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The Seattle Council Committee for Government Accountability and Oversight is now asking, in 2026;
'Why has the city allowed violence, drug addiction, and people in crisis to percolate outside City Hall since 2017?'
Yes, this is real.
No, we don't think they will understand the irony of the question.
Maybe, this crop of councilmembers will actually do something about it instead of simply discussing the problem.
@shawnchitnis | @fox13seattle
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Does it matter to Executive Zahilay or Mayor Wilson that the King County Homelessness Authority has a 10 figure budget deficit, or that it left a quarter billion dollars budgeted to fight homelessness unspent? Is it irrelevant to them that outgoing CEO #5 made attempts to hide her emails from public disclosure, or that agencies receiving money from KCRHA called it "hard to deal with"?
But really; does it matter that this agency failed its core mission so hard; homelessness and drug addiction actually increased in King County, while the rest of the nation saw a sharp decrease?
Apparently not, because both the Executive and Mayor are now looking for another CEO to run KCRHA.
To that, we say, "shut it down immediately."
| @fox13seattle
Link>fox13seattle.com/news/king-c…
“You take individuals in crisis, you stabilize them, then release them to nothing, and we somehow magically expect them to stay out of our system."
King County Prosecutor Leesa Manion is blunt about how poorly our current Involuntary Treatment System currently functions, and that she wants legislators to (finally) work on fixing it this upcoming legislative session.
According to KCRHA, 31% of unsheltered homeless in King County suffer from a serious mental illness. Even if we accept this (low ball) number, we are still talking almost 4,000 individuals that are affected. Being able to bring them in involuntarily and help them with things like long term medical and psychiatric care would at least give us a fighting chance to break the current cycle of arrest, release, repeat.
@MichelleKOMO | @KCProsecutor | @komonews
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At an open house for the community around a new tiny homes village, the Low Income Housing Institute was straightforward that there would be "two units for 'harm reduction'", going even further and telling the crowd that it is "where they go and use drugs."
LIHI then denied this at a later press conference where the media was present, for obvious reasons.
Let us step back and look at what is happening here:
1. Seattle gathers people in addiction and mental health crisis and puts them in tiny homes villages ran by a taxpayer funded NGO.
2. Seattle allows King County Public Health to come in and hand out meth and fentanyl smoking supplies to addicts.
3. Seattle looks the other way at drug dealers selling addicts in crisis their drugs, many times within the tiny home village.
4. Seattle allows the addicts to smoke their drugs in specified drug units within the homeless shelter.
5. Seattle promises to monitor the addicts doing drugs, and reverse ODs with Narcan.
At this point, Katie Wilson should demand a cut of the drug profits for the city coffers, considering she's doing everything but personally lighting the meth pipes.
@CarleenJohn1970 | @TCSWashington
The Seattle Council is set to begin voting on proposed budget amendments this Friday at 9:30am. It will continue on through next week, culminating in a final vote at a Special Council Meeting on November 20th at 1:00pm.
Councilman Strauss claims this budget “...makes critical investments that will deliver real results: reversing cuts to firefighters, making historic investments in housing and homelessness, and clearing violent crime case backlogs. It does it all while erasing deficits and balancing the city’s budget through 2030.”
Would certainly be a change from the last 7 years if they can balance the budget while eliminating the deficits.
You can check out proposed budget amendments here: seattle.legistar.com/View.as…
@shawnchitnis | @fox13seattle
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Change Washington retweeted
Following the long-awaited results of a privacy audit into the city of Seattle's Real Time Crime Center (RTCC), Mayor Katie Wilson has announced that the city's surveillance camera program will be expanding.
Wilson said she is authorizing the Seattle Police Department to move forward with the expansion in SODO, Capitol Hill, and CID
Additionally, the existing cameras in the Stadium District will be turned back on immediately. The city will initiate purchasing and installing cameras in the other districts, which could take months.
The mayor made the announcement during a Tuesday morning press conference.
Full story here: bit.ly/4zhqRLD
#komo #komo4 #komonews #seattle
ALT A person is speaking at an event, with KOMO News 4 branding visible. The headline reads, "Seattle to Turn On and Expand CCTV Cameras." There is another person in the background.
Change Washington retweeted
BREAKING: @MayorofSeattle is turning back on the city surveillance cameras in Pioneer Square, and green lighting the expansion of the network to Capitol Hill, Central District, and SODO.
