Seattle Mayor holds ‘off-topic’ press conference; Read the full transcript here

SEATTLE - Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson held a press conference on Tuesday, taking questions on the city's gun violence response, budget concerns, transit funding and small business support.

The following transcript makes little distinction between reporters, and parts of it have been truncated for clarity. You can read a full transcript of the press conference below.

Full transcript of Mayor Wilson press conference

Mayor Wilson: I'm going to start with just a few remarks on a few things that are on my mind, and then we'll just open up the questions.

So, just had a three-day weekend. Happy Indigenous People's Day. I was glad to be down at the waterfront yesterday delivering a proclamation recognizing— honoring the history of our city and region and all the contributions of native communities to, to this place and, and the city's ongoing collaboration with our tribes and urban native communities.

We had, unfortunately, multiple separate shootings over the weekend in a few different neighborhoods around the city, and just some really tragic shootings, actually, including two homicides.

We have a gun problem in America, too many guns and too many hands, and we are making some progress in Seattle, but we have a ways to go. Gun violence has no place in the city. I've been working with, my office has been working with SPD and also in communication with the council members whose districts these shootings took place in. Obviously, these are on active investigation, so I'm not going to be sharing any new information here, but I'll say there was one shooting up in Kerry Park which was related to late-night street parties, and that kind of irresponsible, reckless and dangerous behavior has no place in Seattle, and we'll be working closely with SPD [Seattle Police Department] to figure out what we can do to better prevent and address those kind of street takeover late-night parties when they happen.

SPD's going to be doing some emphasis patrols late night around that area, and we're going to just be making sure that we're using all the intelligence we gather about where those things might happen, and see what we could do to prevent that in the future. We also had a really tragic homicide at a gas station downtown, and we will be working to find that perpetrator and bring them to justice. The Chamber [of Commerce] released a poll today, and I'm just going to talk about a few of the things that jumped out at me from that poll.

I will say that overall, I think that the poll reflects that the priorities of the people of Seattle are also the priorities of this administration, and obviously, public safety is on a lot of people's minds with good reason. I've heard again and again over the course of this year from residents, business owners, community members across the city that public safety is a high priority.

I'm proud that my proposed budget that I transmitted a couple weeks ago to council fully funds SPD's staffing plan with 66 more officers funded next year than were funded in this year's budget. I'm proud that we're able to maintain expanded hours of our care, community crisis responder teams, and we're going to be continuing to work to make sure that we are sending the right responder to every call. And homelessness, obviously also very high priority for people in the city. The shelter kind of progress report that I released last month, excited that we are going to be able to open up almost 1,000 new units of emergency housing and shelter this year and next year with services that are designed to help people exiting chronic homelessness. And we're going to be working really hard with our service providers and also as we're bringing the city's contracts back in-house from the King County Regional Homelessness Authority to make sure that we have the most effective response possible to our homelessness crisis. This is a very, very top priority for me and my team.

The poll also shows that people want our city to be a great climate to start and run a business and that is a shared priority. The executive order that I signed last month on building a resilient Seattle economy, I'm excited to bring together a task force of people from public and private sector as we chart our economic future here in Seattle and our region. And also proud to have transmitted a budget that is balanced through 2030. And, you know, glad that the Chamber and some other folks in the business community are on board with that approach. I think this poll also demonstrates that people are very sensitive to the cost of living. And obviously, this was a big reason why I ran for this office and the big focus of the work that we are doing this year, very proud to have transmitted and have the council pass legislation for fair grocery pricing, prohibiting corporations from using our personal data to set individualized grocery prices, proud to have banned rental junk fees, proud that Seattle Public Schools is providing free breakfast and lunch for all school students starting this year, and also proud to transmit a proposed Seattle Transit measure that will make our lowest-cost form of transportation a viable option for more households, and provide a free annual passes for 22,000 households around our city.

So, we are chugging along trying to address the cost of living which, obviously, is a big job, so we're going to keep working at it. And then finally, I think the part of the poll which speaks to me very directly most is that people are proud, proud to be Seattleites. And they're optimistic about the direction that the city is going. And I share that pride and that optimism. So looking forward to continuing the work.

So I'm going to end there and happy to take questions.

Questions on Seattle safety, budget concerns

Reporter 1: You mentioned Kerry Park, and I was up there yesterday and the complaint from neighbors was not necessarily only about the gun violence, but the fact that there's been no mitigation in that area in terms of speed bumps or lighting. Why not talk to [Seattle Department of Transportation]? Why not talk to the Parks Department about doing some improvements in that era to deter the gun violence from happening there?

