to back off and call police. CARE can’t help people if there are signs that they’ve recently used drugs, for instance, and they aren’t allowed to go inside most buildings or respond to people inside cars.

CARE had no direct say on the contract, which allowed SPOG to determine their working conditions, but Barden said that she was periodically asked questions about issues that impacted the team.

“One question I got, very specifically, was, ‘Would you feel comfortable if CARE can’t go into private space,'” such as permanent supportive housing, Barden said.  “I said, ‘Categorically, no—that would render them virtually useless.'” But that restriction ended up in the contract anyway.

Police sergeants are also still responsible for deciding whether to send cops or CARE during individual 911 calls, putting the team at the mercy of the cops they are supposed to be freeing up so they can respond to other duties.

Barden said that she expected police to direct more calls to CARE after city labor negotiators approved the contract, which also boosted cops’ starting salaries to $126,000 after a six-month training period. Instead, “I’m really disappointed that it’s actually gotten worse since the contract, and I don’t understand that,” Barden said.

“I had a theory that it’s like, ‘Oh, we’re just in weird negotiation land, and everything’s going to go back” to normal, Barden continued. But the sergeants who decide whether to dispatch CARE are increasingly sending out community service officers (CSOs)—civilian SPD employees without formal training in mental health care or social work—to calls that Barden says should go to CARE.

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“If you look at the data, you can see more and more and more police are routing to CSOs rather than routing to CARE the way that they were in the first year,” Barden said. “The CSO calls go up, and the CARE calls go down. … . I value that team. … [But] that is not a first responder team that is trained to go to clinical calls. It’s not. And so there’s some natural conflict and tension there.”

Barden also told us she supports integrating CARE and the Downtown Emergency Service Center’s Mobile Rapid Crisis Response Teams with 988, which connects callers in crisis to trained mental health crisis responders, rather than the police-oriented 911 system. We also talked about how CARE has evolved in its first 27 months, what happens when people call 911 for a person in crisis, and Barden’s hopes for the team under new mayor Katie Wilson and a more progressive City Council.

legislature, Taxes

“Millionaire’s Tax” Will Be Offset by Cuts to Sales and Business Taxes, Could Be Out Next Week

By Erica C. Barnett

State house and senate leaders say their proposal to pass an income tax in Washington state will be paired with reductions to business taxes the legislature just passed last year, but that the bill will not be “revenue neutral,” as some progressive advocates had feared. That means the new “millionaires’ tax” will help pay for things like public education and health care, rather than being used entirely to offset reductions in other taxes, such as the business and occupation tax.

“More than half has to be additive,” House Majority Leader Joe Fitzgibbon said. “We’ve talked about ranges between 50 and 75 percent [new revenues.” I don’t know where within that range we’re going to ultimately land, but we wouldn’t do this if we weren’t getting a significant revenue boost” of between $3 billion and $4 billion a year.

Senate Majority Leader Jamie Pedersen said he anticipated that the proposal will include tax cuts that will offset between 25 and 40 percent of the revenues from the new income tax.

“Representative Fitzgibbon and the governor and I are arm-wrestling over what the tax reduction will be,” Pedersen said.

The underlying income tax proposal, a 9.9 percent tax on income (including capital gains) of more than $1 million in any calendar year, has the tentative support of Gov. Bob Ferguson, who wants to use the tax to fund the Working Families Tax Credit—an annual tax refund for low- to moderate-income families. In the short term, Ferguson has also proposed tapping funds from the Climate Commitment Act, Washington’s pollution tax, to fund the tax credit, which currently comes out of the state’s general fund.

Fitzgibbon said the cuts to other taxes will probably include cuts to the business and occupation tax increases and surcharge on large businesses that just passed last year. The surcharge—an extra 0.5 percent tax on revenue over $250 million—is supposed to raise about $550 million a year once the state starts collecting it in 2027. ”

“Obviously, there’s some businesses that have plenty of ability to pay [the surcharge], but there are some businesses, like hospitals or food wholesalers, where that increased tax liability makes its way back to people,” Fitzgibbon said. “The B&O surcharge is currently scheduled to run though 2030. The question is, could you sunset it earlier if you had the income tax?”