@komonews
BREAKING: Mayor Katie Wilson orders CCTV cameras in the Stadium District to be turned back on immediately.
Katie Wilson wants the next Chief of Police to "have a connection to Seattle", which is not a bad thing.....though we don't want to see it limit good options either.
With 40 candidates vying for the position; we simply hope one of them is willing to put in the work to stop Seattle's slide on public safety, and to bring back confidence in a force that has been struggling since 2020.
Dan Griffin | @fox13seattle
The 5th CEO in 6 years at KCRHA has resigned. There has never been a better time to permanently disband this failed agency.
Yet....King County Executive Girmay Zahilay continues to allow it to exist so it can [waste] more of your tax money.
@BThompsonNews | @KIRO7Seattle
It is November 9th, a full month past when the CCTV camera audit was due to wrap up, and two weeks past when we where told the mayor had the audit draft.
Why has the public been kept in the dark for so long, especially when there is an overwhelming demand to turn the cameras back on?
In 2025, King County bought an old clinic in Capitol Hill for the purpose of remodeling it into a (needed) recovery center, which was approved by voters in 2023 in a massive billion dollar tax levy. The County estimated and assigned a budget of $17 million for the renovation.
That number has now more than DOUBLED to $35 million.
In one year.
Before renovations have even started.
And in true King County fashion, nobody is taking responsibility for this gross underestimate that will eat into the operational budget.
@blatchfordtr | @seattletimes
Link>seattletimes.com/seattle-new…
Change Washington retweeted
Eastside restaurateur John Howie says John Howie Steak hasn't made a profit in about seven years. Rising labor and food costs, less drinking and Microsoft's exit from the Bravern towers are all part of it. bizjournals.com/seattle/news…
Change Washington retweeted
Kids were dancing at Seattle Center's Diwali festival Saturday. Two men walked in with racial slurs and signs telling Indian people to leave. @KIROCharlie on why people who agree on almost nothing — Pramila Jayapal, Brandi Kruse, Jason Rantz, and Peak Seattle — all came down on it hard.
Change Washington retweeted
E. Thomas and 15th Ave E (Safeway); SFD responding to a male who is down just behind the store with a "pool of blood" around his head. Appears to be DOA.
Change Washington retweeted
Power has been restored to all customers impacted by storm-related outages. Thank you for your patience.
From Eric Zimmerman, elected Democrat Mayor and Councilman of Normandy Park and a researcher at Washington Policy Center;
“If 10 people a day were dying of something in the food supply or something in how apartments were built, we would be cracking down on those food vendors and those apartment builders faster than you can say hello.
But somehow, when it’s drugs and they’re killing people at the rate of 10 a day in 2023, 2024, we back off as government and say, ‘Oh well, this isn’t our job. This is for the service providers to address.’ I think that’s complete nonsense, and it’s taken the entire Democrat Party in Washington hostage,”
Helping people out of drug addiction should not be partisan, but unfortunately the people in charge of Seattle, King County, and most of Washington have made it that way. Drug addiction crosses socioeconomic lines, hits everyone from the homeless to the very wealthy, and doesn't care about your race, sex, skin color, or criminal history.
To not focus on recovery after a decade of failed housing first policy is not only ignorant; it is downright deadly. Your; our neighbors are dying on the streets and our elected leaders won't even acknowledge the root cause.
Eric Zimmerman | @SeattleRedMedia
Link> seattlered.com/homelessness/…
Washington Policy Center interviews We Heart Seattle's Andrea Suarez about the state's hypocritical investigation into the organizations handling of government supplied used drug supplies (which was recently closed), the problems with Seattle's new proposed homelessness plan, and why ideology continues to get in the way of progress.
@WAPolicyCenter | @weheartseattle | @weheartfounder
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"In May 2025, there were more than 500 RVs citywide. Today, that number is down to approximately 170.
We’ve provided RV households with active case management and priority access to services. Through this program, 250 households have been moved into housing or shelter."
San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie takes a shot at Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson (intentional or not), who recently vetoed RV legislation that would have worked on moving RV street dwellers into shelters via a permitting system.
One noteworthy thing about S.F. is that they have also pivoted to a recovery and shelter model for addicts, and it appears to be paying dividends. Meanwhile, our mayor still pretends its a housing problem, and allows fentanyl and meth in city sanctioned encampments.....
@DanielLurie | @MayorofSeattle | @SeattleCouncil