This week, we're talking taxes—specifically, the new business and occupation (B&O) tax proposal that City Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck and Mayor Bruce Harrell dropped, seemingly out of the blue, last week. The tax includes a big exemption that the business community has been seeking for a long time; however, above that threshold—$2 million in gross receipts—the tax will go up substantially.

Because B&O taxes are based on gross receipts, they hit high-grossing, low-margin businesses like restaurants and grocery stores hardest, which is one reason they aren't generally considered progressive. In fact, neither of the groups the city set up to come up with new progressive revenue sources recommended a higher B&O tax.

So what’s really behind this new proposal? The mayor's up for reelection, facing a progressive challenge from Katie Wilson. Seattle's in a budget hole. And supporters of the measure may be taking a gamble that the Chamber won't fight too hard against the tax, because it includes a big tax exemption that small- and medium-size businesses have been seeking for years.

With David still away gamboling in parts unnamed, Sandeep and Erica take up these questions and more on this week's episode of Seattle Nice.

Our editor is Quinn Waller.

Have a question or comment—or want to advertise with us? Send us an email at realseattlenice@gmail.com.

Send us a text! Note that we can only respond directly to emails realseattlenice@gmail.com

HEARTH Protection: Do not let fear make your world smaller.

Thanks to Uncle Ike's pot shop for sponsoring this week's episode! If you want to advertise please contact us at realseattlenice@gmail.com

Support the show

Your support on Patreon helps pay for editing, production, live events and the unique, hard-hitting local journalism and commentary you hear weekly on Seattle Nice.

The King County Regional Homelessness Authority (KCRHA) launched in 2020 with great fanfare. But now, with up to to a fifth of its staff facing layoffs due to budget shortfalls, it may be facing a slow death by a thousand cuts.

In this week’s episode, with David still gallivanting in parts unknown, Erica and Sandeep take a hard look at the current state of KCRHA, and ask a pointed question: What purpose, exactly, does this diminished and largely neutered agency serve?

As Erica reported on PubliCola this week, KCRHA's budget proposal could lead to a 21 percent cut to its administrative budget (resulting in 22 job cuts) along with an across-the-board cut to homelessness services. KCRHA clearly hopes to persuade the city to increase its funding to stave off those cuts, though the initial response from city officials has been noncommittal at best.

Budgetary wrangling aside, this back-and-forth is exposing the agency’s flaws, including its clunky (and costly) reimbursement procedures, internal morale issues and power struggles, and the KCRHA's lack of independent taxing authority, which leaves the authority dependent on the largesse of elected officials at the city and county. With the city clawing back control of outreach and homelessness prevention efforts—and the agency no longer even pretending to operate independently—we discuss whether the only function KCRHA provides is to insulate local politicians from public scrutiny of their decisions on homelessness policy, strategy, and funding.

Our editor is Quinn Waller.

Have a question or comment? Send us an email at realseattlenice@gmail.com.

Send us a text! Note that we can only respond directly to emails realseattlenice@gmail.com

HEARTH Protection: Do not let fear make your world smaller.

Thanks to Uncle Ike's pot shop for sponsoring this week's episode! If you want to advertise please contact us at realseattlenice@gmail.com.

Send us a text! Note that we can only respond directly to emails realseattlenice@gmail.com

HEARTH Protection: Do not let fear make your world smaller.

Support the show

Your support on Patreon helps pay for editing, production, live events and the unique, hard-hitting local journalism and commentary you hear weekly on Seattle Nice.

With David away for a second consecutive week, Erica and Sandeep seek out the inimitable Josh Feit, news editor of the Stranger back in the olden (golden) days, to buffer their conversation with convoluted references to 50-year-old Joni Mitchell records.

We start with the increasingly off-putting saga of King County Assessor John Arthur Wilson, who remains defiant in the face of a unanimous vote by the King County Council (minus the absent Reagan Dunn) urging him to resign over allegations he stalked his ex-partner during their breakup from hell. We ask: Why did the resignation calls take so long, and are we headed for a messy recall? (Hours after we taped this episode on the morning of Friday, June 13, a judge denied Wilson’s legal motion seeking the dismissal of his ex-partner's protection order against him .)