Mayor Wilson: Yeah, absolutely. I think we will be doing that. So the immediate step that we're taking is SPD is going to be doing some late night patrols to try to kind of break up that activity or prevent that activity before it starts. But yeah, very open to figuring out what we can do in the kind of built environment with SDOT and Parks to help, as well.

Reporter 2: Mayor, considering the recent shootings and the homicides you referenced at the beginning, you revealed your plan, your gun violence plan. With all that in mind, do you want to fast track any of the elements in your plan to try to deal with this? People are concerned that this is not being dealt with, but they also, in general, support your plan. What do you think you could fast track to make an effect right now?

Mayor Wilson: I mean, I would say that the plan is fast-tracking the many pieces of what we know we need to do to better prevent and respond to gun violence. So, some of this depends on the proposed budget, so that's in council's hands right now. But, the budget funds two new positions that will be housed within the CARE department that will help to oversee our gun violence reduction strategies. So, hopefully that, you know, those remain in the budget, and we can get that work started.

I know our departments are working hard to transfer those community violence intervention contracts over from our Human Services Department to care where they can be better integrated with our 9-1-1 response system. So that's kind of one piece of the work.

And I know we're working hard on a contract with the University of Washington to do that kind of landscape analysis and help us figure out the path forward for focus deterrents and other aspects of the strategy. So we are moving as fast as possible and we will continue to do the work.

Reporter 3: Mayor Wilson, you said that the administration is aligned with the respondents in the Chamber survey who said that public safety is their top priority, but that the same survey says 50% of those respondents are considering leaving Seattle. I'm wondering, what do you have to say to the 75% in the entire survey that says that they're not confident that Seattle hasn't affected public safety planning?

Mayor Wilson: Yeah, I would say that public safety is a very high priority for me and my administration. I think that's reflected in the budget that I transmitted to council and is reflected in the work that we're doing right now. So we're going to keep chugging along. And I think, you know, another big focus that, that we are working on is neighborhood-based public safety strategies. So, recognizing that different neighborhoods around our city need different things, right? They're issues that are city-wide.

But, these issues appear differently in different neighborhoods, whether you're talking about Rainier Beach, or North Aurora, or Belltown, or Little Saigon, and really durable progress. I mean, these are neighborhoods that have persistent public safety issues that have gone on for years and years, and in some cases decades. And we know that real progress means not just reacting to incidents when they occur, but taking that really deep look at the root causes. And that's something that takes time and my administration is committed to that work. And so that's one thing that we're working on right now is organizing ourselves internally to be able to work effectively with stakeholders in each neighborhood on that kind of longer-term plan that involves physical space improvements as well as how our first responders are operating.

Reporter 3: To follow up on that, you cite the police funding and the increases there as kind of evidence of your priority for public safety, but at the same time, you're providing more funding for staffing, but the staffing plan for the next few years shows that decreases substantially, where we could see less officers in two to three years than we have right now, despite the more funding. What do you have to say there? Will we have more officers with that funding, or is the funding just there, and we're not going to have the officers to hire?

Mayor Wilson: So, the current budget for the next biennium basically has us reaching 1,250 officers and then maintaining at that point. So that is what is in, in the budget.

Reporter 3: The budget, but not in reality. The hiring plan doesn't show that. The hiring plans shows hiring — I think it tops out at around 1,100 or so, and then it starts to drop a little bit — The funding is there, but will officers [unintelligible]?

Mayor Wilson: Absolutely. I mean, hiring is not our problem right now. We have lots and lots of applicants in the queue. We've hired over 100 officers this year. We've had a bottleneck in training that we're working to address, but we are not having a problem getting applicants in.

Reporter 3: So two years from now, Seattle will have more police officers than they do.

Mayor Wilson: That is, yes, that is, that, yes.

Reporter 4: The fire department is warning that budget cuts could affect the department's ability to respond to emergencies. How do you respond to that?

Mayor Wilson: Yeah, so in the context of a very large, you know, $175 million deficit, most of our departments have had to absorb reductions of between 1–8%.

In the case of the fire department, that is a reduction to their overtime budget and that was established through back and forth with the departments where we asked how they would want to take a reduction, and that is around 2% of their operating budget. So I'm confident that they can absorb that while still maintaining excellent response times and levels of service, and now it's in the council's hands and, so, you know, they can make whatever adjustments they want to make to that.

Reporter 4: Do you know what their overtime budget is and how they're working within that budget or going over that budget?

Mayor Wilson: We can get back to you on specifics if you have detailed questions on that.

