Soundside

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Contentious debate over the Comprehensive Plan comes to city council Jan 14, 2025

Show notes

The Seattle City Council is starting its year by taking on one of any city’s most controversial policy debates: growth.

The Comprehensive Plan is now in front of the council. It dictates where and how Seattle can grow over the next two decades.

Past comprehensive plans have concentrated growth in areas dubbed “Urban Villages” – places along major arterials, like Columbia City, Othello, Lake City, and Ballard. They largely kept neighborhoods with single family homes unchanged.

The current plan continues that legacy, but allows for more density in around 30 newly designated “neighborhood centers.” This comes as Seattle continues efforts to comply with a state law that mandates denser single family zoning.

Guest:

Councilmember Joy Hollingsworth, who represents Seattle's 3rd District

Relevant Links:

KUOW: How will Seattle's next comprehensive plan shape the city?

KUOW: Seattle's growth plan inches toward more housing, draft by draft

Seattle Times: Fault lines emerge as Seattle council takes up housing plan

Thank you to the supporters of KUOW, you help make this show possible! If you want to help out, go to kuow.org/donate/soundsidenotes

Soundside is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell on city budgets, the comprehensive plan, and more Jan 13, 2025

Show notes

Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell is running for re-election in 2025.

He’s hoping to break the long running streak of single term mayors in Seattle like Mike McGinn, Ed Murray, and Jenny Durkin.

The election is still nearly a year away, and in the meantime, the mayor will finish the last year of his term addressing a long list of issues: public safety, the future of downtown, and the implementation of a new comprehensive plan.

The mayor sat down with Soundside host Libby Denkmann to discuss his plans for 2025.

Guest:

Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell

Relevant links:

Thank you to the supporters of KUOW, you help make this show possible! If you want to help out, go to kuow.org/donate/soundsidenotes

Soundside is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dangerous highs from highly potent cannabis Jan 13, 2025

Show notes

Marijuana has been recreationally legal here in Washington since 2012, and it's become big business for the state.

Last year sales topped $1 billion, and the state earned hundreds of millions in taxes on marijuana.

As the drug’s popularity in the state has increased, so has its potency.

As this episode's guest would say, it’s not your dad’s weed.

Now, doctors are seeing more harmful, and sometimes fatal consequences from overuse of marijuana.

KUOW online editor and producer Stephen Howie has reported a deep dive on the subject and he’s here to explain how a new generation of weed is impacting a new generation of users.

Guest:

Stephen Howie, KUOW online editor/producer

Relevant link:

KUOW - Weed sick: High-potency cannabis leads to ER visits, illnesses for some users

Thank you to the supporters of KUOW, you help make this show possible! If you want to help out, go to kuow.org/donate/soundsidenotes

Soundside is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Soundside's "Weekend Warmup" - Jan 9th-13th Jan 10, 2025

Show notes

Our first week back after the holiday break has been jam-packed with all the news that’s fit to print… or read out loud into a microphone, whatever.

Now that the weekend is nearly here, it’s time to sail away & relax a little…

In that spirit, here’s our resident “Cruise Director,” Producer Jason Megatron Burrows live from the Lido Deck with everything exciting happening this weekend!

EVENTS:

As always, if you'd like to suggest an event for future installments of the Weekend Warmup, shoot us an email - SOUNDSIDE@KUOW.ORG

Thank you to the supporters of KUOW, you help make this show possible! If you want to help out, go to kuow.org/donate/soundsidenotes

Soundside is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Washington state sends firefighters, engines to help battle LA fires Jan 09, 2025

Show notes

Five people have died and thousands of homes have burned in wildfires sweeping across the Los Angeles area.

Five separate fires are burning in the county - the Palisades fire, Eaton fire, Hurst fire, Lidia and Sunset fires. The Palisades and Eaton Fires are some of the most destructive in the region’s history.

Local resources are stretched thin – but some help is on the way from Washington.

Dozens of engines and more than 100 firefighters from local agencies have committed to travel to help battle the blazes in L.A.
Many are already on their way.

Guests:

Ben Peeler, Assistant Chief for Clark Cowlitz Fire Rescue
Hilary Franz, Washington state's Public Lands Commissioner. She heads the Department of Natural Resources, which is also sending engines to Southern California

Relevant links:

What to know about thousands of evacuations and homes burned in Los Angeles area fires - AP

Thank you to the supporters of KUOW, you help make this show possible! If you want to help out, go to kuow.org/donate/soundsidenotes

Soundside is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Washington sheriffs may face pressure between federal agencies and state law under Trump administration Jan 09, 2025

Show notes

President Elect Donald Trump has promised mass deportations of undocumented immigrants on day one of his administration. Removing the approximately 11.7 million people living in the United States without authorization would take a massive operational effort -- and likely require cooperation from both state and local governments.

Right now, most Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests in the U.S. happen because of a hand off from local law enforcement. But that kind of cooperation is restricted in Washington state.

2019’s Keep Washington Working Act broadly limits state and local law enforcement from assisting with federal immigration proceedings. But Trump allies are already ramping up the pressure on local leaders in places like California and D.C. with similar sanctuary laws in place:
Stephen Miller’s America First Legal Foundation announced last month that it had identified hundreds of elected officials in sanctuary jurisdictions who it claimed could be held civilly liable for obstructing federal immigration enforcement.

As the new Trump Administration takes office, Washington state’s elected sheriffs will be among those officials feeling the squeeze between federal agencies, and state law.

Guest:

Steven Strachan, Executive Director of the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs

Relevant Links:

WASPC Statement on local law enforcement involvement in immigration issues

Thank you to the supporters of KUOW, you help make this show possible! If you want to help out, go to kuow.org/donate/soundsidenotes

Soundside is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Housing First Approach: A Documentary Jan 08, 2025

Show notes

As the Trump administration prepares to take office, a fight is brewing over the future of homelessness in America.