Next up, Josh keys off the announced resignation of Councilmember Cathy Moore to argue that what Moore and her supporters and backers decry as incivility in Council chambers is really just sour grapes about the rising voice of an emerging urbanist majority. But are the urbanists so ascendant, give the status quo nature of the comp plan currently under debate?

Finally, we dig into the implications of Erica’s reporting that the mayor is seeking to expand the city’s powers to shutter “nuisance properties.” Is a crackdown on clubs warranted by recent incidents of gun violence that have occurred outside nightclubs and hookah lounges? Or is this just the latest iteration of a long, pinch-faced tradition in Seattle municipal politics of finger-wagging at—and passing laws to curtail—the city’s nightlife?

Better listen in before a Big Yellow Taxi comes to take Josh and Sandeep away!

Our editor is Quinn Waller.

Have a question or comment? Send us an email at realseattlenice@gmail.com.

Send us a text! Note that we can only respond directly to emails realseattlenice@gmail.com

HEARTH Protection: Do not let fear make your world smaller.

Thanks to Uncle Ike's pot shop for sponsoring this week's episode! If you want to advertise please contact us at realseattlenice@gmail.com

Support the show

Your support on Patreon helps pay for editing, production, live events and the unique, hard-hitting local journalism and commentary you hear weekly on Seattle Nice.

After less than 18 months in office, Councilmember Cathy Moore, representing District 5 (North Seattle), announced she will be resigning her position effective July 7. Swinging into immediate action, Erica and Sandeep (David is away, gamboling and gallivanting in distant parts) weigh in on this emergency episode of the podcast with their red hot takes on this surprise bombshell announcement.

While Moore ascribes her decision to step down to personal and medical reasons, speculation is rampant that Moore's dissatisfaction with the job and unhappiness with the harsh criticism the Council sometimes faces also played a central role in her decision. Rest assured, we fully indulge this speculation, while offering our takes on Moore's legacy and assessing where she sat on the Council's ideological spectrum. Given the timing of Moore's decision, her seat will not be up for election until 2026, so we close with what early names we're hearing bruited about for who the Council might appoint to replace Moore until then.

Our editor is Quinn Waller.

Thanks to Uncle Ike's pot shop for sponsoring this week's episode! If you want to advertise please contact us at realseattlenice@gmail.com

Send us a text! Note that we can only respond directly to emails realseattlenice@gmail.com

HEARTH Protection: Do not let fear make your world smaller.

Support the show

Your support on Patreon helps pay for editing, production, live events and the unique, hard-hitting local journalism and commentary you hear weekly on Seattle Nice.

Send us a text! Note that we can only respond directly to emails realseattlenice@gmail.com

HEARTH Protection: Do not let fear make your world smaller.

Support the show

Your support on Patreon helps pay for editing, production, live events and the unique, hard-hitting local journalism and commentary you hear weekly on Seattle Nice.

This week Erica has the scoop on allegations of stalking and harassment against King County Assessor John Arthur Wilson. We also debate Cathy Moore's decision to withdraw a bill that critics say weakens the council’s ethics standards.

Plus, we discuss the anti-trans demonstrations and counter-protests at Cal Anderson Park and City Hall that resulted in over 30 arrests. Mayoral Candidate Katie Wilson blamed Bruce Harrell for permitting a "fundamentalist, anti-trans “family values” protest in the heart of Seattle’s historic LGBTQ neighborhood." Is she right? And, were the counter-protests effective politics?

Our editor is Quinn Waller.

Thanks to Uncle Ike's pot shop for sponsoring this week's episode! If you want to advertise please contact us at realseattlenice@gmail.com

Send us a text! Note that we can only respond directly to emails realseattlenice@gmail.com

HEARTH Protection: Do not let fear make your world smaller.

Support the show

Your support on Patreon helps pay for editing, production, live events and the unique, hard-hitting local journalism and commentary you hear weekly on Seattle Nice.

We're so excited to release our interview with Shattered Glass director Billy Ray, who was kind enough to indulge all our questions about our favorite movie, like:

What happened between the scene where Chloe Sevigny confronts Peter Sarsgaard for firing Stephen and the next day, when she leads the team in applauding him for his brave decision?

Where does Shattered Glass rank in the pantheon of movies Ray's written over the course of his career, which include blockbusters like The Hunger Games and Captain Phillips?