Pedersen said Gov. Ferguson “has asked for pretty dramatic expansion of the small business credit,” a tax exemption for small businesses that bring in less than $100,000 a year. Ferguson initially predicated his support for the millionaire’s tax on expanding the credit to businesses making up to $1 million a year. “That, as it turns out, is wildly expensive and probably not doable, but we could bump it to to $250,000 or $300,000— that’s a possibility,” Pedersen said.

Ferguson’s office did not respond to a request for an interview.

The income tax bill will also likely include a proposal to eliminate state sales taxes on some personal care and hygiene items, such as diapers and shampoo (“everybody uses shampoo!” said Pedersen, a man with a full head of hair) and prepared foods.

If the legislation passes, it will face at least two further hurdles. First, right-wing initiative funder Brian Heywood has already indicated he plans to file a measure to repeal the tax. If businesses end up opposing the tax and funding an initiative to repeal it, that could help Heywood fund a real campaign—one that’s more successful than his previous anti-tax efforts.

Fitzgibbon said he’s “pretty confident we can withstand a ballot challenge … especially if voters are seeing investments in things like education and health care.”

Pedersen said he’s seen polling that suggests people are less concerned about getting relief on specific taxes, like the state sales tax, than they are about the need to fund critical services and make the tax system more fair at a time when the federal government is subjecting blue states to ideological tests and funding cuts.

“If we have a more or less even campaign, where we can get out messages about the tax system and this 9.9 percent tax could lead to $4 billion a year of income that could help us invest in public schools and health care and avoid cuts, we think we will have a winning campaign,” Pedersen said. “If the spending is five to one against us, then it starts to become tough, because then the airwaves are full of ‘the legislature can’t manage its way out of a paper bag.'”

If the legislature passes a statewide high-earners’ income tax, and if voters agree it’s worth preserving, there’s still one more obstacle to a statewide income tax: A 1933 ruling by the state Supreme Court, which found that a progressive income tax would violate the state constitution’s uniformity clause, which says that different types of property can’t be taxed at different rates. Many legal experts believe this ruling, which defines income as a type of property, is weak, and are eager to open the decision to scrutiny after 92 years.

Speaking to PubliCola on Tuesday, Pedersen said he hopes to have a proposal to present publicly by next Friday. “The house, the senate, the governor, and leadership are mostly aligned on this. We still have a bunch of work to do. We have to talk to our caucuses. But we’re in a very different position on revenue than we were last year on the wealth tax, where there was enthusiasm from the caucuses but no support from the governor.”

Police

SPD Stands by Decision to Promote Administrative Staffer to $315,000-a-Year Top Civilian Job

By Erica C. Barnett

The Seattle Police Department’s new Chief Operating Officer Sarah Smith, will make almost $315,000 a year—about $12,000 more than her predecessor, Brian Maxey—despite having fewer responsibilities and significantly less experience in public safety or government employment.

Smith has been at the city since 2019. Most recently, she worked as Seattle Fire Department administrative staffer on loan to Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office.

Although Smith’s internal title in Harrell’s office was “Deputy Director of Public Safety,” her city job classification was Administrative Specialist III—”an advanced technical expert in the Administrative Support series,” according to the city’s job class description— and her salary was just under $90,000.

At $151 an hour, Smith’s salary as SPD’s top civilian employee is higher than Mayor Katie Wilson’s, though still slightly lower than Police Chief Shon Barnes’ two deputy chiefs, Yvonne Underwood and Andre Sayles, and his Executive Director of Crime and Community Harm Reduction, Lee Hunt. Each of those executives now makes $320,000 a year, thanks to a cost of living pay increase that went into effect this month.

Prior to starting at the city in 2019, Smith was a program manager at the downtown YMCA. Before that, she worked at Specialty’s, a now-closed bakery downtown.

Before becoming chief operating officer at SPD, Smith’s predecessor, Maxey, was an assistant attorney general, supervising attorney at the City Attorney’s Office, and general counsel to SPD.

Asked about Smith’s qualifications, SPD communications director Barbara DeLollis called the COO “a Washington native with extensive public service experience and proven operational and management experience.”

DeLollis said the decision to hire Smith “followed a full review of the department’s strengths, gaps, and opportunities. As you know, Chief Barnes is committed to evolving SPD into a professional department that continuously improves to protect the people of Seattle.”

The department did not respond to questions about why they chose not to do a national search for the COO position, or hire an internal candidate with more experience.

