Tag: seattle

This Won’t End Well… Seattle Becomes First City To Price-Fix Your Groceries

This week the Seattle City Council passed Mayor Katie Wilson’s “Fair Pricing and Transparency” ordinance in a 7-2 vote, a first-in-the-nation ban on so-called surveillance pricing.

The ordinance takes effect in 2027. The Washington Retail Association warned for months that the bill was rushed, would have significant and negative impact on prices, and that nearly all suggested fixes were ignored.

As approved, retailers must decide whether they can keep offering the tailored discounts and loyalty programs that Seattle families actually use or cancel all the programs and charge more for groceries.

Government should not be price-fixing consumer products.

Banning the use of loyalty cards and programs, fuel rewards, and targeted coupons hurts businesses and consumers alike.

Price controls do not make groceries cheaper. They flatten the tools stores use to compete for customers. When discounts vanish, the shelf price becomes the only price. That is how an “affordability” law raises a customer’s grocery bill. A Greater Seattle Business Association and Seattle Latino Metropolitan Chamber guest column put it plainly: trying to control prices through experimental regulation has never worked, and this ordinance will make an already expensive city more unaffordable.

Jan Himebaugh of the Washington Retail Association offered a household example, nearly $1,000 in grocer loyalty savings this year for her family, the equivalent of more than 185 gallons of gas in a state where fuel is among the nation’s most expensive. Those are not corporate talking points. They are the coupons that keep a cart full.

Thin-margin stores close. When they close, the result is the very “food deserts” Mayor Wilson has spent a campaign and a mayoralty promising to fight. Wilson has said Seattle will not accept food deserts as the cost of doing business, but the “Fair Pricing” policy creates a retail environment that does exactly the opposite.

A pricing ordinance that chases discounts out of the city works against that goal. You cannot subsidize corner markets on Sunday and make their discount model legally hazardous on Tuesday.

If Wilson wants more grocery access, the path is not to micromanage how a retailer prices a gallon of milk. It is to stop piling first-in-the-nation experiments onto businesses already carrying Seattle’s tax and regulatory load.

Personalized discounts are not surveillance. They are how competitive stores keep prices down and stay open. Kill those discounts, and the desert grows.

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A $120 Can of Spam Busts Open Seattle’s Food Stamp Fraud

Look in the mirror: You’re looking at an attractive, smart, hardworking taxpayer. 

And here’s where hundreds of millions of your food stamp tax dollars are going: straight into the hands of addicts, the pockets of pimps, and the funds of charlatans. 

It wasn’t bad enough that California hospice owners were driving Ferraris bought with stolen tax money, and that FireAID donations were given to nonprofits that had nothing to do with actual, you know, fire aid. Now we discover that food stamp fraud is taking place in the open on the streets of America, and nobody’s doing anything about it, apparently.

Independent reporter Nick Shirley, with a group of other indy reporters, revealed the open-air federal food stamp fraud taking place on the streets of Seattle. 

Shirley, San Francisco-based street reporter Darren Stallcup, Seattle’s Jonathan Choe, and other intrepid indy reporters followed the money. 

Choe tells Shirley that EBT cards litter homeless encampments, where they receive so many of them that they begin to throw them away. Many of those “homeless” drug zombies use their food stamp cards to buy drugs. 

Choe and Shirley found EBT cards and sought to follow the lucrative scam from beginning to end. Shirley lays out how simple this is in a new video displaying how one abandoned EBT card can buy drugs, sex, and a $120 can of Spam.

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Agenda of Seattle’s Socialist Mayor Crashes Into the Reality of Crime and Homelessness

Seattle’s new socialist Mayor Katie Wilson entered office with a grand, left wing agenda, but it is stalling out because of a little thing called reality.

It turns out that creating a progressive utopia takes a back seat to dealing with the very real problems of crime and homelessness, and Seattle has plenty of those things.

Maybe the city should have elected someone with a little more real job experience.

FOX News reports:

Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson’s socialist agenda stalls amid homelessness and public safety concerns

Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson, a democratic socialist, has run into major roadblocks while trying to enact her agenda in the city as she grapples with public safety concerns and homelessness.