Reporter 5: Can you preview, I understand that you're going to be doing a new homelessness plan that includes, for example, taking the Salvation Army off of neighborhood outreach in Capitol Hill and the other neighborhood they're in, which I'm forgetting. Can you preview anything that you're going to be doing in that?

Mayor Wilson: The short answer is no. So, I think the kind of progress report plan that I released in September is what we're able to share right now, but I'm sure we'll have more to show soon.

Reporter 5: Just, just wanted to get your reaction to some of the more punitive elements of the Community Court and HiPRO [High-Priority Repeat Offenses Program] plan that [City Attorney] Erika Evans announced last week, especially, you know, these new measures that are going to seek aggravated sentences for people who commit more than two misdemeanors.

Mayor Wilson: Yeah, I mean, I think that City Attorney Evans' plan is trying to balance that need to connect people with services, with also having accountability, and I'm looking forward to working with her to see how it works on implementation.

Reporter 6: Are we still on track, is the city still on track, does your office still on track, to get that report from NYU, the surveillance camera audit, by the end of this month — first piece — and will that in any way inform recommendations you might make to the City Council about public safety investments in this budget?

Mayor Wilson: Yeah, so yes, I believe we are on track to get the NYU Policing Audit around the end of this month. And, I think that probably doesn't have a lot to do with the budget process, right? If you look at what's in the budget regarding surveillance in the Real-Time Crime Center, we are funding positions that will allow the Real-Time Crime Center to expand to 24 hours. And, kind of, if we do proceed with the expansion that was approved last year, they have the staffing to cover that. So there's not really an immediate budget question there, but we will be sharing the results of that audit publicly.

Right now we're discussing what kind of community engagement we want to do before I make a decision about that plan expansion.

Reporter 1: To Brian's question, just to follow up, the idea that all these shootings have happened over the weekend in multiple spots around town, unsolved shootings, the Bite of Seattle shooting is still unsolved in terms of finding the killer. Based on what happened and based on all these shootings, does it change your mind on the expansion of the surveillance camera system? And that's apart from what's happening with this audit.

Mayor Wilson: Again, I think we really need the results of this audit so that we can understand where potential vulnerabilities are in the way that we are collecting and sharing, retaining and sharing data.

FOX 13 Seattle reporter Dan Griffin: Yeah, I'm curious about, so the Bite of Seattle shooting. We're coming up on now three months since this has happened. I've reached out to SPD pretty regularly to try to get an update — where are we? You know, one of the most common comments that I hear on social media is "Where are the suspects? Where is even just a shred of more information?" And I'm curious if you feel good about where we are in the investigation and if, by any chance, you see us moving forward more than maybe the rest of us can right now, because right now, I think a lot of people feel kind of in the dark.

Mayor Wilson: Yeah, I mean, I'm not going to have additional details to share than what SPD has told you. I think I and everyone at SPD — I don't speak for them — but I imagine as impatient as the public is for answers. And these investigations are complex, and it takes time to build a case and all that. So they're working hard, and I have faith in their work.

Reporter 2: The public confidence does capitalize on public safety. They go hand in hand. People want to see arrests. They want to see people brought to justice in things like the Bite of Seattle shooting.

There was a shooting in between KOMO and KIRO, young men was killed, where there was a street takeover. No arrest in that. But the family has been down there several times saying, "When is this going to happen?" People are literally saying about the Bite of Seattle — it's a case that apparently is going cold and the young man that was arrested, and the prosecutor's office says he may not have hit anybody and he may not kill anyone.

So where are these people? Becausec public confidence and public safety usually rests on arrest. So what do you say to that?

Mayor Wilson: Yeah, again, you know, it's important that we let our police department do their work and conduct these investigations in the professional manner to which they're, in which they are trained. So that's what we're doing.

Reporter 8: I wanted to ask about the Bite of Seattle moving forward, will there be a Bite of Seattle next year? And the second question is: how will the police department keep people safe next year? Because, I know just, like, over the past 20 years there's always been something going on with the Bite of Seattle with the young people. So moving forward, what is the plan to keep people more safe?

Because the police department, usually at big events, they're relaxed, they're laid back. And then when something happens, you know it's this mass dash. So I just wanted to get your perspective.

Mayor Wilson: Yeah, I'm assuming there will be a Bite of Seattle next year, but I don't want to, you know, I am not the decider there.

I will say that in the wake of that tragedy, SPD has been up-staffing for large events, and there have been ongoing conversations with Seattle Center about what they feel they need in terms of enhanced safety and security for large open events like that. You know, there's— I included $500,000 in my proposed budget for enhanced safety and security at Seattle Center. So, that will be an ongoing conversation.