“[W]ith the recent changes, women make up 53% of the Chief’s Command Staff,” DeLollis said, adding that Barnes “is proud to let Sarah’s accomplishments speak for themselves.” The math behind that percentage: Eight of Barnes’ 15 command staff positions are now held by women.

As we’ve reported, Barnes has the largest command staff in recent Seattle history, with the addition of a new assistant chief, a new chief of staff, a new deputy chief of staff, a new executive-level communications staffer (DeLollis), and Hunt, who’s in a newly created position. Barnes promoted one woman—deputy chief Yvonne Underwood—and hired Smith, DeLollis, assistant chief Nicole Powell and deputy chief of staff Cindy Wong, another former Harrell staffer.

A bio for Smith attached to Barnes’ announcement about her appointment credited her with helping to launch the Real Time Crime Center (RTCC), “developing the new Community Assisted Response and Engagement (CARE) department, and leading the City’s policy response to fentanyl.”

The RTCC was launched in 2014 but re-launched with the advent of SPD’s neighborhood surveillance cameras last year. Internal sources told PubliCola that the point person for the RTCC relaunch was Harrell staffer Vinh Tang and that Andrew Myerberg, a Harrell public safety advisor, was the point person on fentanyl response.

Amy Barden, the chief of the CARE Department,  said that before she was hired in 2023, the people who developed CARE were, “from SFD, Chiefs Chris Lombard and Reba Gonzales, and Jon Ehrenfeld. From SPD, Cpt. Dan Nelson, Sgts Whicker and Sullivan, Zee Andrignis, and Barb Biondo. From the Council, Lisa Herbold and Andrew Lewis. And significantly,  Bill Schrier, who was the consultant hired by the Mayor to help develop the concept and map the system of response.” Barden did not mention Smith having any role in developing CARE.

Barnes also credited Smith with playing a “key role” in drafting legislation including the public safety sales tax increase, “balancing the citywide budget,” and “fostering inclusive and reciprocal community engagement across all departments. Her proven leadership and deep insight into the City’s ecosystem give her invaluable insight into SPD’s operations and our growth ambitions.”

“She also has over seven years  of experience in leadership roles within Seattle’s municipal government and the Seattle Fire Department, and more than 10 years in business operations, including her time overseeing operations at a revered community organization, the Downtown Seattle YMCA,” Barnes wrote in his announcement. According to her LinkedIn profile, Smith started at the city in August 2019, which is about six and a half years.

Despite those accolades, Smith will have fewer responsibilities than her predecessor. Of the job duties that have previously been part of the COO’s job description, Sayles will oversee professional standards, including force investigations, force review, training, and policy, while Hunt will be in charge of technology and innovation.

Dan Eder, former mayor Bruce Harrell’s budget office director, will be stepping in to head up SPD’s budget and finance operations while Angela Socci, SPD’s finance director, is out on leave.

SPD did not respond to questions about Smith’s responsibilities as COO.

Mayor Wilson, Uncategorized

Mayor Wilson’s Inner Circle Is the Opposite of a Boys’ Club

She’s also announcing new department heads at a rapid clip, replacing a dozen Harrell appointees in her first few weeks.

By Erica C. Barnett

Mayor Katie Wilson continues to fill out a cabinet made up almost entirely of women—a casual first for a city whose last mayor, Bruce Harrell,  was accused by his own niece (and former deputy mayor) of running the office as a toxic boys’ club.

A list circulating at the city this week, which included details about the subject areas each new staffer will be involved in overseeing, included the following names. These are in addition to several PubliCola previously reported, including City Operations Director Jen Chan, Chan’s deputy, Mark Ellerbrook, and Executive Operations Managers Alison Holcomb and Esther Handy.

Holcomb’s overseeing all the public safety departments, while Handy will oversee small departments like the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs and the Office for Civil Rights as well as Finance and Administrative Services, a catchall department that includes everything from managing city buildings to issuing pet licenses.

OCR’s former policy director, Caedmon Cahill—who left in the last year of Harrell’s term—is Wilson’s new general counsel.

Except where noted, everyone on Wilson’s office staff has the title Executive Operations Manager—another departure from Harrell’s office, which eventually had all manner of special advisors, directors, and people with corporate-sounding titles like “Chief People Officer.”