And why does Ray think Stephen Glass kept digging himself deeper and deeper, inventing new lies right up until he was fired for fabricating dozens of stories?

Billy Ray was a great sport, although he did give us shit for interviewing Adam Penenberg, the reporter who first busted Glass in a story for Forbes Digital Tool, before him. "I cannot understand why I wasn't your first fucking guest," he told us—"Who the hell did you interview before me? The three grips?"

We hope you'll enjoy listening to our conversation with director Billy Ray as much as we enjoyed recording it.

Hosts: Josh Feit and Erica C. Barnett

Edited by: Erica C. Barnett

Send us a text! Note that we can only respond directly to emails realseattlenice@gmail.com

HEARTH Protection: Do not let fear make your world smaller.

Thanks to Uncle Ike's pot shop for sponsoring this week's episode! If you want to advertise please contact us at realseattlenice@gmail.com

Support the show

Your support on Patreon helps pay for editing, production, live events and the unique, hard-hitting local journalism and commentary you hear weekly on Seattle Nice.

A Seattle City Council committee advanced legislation last week that will eliminate a requirement that council members abstain from voting on legislation that presents a financial conflict of interest. Under the new, lower standard, the council will merely have to disclose any financial conflicts before voting—allowing council members, for the first time since the 1980s, to vote in their own financial interest.

Sandeep thinks disclosing a conflict of interest before voting should be enough; Erica's with the haters who want more constraints on the council's ability to vote in their own self-interest.

The legislation is moving forward quickly and will probably take effect just before the council votes on the elimination of several anti-eviction laws passed by the previous council, which might not pass if everyone on the council who's a landlord has to refrain from voting to repeal these laws.

In related news, Kshama Sawant and her group Workers Strike Back are showing up to disrupt council meetings, antagonizing the council over the upcoming vote on the anti-eviction laws. David and Sandeep are fascinated by internal squabbling among Seattle's local socialists, while Erica argues that Sawant's latest "movement" is mostly bluster—and reminds everyone that Sawant worked tirelessly on Jill Stein's "Defeat Harris" campaign last year.

Also this week: Tent City 4 gets a temporary reprieve after a last-minute effort to keep the self-managed encampment from moving to the former Lake City Community Center. And we discuss Dan Strauss' effort to require all clubs and other "loud music venues" to sell earplugs. David calls it a "modest public health campaign" but Sandeep says it's a nanny state intrusion into our god-given right to destroy our hearing.

Our editor is Quinn Waller.

Send us a text! Note that we can only respond directly to emails realseattlenice@gmail.com

HEARTH Protection: Do not let fear make your world smaller.

Thanks to Uncle Ike's pot shop for sponsoring this week's episode! If you want to advertise please contact us at realseattlenice@gmail.com

Support the show

Your support on Patreon helps pay for editing, production, live events and the unique, hard-hitting local journalism and commentary you hear weekly on Seattle Nice.

Representative Adam Smith of Washington’s 9th Congressional District, who made headlines recently for his pointed criticisms of progressive urban governance, joins us to talk about what Seattle should expect in the era of Trump.

Smith believes local governance failures and missteps in blue cities like Seattle contributed to Trump’s big win in 2024. But he joined Seattle Nice to talk about the aftermath. We get into the impact of Trump’s MAGA agenda on Seattle and King County, including potentially devastating funding cuts to transportation, education, and social services. Smith explains why he thinks Trump’s MAGA movement is a looming disaster for the region.

The conversation also gets into strategic resistance to Trump, coalition building, and the complexities of running a liberal stronghold like Seattle. Smith, who has a foot in both the Congressional Progressive Caucus and the more centrist New Democrat Coalition, also delves into the evolution of his own political philosophy. Finally, the Congressman explains his endorsement of Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison, a Republican.

Our editor is Quinn Waller.

Send us a text! Note that we can only respond directly to emails realseattlenice@gmail.com

HEARTH Protection: Do not let fear make your world smaller.

Thanks to Uncle Ike's pot shop for sponsoring this week's episode! If you want to advertise please contact us at realseattlenice@gmail.com

Support the show

Your support on Patreon helps pay for editing, production, live events and the unique, hard-hitting local journalism and commentary you hear weekly on Seattle Nice.