Given the massive increase in government attention and spending on homelessness in the last decade, especially since it was declared a public emergency by disgraced Seattle Mayor Ed Murray and King County Executive Dow Constantine in 2015, you would think progress would be abundant. If so, you would be mighty disappointed, according to an extensive report just released by Change Washington, which leads with this: “After spending billions in taxpayer funds on the issue, more homeless individuals continue to die on the streets and in temporary housing than have found permanent housing.”

This report goes in-depth on the controversial start of Marc Dones, the CEO of the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, and his desire to add another $12 Billion to homelessness spending, with little regard for effectiveness. As Change notes, “Knowing the authority would never receive such an incredible sum of public funds, CEO Dones has built a future excuse for when the authority inevitably fails to make a significant reduction of homeless individuals. KCRHA will escape accountability by asserting it was not fully funded to perform its mission.” Nothing screams success like establishing your excuse for failure, which you can read about here… Change WA.

Snohomish County Sheriff Adam Fortney joined us for this week’s Newsmaker Interview. He shared his thoughts on the failure of the Democrat-controlled legislature to fix the serious public safety problems they created with activist-inspired laws passed in 2021. Sheriff Fortney also criticized Olympia lawmakers for failing to pass a strict drug possession law. And he explained his innovative “Lead The Way” program which seeks to steer teenagers away from a criminal pathway. Read more.

It tells you all need to know about the current state of the Democrats in the state legislature – after their public meltdown on drugs at adjournment as Shift reported – that they seem to consider their Republican colleagues a bigger threat to public safety than they do public drug users. Just consider far-Left State Senator Noel Frame, who indicated to her party’s favorite media outlet The Stranger that “progressives in the Senate are more willing to negotiate with conservative Democrats this second time around, especially if it prevents the party from making more concessions to Republicans. Frame argued Democrats should be compromising with their colleagues ‘rather than compromising with Republicans.’”

Even actually talking to Republican legislators is of no use, according to someone trying to out-flank Sen. Frame on the Left, as “bipartisanship is important but shouldn’t come ‘at the expense of good policy,’” said Senator Yasmin Trudeau. You can read more about how only Democrats know “good policy” about how to legalize drugs here… Shift, The Stranger.

News about out-of-state bank collapses is not something that generally dominates Sunday morning conversations, but that might change this weekend for business readers who catch columnist Jon Talton’s take on the latest financial failure of the Biden Administration. That’s because he points out “the troubles that have hit regional banks are still unsettling and may not end with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s sending First Republic into receivership and then the arms of JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon.”

Of particular concern to Talton is the type of institutions (and the types of exposure they carry), which could be ominous for our region, as “the troubled institutions have something in common: Their assets are heavy in commercial real estate and loans to tech companies. Remote work that emptied office buildings during the pandemic has left some of the once most expensive office towers in cities such as San Francisco and Seattle in trouble.” You can read more about possible trouble here… Seattle Times.

Past mayoral administrations paid particular attention to problems in West Seattle, mainly because many big-name Democrat politicians (and mayors) have lived in West Seattle. However, that privileged status must have been damaged by the long closure of the West Seattle bridge, as KOMO is reporting that it’s hard to get attention on the bluff above Alki. Indeed, one business owner claims “I care a lot about this place. I’m very angry. I’m sad. I want to see change. There are no consequences.”

The “consequences” she speaks of would be for people repeatedly breaking into stores and businesses. Another shop owner sent a message to elected leaders: “I want to say that your experiment in trying to defund the police has failed miserably. We are here paying taxes and, in my case, supporting my community in big ways. We’re not supported whatsoever.” You can find out more about Seattle non-support here… KOMO.

It should perhaps be a reminder to state officials that when they start imposing their political will on machines and other things that don’t care about their partisan interests that they will sometimes get unintended consequences. Consider the case of the state ferry Walla Walla, which ran aground last month, as Shift noted, for which a bad batch of fuel was evidently to blame.

Now the state bureaucrats are promising King 5 news that  “We have laboratories testing those fuel samples, so we’ll figure out where that contamination came from to ensure this doesn’t happen again.” Maybe the state’s new set of laws which mandate certain types of fuels for certain types of vehicles – think cap and trade and the (high-cost) low-carbon fuel standard – might have something to do with the confusion. You can read more why power is good for boats here… Shift, King 5.

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