Wilson campaigned on adding 1,000 homeless shelter units in each year of her term, despite concerns from some advisors about the feasibility of the goal, according to The Wall Street Journal. However, her administration’s current plan calls for adding nearly 1,000 shelter beds by the end of 2027, the Journal reported.

The mayor told The Seattle Times in September that her original goal was a way to get people talking about the crisis…

Wilson surprised her supporters with a proposed budget released in September that included no new taxes and more funding for police, the Journal reported.

“I have made the difficult decision to transmit a budget without major new revenue,” Wilson said in a speech in September, according to KOMO News. “Right now, we don’t have good options to raise more progressive revenue that don’t also come with great risks. Our economy and especially our downtown are fragile. In that context, raising additional revenue through JumpStart is not the right move.”

Welcome to the real world, Madam Mayor.

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Seattle’s Mayor Would Rather Hire Private Security to Prevent Crime Than Help Her Police Force

Once again, Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson just doesn’t “get it” when it comes to giving law enforcement the traditional funding it needs – and deserves, for that matter.

She’s still seeing a lot of fallout from the controversial dismissal of Police Chief Shon Barnes, and no doubt she’s getting pressure from all sides with the increase in criminal activity within the city itself. But she announced a recent decision that has me questioning her actions even more – such as why she doesn’t feel the need to support her local police.

According to Fox News, Wilson has introduced a new initiative for local grocery stores, using taxpayer money to fund security officers to help prevent criminal activity, including thefts and break-ins. The $1.7 million initiative has been penciled in as part of the city’s 2026 budget.

With her decision, Wilson explained, “Keeping our neighborhood grocery stores safe and supported is essential to making every Seattleite has a reliable, affordable grocery store near them.”

While I can get behind the idea of supporting businesses and making sure there’s security, I’m not a fan of the path she’s taken when it comes to funding.

When you look at the finer details, do you have any idea what good a $1.7 million boost would do for a police department? They could fund more necessary gear to keep officers safe. Not to mention putting funding into mental health, a very crucial ingredient to the success of police officers. After all, if they don’t get the support they require for mental stability, there’s a very good chance they could leave their job due to duress and stress.

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Doctor Doom Thanked Seattle for All the Surveillance Cameras

Doctor Doom took the podium at a Public Safety Committee meeting on Tuesday to thank the council for covering the city in surveillance cameras. “Doom took over Axon enterprises […] and now Doom will be watching you. Your continued cooperation expanding Doom’s surveillance network is required,” the Marvel supervillain said.

“This is the first of Doom’s gifts to the city of Seattle. The second gift is this: Doom will expand the real-time crime center to all neighborhoods with over 1,000 cameras watching every move,” Doom said. “Doom has total dominion over the city of Seattle. Doom will be behind the cameras watching those seeking reproductive or gender-affirming care. Doom will be able to find your immigrant neighbors and Doom will be able to ensure the safety of the women of Seattle alongside officers that stalk their exes.”

Doom is actually Clifford Cawthon, a policy advisor for the Washington State Department of Commerce. Cawthorn donned the silver mask and gloves to draw attention to tech-driven mass surveillance in Seattle, an issue he’s been passionate about for years. Cawthon is also a member of Community Not Cameras, a local activist group that’s attempting to reign in Seattle’s use of surveillance systems sold by Flock and Axon.

Seattle’s PD has access to 62 surveillance cameras around the city, many of them hooked up to a real-time crime center (RTCC). “The RTCC takes in information from a vast pool of sources, including CCTV, [body-worn camera], geolocation data, automatic license plate recognition (ALPR), alert sources like shot detection or alarm systems, and computer-aided dispatch (CAD) software,” according to a description on the surveillance company Axon’s website.

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Seattle Police Chief Invites Widespread Internet Ridicule After Using This Absurd Two-Word Term to Describe Shooters 

A police chief in one of America’s most notorious left-wing cities has decided the word “shooter” is too mean and a more sensitive term is needed to replace it. As one would expect, this is already backfiring.

On Monday, interim Seattle Police Chief Andre Sayles held a press conference to address the three fatal shootings that occurred over the weekend in the city’s Belltown neighborhood.