Kristina Pham, Director of the Cabinet & Sub Cabinet. Pham comes from City Light, where she was an organizational change manager in charge of a small team; in addition to heading up the cabinet, she’ll oversee the city’s IT department.

Lindsay Garrity, who’s worked on homelessness under former mayors Durkan and Harrell,  will oversee homelessness, HSD, the King County Regional Homelessness Authoirity, and the Unified Care Team. The choice of Garrity is somewhat surprising, given her extensive ties to previous administrations and their approach to homelessness, which focused largely on encampment removals and dashboard-level demonstrations of positive progress. Garrity worked under Harrell’s deputy mayor overseeing homelessness, Tiffany Washington, for years, both in the mayor’s office and when Washington was in leadership positions at the Human Services Department.

Lynda Peterson, who’s currently the managing director of Cultivate Learning at the University of Washington, will oversee the Department of Education and Early Learning as well as the Department of Neighborhoods, Office of Economic Development, and Public Health.

Hannah McIntosh, a former Seattle Department of Transportation chief of staff who went on to work at King County Metro and the Port of Seattle, will oversee three of the biggest departments—SDOT, City Light, and Seattle Public Utilities.

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Rachel Schulkin, the longtime communications director for the Parks Department, will oversee parks, libraries, Seattle Center, and the waterfront.

Sunaree Marshall, who’s currently director of housing and community development for King County’s Department of Community and Human Services, will oversee housing, the planning and construction departments, and the Office of Sustainability and the Environment.

PubliCola has also learned that Adrienne Thompson, announced internally as the city’s new Labor Relations director, will not be taking the job. In an internal email, the city’s HR director, Kimberly Loving, wrote that Thompson’s appointment “will not move forward. In the near term, the Labor Relations team will report to me. This approach best supports continuity and stability while broader alignment work is underway.” We’ve reached out to Wilson’s office and will update if we hear back.

On Wednesday, Wilson announced she’s replacing five department heads and keeping several others.

The highest-profile of these—and the subject of the most speculation among the housing advocates and developers PubliCola’s been talking to—is the Office of Housing, where Harrell appointee Maiko Winkler-Chin will be replaced on an interim basis by current deputy director Andréa Akita.

A.P. Diaz, Harrell’s parks superintendent, is also out; he’ll be replaced by deputy director Michele Finnegan, also on an interim basis.

Beto Yarce, the former CEO of a nonprofit that helps women and people of color access small business capital (and a onetime City Council candidate) will head up the Office of Economic Development, replacing Harrell appointee Markham McIntyre.

Just over a week ago, the state Department of Commerce announced that Yarce would be their new assistant director of community engagement and outreach. The announcement is no longer on the department’s website but is currently still up on their Facebook page.

Lylianna Allala, the current interim deputy director of the Office of Sustainability and the Environment, will take over as director; the interim director, Michelle Caulfield, will go back to being deputy. According to Wilson’s announcement, Allala headed up the city’s implementation of the Green New Deal and was a climate policy staffer for Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal.

Quyhn Pham, the head of Friends of Little Saigon—a community group that created the Phố Đẹp (Beautiful Neighborhood) plan for the neighborhood, which emphasizes community building and safety over police enforcement—will head up the Department of Neighborhoods, replacing Harrell appointee Jenifer Chao.

Amy Nguyen, the former public art director and interim deputy director for the Office of Arts and Culture, will replace Harrell appointee Gülgün Kayim.

The department heads Wilson’s office announced she’s retaining include Rico Quirondongo from the Office of Planning and Community Development, Office of Intergovernmental Relations director Mina Hashemi, and Office of the Ombud director Amarah Khan. That’s in addition to Police Chief Shon Barnes and Human Services Department director Tanya Kim.

Wilson is replacing Harrell’s appointees at a rapid clip. At this point in his term, Wilson’s predecessor Harrell had replaced just five of Durkan’s department directors; Wilson has replaced almost a dozen.