Obviously, we want to make sure that, for that and many other large events at Seattle Center, that the public can feel entirely confident in their safety and security.

Reporter 9: This is an election question. You transmitted the Seattle transit tax. And I'm just wondering if there's anything, as voters are now getting their ballots and weighing whether or not to vote for that, is there anything you hope that they keep in mind?

Obviously, we have seen King County has offered up another sales tax — obviously the rising cost of living, SPU rates are going up — what do you hope people weigh as they vote on your measurement?

Mayor Wilson: Um, yeah, let me just consult with my lawyer. Am I allowed to answer this question? There's, there's some rules around, uh, talking about—

Reporter 9: [Laughs] Yeah, I know.

Lawyer: You can provide any type of education, but you cannot talk about whether or not people should be. 

Mayor Wilson: Got it, okay. So I'll just say some of what, about this measure[…]

Yeah, so this measure, if passed, will allow Seattle to invest about 100,000 more hours in the bus service that we purchased from King County Metro. And this will allow us to really significantly improve frequency and reliability on routes that people depend on. It will also allow us to expand our fully subsidized transit pass program from about 10,000 people who are served today to 22,000 in Seattle Housing Authority buildings and also Housing Choice voucher holders.

Both of those things would be a real expansion of transit access in Seattle. I think we're also in a moment where we're seeing transit ridership increase significantly in our region, which is exciting, looking at other cities and agencies around the country that are actually slashing transit service right now. And so, this offers an opportunity also to better connect with our growing light rail system, as well.

Reporter 9: I might, sorry, have it wrong, but if I ask, it's okay for her to respond to that—

Lawyer: I think that was a great answer.

Reporter 9: Well, I was just going to ask one follow-up question, please. Really, are you voting for, do you know if you're voting for Ann Burke or Sean O'Donnell on your personal ballot?

Lawyer: Don't answer that.

Mayor Wilson: I'm not going to, I'm not going to do that, thank you.

Reporter 10: You've spoken in the past about reforming tax reform or property tax at the state-wide level. You know, with the 1% LID [Land Improvement District], the land value tax, even taking Jumpstart statewide. Have you talked to legislators about this for the upcoming session? I mean, how much work have you done? And I know you just went through the budget process and transmitted the budget, but did that process change your mind on what should be reformed?

Mayor Wilson: Yeah, I mean, I'm not going to go into a lot of detail here, but I'll say we are in active conversation with state legislators about the upcoming session and about bills that they're interested in putting forward. And some of that includes revenue bills, whether that's state-level revenue bills or bills that would give cities like Seattle new revenue authority. So that's definitely an active conversation.

And yeah, the process of putting together my budget, I generally certainly did inform thinking about state legislative priorities that would be helpful for the city to do its work in that and the other areas.

Reporter 10: Are there any, like, progressive taxes you can talk about?

Mayor Wilson: I probably won't go into detail about that right now, but we're working on our agenda, yeah.

Reporter 11: I'm wondering if you can give us an update on the Housing Production Task Force's work. It's the first part of my question, and then the second is your reaction to another ruling that is delaying implementation of the sales comp plan, and not even allowing the growth plans of the previous administration.

Mayor Wilson: Yep, so we are in the process of convening our Housing Production Task Force. I don't have the date in my head, but that is in progress. I'm excited about that.

And yeah, I mean, it's unfortunate that the zoning changes that were approved last year are still being delayed, and it looks like maybe delayed for a while longer, so we're going to do everything we can on the city side to make things happen as fast as possible. But, yeah, that's that's where we're at.

Reporter 12: You are new to this career. So, can you talk a little bit about why, at this point in your political career, you decided to hold regular off-topics, and how you see it as a tool, and why you didn't want to do it before?

Mayor Wilson: Yeah, and I'll say it's not that I, we didn't want — this is something that we've actually talked about the possibility of, really, since the beginning. So it's something that I've, I think, wanted to do since the beginning, and there's just a lot that goes into, you know, standing up in the mayor's office and getting rolling, and so we just, we're at the point now where that seemed like a good thing to introduce.

Reporter 12: And I have one other issue I'm working on, which is first responders and overtime. Collie talked a little bit about fire overtime. And I'm curious about police overtime, if that was looked at during the budget process, and if they're even reporting their overtime in a way that you can assess it, that [unintelligible] doing an audit. And I don't know if, in your time, you've had a sense of what the police overtime budget really is — if it maybe should do some burden during the fire.