The Belltown area of the Emerald City has recently experienced a surge in violence. In addition to the shootings, residents have complained about rampant illegal drug use, burglaries, and property damage.

After a reporter asked Sayles what was being done to combat the increase in violence, the police chief gave an unconvincing answer before seemingly inventing a new term to describe shooters.

“(We’re) working with our community response group and our gun violence reduction unit as well,” Sayles said. “Looking at ways to identify individuals that are…trigger pullers in our community.”

Trigger pullers sound like something a toddler would use. But Sayles is apparently so scared of offending criminals that he feels compelled to use this silly, childish term.

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Blue-City Would Rather Go After Community Group Cleaning Up the Streets Than Address Unsafe Conditions

Andrea Suarez, the founder of We Heart Seattle, just wanted to help clean up Seattle and make it a safer place to live. According to their website, the organization has cleaned up over 2,100,000 pounds of trash from parks and shared spaces including dangerous discarded drug paraphernalia distributed through city and county harm reduction programs.

Suarez told Fox News Digital, “One of the biggest advocacy work I have done is that I go to the needle exchange and I get what they call the ‘party kit,’ and I demonstrated that our King County ‘Health’ Department is handing out cookers and tourniquets and glass pipes and paraphernalia to do drugs.”

“I was referring to this ‘party kit’ as a ‘suicide kit’ with very little, if no information on where to get medical detox.”

Now, the group is now facing a state workplace-safety investigation over the way its volunteers pick up and dispose of used hypodermic needles and fentanyl foil which Suarez “says is its first government probe.”

Suarez told The Center Square, “We received the notice through an email. I sent it to my board of directors. I talked to an attorney. Kind of scary, right? You get this letter demanding all these forms. We, of course, asked for an extension.”

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THAT WAS FAST: Seattle’s New Socialist Mayor Katie Wilson Already Facing Recall Effort

Seattle’s new socialist Mayor Katie Wilson took office a little more than six months ago and is already facing a recall effort.

In July, she faced real scrutiny from the press when she fired the city’s police chief following a shooting. She was also in the news for urging trans ‘refugees’ to come to the city for taxpayer funded care.

There’s no telling whether or not the recall effort will work. It’s not easy to remove an elected official from office unless they’re facing real criminal charges.

FOX 13 in Seattle reports:

Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson recall charges: What to know

Two people in Seattle have filed a recall charge against Mayor Katie Wilson, alleging she has “neglected her legal duty to maintain public safety and peace.”

The recall comes amid a slew of city controversies, the latest being the continued fallout from the deadly Bite of Seattle shooting, and the forced resignation of Police Chief Shon Barnes.

Melinda Jacobson and Dale Osterud filed the paperwork with the King County Elections Office on Tuesday, Aug. 11, alleging that Wilson is “derelict in her duties for public safety” of the City of Seattle.

The recall charge points to five specific events: the forced resignation of then-Police Chief Shon Barnes, shootings and sex trafficking in the North Aurora neighborhood, crime and drug use in the Chinatown International District, crime in Belltown and the deactivation of CCTV cameras for police use around the city.

The filing outlines safety issues across several Seattle areas, including North Aurora, Chinatown International District, Belltown and Third Avenue.

In North Aurora, residents reported sex trafficking, prostitution and gun battles putting bullets through homes and businesses between January and June. Neighbors installed temporary gunfire barriers that the mayor had removed on June 6, though SDOT later placed trial barriers after a June 30 meeting.

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There’s a Real Problem in Seattle, and With Its Clueless Mayor, It’s Hard to See Resolution

There’s been a real mess brewing in the city of Seattle, and things have just about reached a fever pitch.

Criminal activity has reached an all-time high within the city, thanks to an inept Mayor, Katie Wilson, who can’t seem to figure out how to benefit her police department more. But then came a terrifying act – a mass shooting during the Bite of Seattle food event – on Sunday evening that has managed to leave three dead and a toddler wounded.

The police have acted quickly enough to apprehend a suspect, but they are still investigating the matter. But the shooting has led to a series of questions, namely surrounding then police chief Shon Barnes.