Advocates for one department head Wilson recently fired, City Light’s Dawn Lindell, showed up at this week’s City Council meeting to criticize Wilson’s decision to replace the utility executive with environmental attorney and former EPA administrator Dennis McLerran. “Dawn is the first CEO in more than a decade to have a clear positive impact on utility,” City Light engineer Aimee Kimball said. “She has dedicated significant time and effort to addressing long standing issues of sexism, racism and alcoholism that were ignored by the prior leadership at Seattle City Light and the city for decades.”
Another speaker, electrician Peter Miller, said he and others he works with were “shocked” by the decision. “We’re just mad and can’t believe what happened, and we don’t know why,” he said. Later, Councilmember Bob Kettle agreed Lindell had begun addressing “very grave challenges” at City Light, and suggested that her firing may represent a failure of “good governance.” Kettle closed his statement by reading an additional written comment from Miller. “Someone in the mayor’s office has absolutely lost their mind,” Kettle read. “Firing Dawn Lindell is a catastrophic mistake.”

housing, legislature

Legislation Would Open Up Commercial Areas, and Ground-Floor Spaces, to Housing
Sen. Emily Alvarado, D-34

By Erica C. Barnett

State Senator (and former Seattle Office of Housing director) Emily Alvarado (D-34, West Seattle) is sponsoring a bill this year that would require cities and counties to allow housing in every area where commercial development is allowed.

If it passes, the legislation will be another win for housing advocates who’ve worked over the past several sessions to pass bills aimed at local NIMBY regulations, including a bill from Sen. Jessica Bateman (D-22, Olympia) that forced cities like Seattle to allow at least four housing units per residential lot.

Bateman’s a co-sponsor on Alvarado’s bill, which came as a request from Governor Bob Ferguson. It could significantly change the landscape in suburban cities like Redmond and Kirkland, where anti-growth activists have fought plans to replace low-density commercial uses—like two sites in north Kirkland where a Michael’s and a Goodwill are currently located—with housing.

Seattle’s zoning generally allows housing in neighborhood commercial areas, so that part of the bill wouldn’t require huge changes here. But the bill would impact Seattle in a different (and, many urbanists would argue, long-overdue) way: It would also prohibit cities from requiring ground-floor retail spaces as part of new mixed-use housing developments, except in areas around light rail stations. Seattle requires ground-floor retail in most mixed-use areas.

Currently, according to a report by HR&A Advisors, 71 percent of the lots, or land parcels, that would be impacted by the legislation have prohibitions or restrictions on ground-floor residential development.

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Housing advocates and developers have long argued that mandatory ground-story retail is an impediment to housing development, since retail space often remains vacant; that vacant space costs money to build and maintain but provides no revenue, and can be detrimental to neighborhoods.

“There is a lot of underused land, and that’s especially true as the market dynamics have changed for both office and commercial,” Alvarado said. “We’re seeing lots of vacant strip malls, empty office parks, and even in mixed-use zones, you see a lot of vacant retail.”

At a hearing on the bill last Friday, opponents argued that allowing people to live on the ground floor of residential buildings will harm cities’ ability to raise revenues, hit job targets, and support small businesses. “Sales taxes are untapped and can be very significant compared to residential property taxes, which are capped and much smaller,” Association of Washington Cities representative Carl Schroeder said. “We are hearing from cities who are concerned that this will erode their ability to support local small businesses who are not in a position to build standalone structures, in contrast to national chains.”

Scott Bonjukian, a Seattle urban designer, argued that removing prohibitions on ground-level housing outright seemed like “a bit of an overreach based on a temporary economic situation. … These [mandates] are usually in place for good reason, in limited locations to reinforce downtown main streets or shape a transit oriented development.”

Testifying in favor of the bill, Sightline’s Dan Bertolet pointed to an analysis by the pro-housing group that found the bill would increase the amount of land where housing is allowed by 62 percent statewide.

In cities like Seattle, “there’s no shortage of retail spaces in the vast majority of our downtowns and commercial centers,” Bertolet said. “What those centers almost always do have, though, is a shortage of housing, and the problem is mandating money losing ground floor retail and new apartment buildings only makes it less likely that new housing gets built.”

Alvarado said “there has been far more pushback” on allowing housing on the ground floor of apartment buildings than allowing housing in commercial areas more broadly.

“I think cities want the autonomy to determine the look and feel of their communities. and they think that markets are cyclical and at some point there will be more opportunity to bring in more retail on ground floors,” she said. “My argument is there is a lot of stalled development right now, and if we can reduce barriers to get some housing built, that in and of itself is an economic benefit to cities, counties, and the state.”