For about a decade now, the federal government has pushed a strategy called Housing First.

It's designed to get people off the streets and into permanent homes... even when they have serious problems with mental illness or substance use. Seattle was one of the earliest adopters of this approach, back in the nineties.

But, over the past few years, a growing chorus of critics — mostly on the political right — has questioned Housing First.

They want to go back to a time when efforts to fight homelessness focused more on getting people into treatment and having them "earn" access to subsidized housing by changing their behaviors.

Now some of those critics are about to come to power in the White House, like Vice President elect JD Vance.

You've probably heard of Project 2025. It's the conservative Heritage Foundation's plan for Trump's second term. It calls for an end to Housing First — a move that would upend the nation's homelessness strategy.

KUOW's Will James has covered homelessness for years. He wanted to know: What is at the heart of this backlash against Housing First?

And, with homelessness reaching record levels, do the critics have a point? Is it time to change course?

If so, where do we go from here?

Will spent months digging into these questions and brings us this original, freshly-reported documentary, which we're sharing with you for the first time today.

The story starts right here in Seattle... because this city is intertwined with the history of Housing First and now, the movement against it.

Thank you to the supporters of KUOW, you help make this show possible! If you want to help out, go to kuow.org/donate/soundsidenotes

Soundside is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network.

Guests:
Will James, KUOW Audio Documentary Producer

Related Links:

KUOW - Lost Patients

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As ShotSpotter rolls out in Tacoma, feelings over gunshot detection technology remain mixed Jan 08, 2025

Show notes

In an effort to curb gun crime, Tacoma announced last year that it was turning to a tool called ShotSpotter.

ShotSpotter is a form of Gun Detection Technology (GDT), which uses a series of acoustic microphone sensors to track loud bangs, booms, and pops in a designated area. Once those "dynamic events" are triggered, a human classifier verifies the sound was a gunshot and alerts local police. The entire process happens within 60 seconds or less.

The idea is that it’s a faster and more accurate way to alert police to gunshots, compared with relying on 911 calls. That, then, allows police to get to a more targeted crime scene sooner, and have more evidence to ideally solve the crime.

SoundThinking, the company that runs ShotSpotter, says the technology has been used in more than 180 cities globally.

However, the technology has been controversial in several large cities. Houston’s mayor called ShotSpotter a “gimmick” when he announced plans to scrap the city’s contract. After years of debate over its effectiveness, Chicago ended its use of Shotspotter in September.
Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell advocated for years for using an acoustic gunshot detection technology in Seattle before backing off his plan to fund a pilot program last year.

Tacoma is moving forward with ShotSpotter, thanks to an $800,000 grant from the Bureau of Justice Assistance. That grant will fund three different kinds of technology aimed at improving the city’s ability to investigate gun crimes. The police department is on the verge of piloting ShotSpotter in a two square mile area around Hosmer Street, in South Tacoma.

Tacoma Police told us the city's ShotSpotter rollout is now slated for Spring 2025.

But some in the city are concerned about the cost and accuracy of ShotSpotter, and say it might lead to greater police presence and surveillance in communities that have long suffered from over policing.

To learn more, Soundside spoke with a group of community advocates who've spoken against the technology at ShotSpotter information sessions in Tacoma; Alfred Lewers Jr., the Senior Director of Trauma Response and Community Engagement at SoundThinking; and Eric Piza, a professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Northeastern University in Boston who's studied the use of ShotSpotter in major cities like Chicago and Kansas City.

Guests:

Latasha Palmer, community advocate and board secretary of the Hilltop Action Coalition.
Bunchy Carter, minister of defense for the Black Panther Party in Tacoma.
Oneida Arnold, long term member of The Conversation 253, a Tacoma and South Sound community group.
Alfred Lewers Jr., senior director of trauma response and community engagement at SoundThinking, the company that oversees ShotSpotter.
Eric Piza, professor of criminology and criminal justice at Northeastern University in Boston.

Related links:

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A look into Amazon's "Return to Office" mandate Jan 07, 2025

Show notes

Amazon employees are back in the office five days a week, five years after Covid-19 shook up work as we know it; as the company’s so-called Return-To-Office policy took effect on Thursday, January 2nd.

Amazon is the largest private employer to roll back its pandemic-era work from home policy.

So, what will this mean for both employees AND local businesses in the hubs where Amazon resides?

Monica Nicklesburg tackled this question for KUOW as the resident Labor & Economy Reporter, she’s also the co-host of the KUOW podcast BOOMING, and she joined Soundside host Libby Denkmann to break down how those employees are feeling about this shift.

Thank you to the supporters of KUOW, you help make this show possible! If you want to help out, go to kuow.org/donate/soundsidenotes

Soundside is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network.

RELATED LINK:

Culture-building or cost-cutting? Amazon's return-to-office order raises questions, fears

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A new book looks at how border closures divided lives during COVID Jan 07, 2025

Show notes

It’s been five years since Covid 19 began spreading around the world from its origin in Wuhan, China. In that emergent time of the pandemic, there was widespread concern about clusters of the virus, in Italy, then Iran, then an outbreak at a nursing home in the Pacific Northwest. By March of 2020, an unprecedented international phenomenon took place: countries began closing their borders.

When the World Closed its Doors by Laurie Trautman and Edward Alden looks at how this international effort disrupted the lives of people who had grown reliant on movement between countries; from migrant workers to cross-border families.

Guest:

Laurie Trautman, Director of the Border Policy Research Institute at Western Washington University

Thank you to the supporters of KUOW, you help make this show possible! If you want to help out, go to kuow.org/donate/soundsidenotes

Soundside is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.