Apparently Barnes had been traveling at the time of the shooting, as he had just taken a trip from Chicago and was visiting the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives in Dallas. 

Of course, officers are allowed to visit events such as this, but apparently Barnes took criticism of his out of town visit the wrong way.

During a press conference earlier this week, Barnes actually got into a confrontation with a reporter who kept pressing him about his being out of town, insisting he was dedicated to his city. It’s clear the pressure had gotten to him, and he simply needed to contain himself before he did something he regretted.

Now, I don’t personally know the history of Barnes, though it sounds like it might have been a bit troubled. But rather than work with him to try and put the pieces together on what happened and, more importantly, trying to keep it from occurring again, Mayor Wilson instead decided to give him a choice – resign or be fired. 

Which is a horrible decision. It’s true that the shooting was a tragedy, and the press conference did not do Barnes any favors. But to come to such a drastic decision and leave the city with even more questions? It just shows how absolutely flawed Wilson’s leadership is.

Barnes chose to resign, with Wilson saying, “I’ll say this decision was not solely due to the events of Sunday. Multiple factors figured into this decision and into the conversation that the Chief and I had.”

But a different resolution couldn’t have been made? Suspension? An investigation into the matter? It sounds like Wilson’s just trying to save face with her voter base, rather than standing behind the police and trying to right the wrongs.

Again, I can’t speak on Barnes’ record, I just can’t help but think Wilson doesn’t “get it” when it comes to doing what’s right for the city. And I’m not the only one who thinks this.

City Council President Joy Hollingsworth and council members Bob Kettle, Dan Strauss and Debora Juarez made a joint statement following the resignation. “Having cycled through four police chiefs in just two and a half years, our priority must be stability, not further disruption. The people of Seattle deserve reliable leadership, especially as we close out a busy summer of public events.”

That says everything you need to know right there. Four police chiefs in less than three years. That means Wilson has butted heads with every single one of them, potentially wiping out any plans to give them the support they deserve.

What’s more, a letter penned by the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle and the Seattle NAACP noted that Barnes “should not be made a scapegoat for the complex challenges of public safety.”

So you’ve got a troubled police chief who didn’t even get a chance to validate himself for his actions and a mayor who can’t see eye to eye with, well, anyone in law enforcement. It’s a real mess, and the people of Seattle deserve far better.

There is light at the end of the tunnel here, and that’s with Deputy Chief Andre Sayles, who has stepped into the role of interim chief. It sounds like he’s good with Seattle police as a whole, with Kent Loux, President of the Seattle Police Officers Guild, noting he’s a “good pick.”

Now we just need Wilson to settle down and actually work with the police to make things good again. Between not addressing the shooting for several hours (which, surprise, she blamed the police for when it was clearly her fault) and dismissing a police chief before he even had a chance to figure out a proper resolution, I have zero faith in her at the moment. All we can hope is that she’ll work with Sayles and actually move forward in giving the police the support they need.

Because, otherwise, we’ll be looking at number five in a long line of police officials that Wilson can’t stand, and we have no idea who she’ll pick next.

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Socialist Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson FIRES Police Chief Shon Barnes Days After He Went Missing in Action During Deadly Bite of Seattle Festival Mass Shooting

Seattle’s far-left Mayor Katie Wilson reportedly fired Police Chief Shon Barnes on Wednesday night, just days after a deadly mass shooting rocked the city and triggered fierce scrutiny of City Hall’s disastrous response.

According to five sources who spoke to FOX 13 Seattle, Barnes began texting people Wednesday evening about his dismissal.

He had been scheduled for one-on-one media interviews that afternoon, but those were abruptly canceled. Barnes appeared at a silent vigil for the victims around 6:30 p.m., placed flowers, then left abruptly for a meeting with the mayor, after which he was told to resign.

According to KIRO Newsradio, Barnes reportedly refused to resign.

Investigative journalist Brandi Kruse reported that, according to her sources, Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes has been told to resign or be fired and could be out as early as Thursday, while officers reportedly describe City Hall as being in “absolute, rudderless chaos.”

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