Mayor Wilson: Yeah, I mean, I'll say that in addition to asking [the fire department] to absorb some modest reductions, we've also asked SPD to absorb some modest reduction also equal to about 2% of their annual budget. And we had a similar process of going back and forth with SPD on the way that they would prefer to absorb those reductions. And we landed on the reduction of some vacant and also several filled positions. All right, we're almost out of time.

Dan Griffin: Yeah, I was going to ask, so this year has been a real whopper for a lot of small businesses. It's been pretty tough. We've talked to quite a few who have ended up closing their doors. A great lady over in Wallingford, Pam Jacobs, she runs Pam's Caribbean Kitchen. She's going to be closing her doors after, like, 20 years. And one of the things she brought up were excise taxes, and she got behind on bills and all these different things.

I noticed a panel of businesses looking at diversifying our economy. But do you have any plans of building a panel of small businesses, just small businesses, to get an idea of what's going on and maybe how we can move forward together? 

Mayor Wilson: Yeah, totally. That's a great question. And I think that all the cost pressures that are hitting households in our city are also hitting small businesses, plus more. So the Building Resilient Economy Task Force that I'm bringing together actually does include small business, right? So there's a couple of representatives on there representing the small business community.

But more importantly, that task force is very broad, and there's a lot there that we need them to work on. So what I'm envisioning is that that will spin off into some separate groups to focus on specific areas, and I think that part of that will be small business. So, we'll be bringing in more small businesses. But, also I think it's important to recognize that we also know the issues they're facing. So, we don't need a whole other big process to actually understand the cost pressures.

And part of what that executive order that I signed does is direct OED to just do some things, right? So to work on, for example, the permitting process for small businesses, like, what can we do to streamline that to make it easier for small business to navigate city processes when they're needing the city to do something for them to be able to start or expand or operate or whatever, right?

So, we're already, that work is ongoing and definitely committed to doing more of it, because I definitely understand that small businesses are in a hard place right now.

Reporter 4: It's obviously been a very challenging year for you. Is the job what you expected it to be and, on a day-to-day basis do you enjoy it? 

Mayor Wilson: I love this job, like, honestly, it is such an honor to be in this position where day to day I get to make decisions that can have a positive impact on the lives of people around this city. I'm learning a lot, this is not a boring job, and yes, obviously, it's also a challenging job that comes with controversy and there's always someone mad, right?

But, overall, I just feel incredibly privileged to be in this position, and yeah, I am enjoying it.

Reporter 5: There's a lot of discussion about Aurora and how to stop gun violence there and barricades and all that stuff. But one thing that I think has not come up much is the need to actually help survivors and people, the women and girls that are out there. Alexis Mercedes Rinck is introducing legislation, our budget proposal tomorrow, to fund some survivor services and also gender-based violence services.

Are you aware of that? Is that something that you're on board with? I imagine it'll cut into some part of your budget.

Mayor Wilson: Yeah, I mean, I'm always on board with providing more services to people who need services. And that's part of the reason why, in my proposed budget, I went to great lengths to preserve funding for a lot of the work of the Human Services Department, which includes a lot of services for survivors and victims of trafficking and domestic violence. So, it was really important to me to maintain the investments that the city is already making in that area, and absolutely recognize that it is not enough, right? In so many areas, what the city is able to do right now is not it enough.

So I'm glad that council member Rinck is pushing for more funding. And yes, as you say, there will be a question of if we're going to do that, then what else are we cutting?

You know, I think there's also, there's a revised revenue forecast coming up, I believe around the end of this week. So. I think in a good scenario, that actually gives the council some more money to play with and they're able to fund some priorities like that without actually cutting other things, so we'll see what happens there.

MORE NEWS FROM FOX 13 SEATTLE

Problems growing with ‘Larch Madness’ in WA's North Cascades

1 dead, 1 injured after drive-by shooting at South Seattle nightclub

Tiger that killed man at wildlife park will not be euthanized, officials say

Longtime Seattle restaurant Pam's Caribbean Kitchen closing Nov. 29

12 killed, over 300 hurt in attack at Saudi airport, officials say

Trump says Russia, Ukraine agree to immediate ‘energy ceasefire’ amid tensions with Zelenskyy

Seattle Kraken surge late to top Capitals in 5-3 victory

To get the best local news, weather and sports in Seattle for free, sign up for the daily FOX Seattle Newsletter.

Download the free FOX LOCAL app for mobile in the Apple App Store or Google Play Store for live Seattle news, top stories, weather updates and more local and national news.