KUOW Blog
News, factoids, and insights from KUOW's newsroom. And maybe some peeks behind the scenes. Check back daily for updates.
Have any leads or feedback for the KUOW Blog? Contact Dyer Oxley at dyer@kuow.org.
Stories
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Seattle police chief's alleged relationship with employee prompts inquiries, roils department
The rumor started spreading in February.
Whispers that Seattle Police Chief Adrian Diaz was involved in a romantic relationship with a woman he would, months later, hire to be a high ranking advisor who reports to him.
After the advisor started on the job, the rumor reached a fever pitch, fueling an ongoing distraction across the department. It was discussed, according to six officers from different parts of the department, at unit meetings, a staff-wide union meeting, and on the street corner during All-Star Week. It was mentioned in a scathing letter by a retiring lieutenant and posted to a conservative Facebook group.
Diaz himself addressed it with his command staff, according to two sources, telling them that he believed the rumor started with one of them — and that he intended to investigate.
Diaz has denied the relationship was ever romantic through his attorney, Ted Buck, a defense lawyer who has long represented Seattle cops. Buck told KUOW that Diaz and the advisor are friends, nothing more.
“This is a man who has family, who has children,” Buck said. “Are they romantic friends? No, they are not.”
What started as water cooler chatter about the big boss has morphed into a hydra of internal probes and fact finding missions. One investigation came at Diaz’s behest to ferret out the rumormongers — the chief went so far as to involve the FBI and U.S. Department of Homeland Security, according to Buck.
The FBI and Homeland Security declined to comment.
The latest inquiry turns the spotlight on Diaz. For the past two months, the Office of Police Accountability, the city’s police watchdog agency, has been conducting a preliminary investigation into Diaz’s alleged relationship with his advisor, who was hired with a salary of $163,900.
The intake investigation was instigated by several anonymous complaints to the office, alleging behavior that would violate city policy on supervisor/employee relationships, which says the department will not “knowingly place employees with a family or personal relationship in a supervisor/subordinate assignment.”
The OPA director, with the Office of Inspector General, will determine whether or not the allegations warrant further investigation, according to an OPA process for complaints directed at the police chief.
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Scenes from an Eastern Washington town devastated by wildfire
The Gray Fire near Medical Lake, west of Spokane, destroyed 240 homes and burned over 10,000 acres after starting on Aug. 18.
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Wheelless in Seattle: Bainbridge ferry nixes cars, bikes for a week
Brace yourselves, Bainbridge Island commuters. No cars, motorcycles, bicycles, or scooters will be allowed on the Bainbridge-to-Seattle ferry route for an entire week.
The restrictions start Thursday, Sept. 7 at 1 a.m. and will last through 3 a.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 13.
This means the Bainbridge/Seattle ferry route will be limited to walk-on passengers only and will be reduced to a one-boat schedule.
RELATED: Colman Dock is back! Ferry riders delight in Seattle's upgraded terminal
The reason for the wheelless interruption is that work crews will be constructing a new, more fortified overhead walkway at the Bainbridge ferry terminal.
The current walkway is more than 50 years old and is supported by wood pilings. Officials are concerned that these piling could collapse during an earthquake. The plan is to replace them with a steel-fortified walkway, anchored by concrete and steel columns. which will be designed to hold up against tremors.
Pedestrians will also be able to use this new walkway at the same time vehicles are loading on the car deck, making for speedier boarding.
Big picture: It's good news as this route is starting to see a return to pre-pandemic levels of walk-on ridership. According to WSDOT, more than 3.2 million people used the Bainbridge terminal walkway each year before the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Strike is 'looking more likely,' some Seattle school staff say
Updated on 9/6/23: Seattle Public Schools reached a tentative agreement with the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 302 on Tuesday, averting a strike and allowing the district’s nearly 50,000 students to return to classrooms on time for the first day Wednesday.
RELATED: Seattle Public Schools narrowly averts strike, allowing kids to return to classes
Days before the first day of school, one of the unions representing Seattle Public Schools staffers says a strike is becoming increasingly likely.
Students are due to return to classrooms Wednesday. It’s unclear how soon the union is considering a strike, but in a statement Tuesday, district officials say they anticipate starting the school year on time.
The union represents about 600 SPS employees, including school custodians, gardeners, food service workers, and security staff.
The district's contract with the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 302 expired last week. They have yet to come to a new agreement.
Shelly Filippi, a field representative for the union, said they're returning to the bargaining table with the district sometime this week.
In a press release sent out Sunday, the union said its workers are among the lowest paid workers in Seattle schools, and that neighboring districts with smaller budgets pay their staff more. The union urged the district to give them a fair contract with higher wages, arguing they are essential to the district's operations.
The union said security staff keep students and staff safe, culinary workers prepare and serve students breakfast and lunch, custodians create "clean, warm, and welcoming" environment in schools, and the gardeners keep grounds "looking their best."
"These conditions are often taken for granted," the press release said. "Without them, the students' needs will not be met. The educators will not be able to do their best teaching. The students will not be able to do their best learning."
In a statement on Monday, SPS officials said they are "actively working" to get a new contract in place, noting "it is not unusual to go past the contract end date for these negotiations."
Just last year, a teachers strike set Seattle’s first day of school back by a week.
This is a developing story that will be updated.
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Mike's adventures in art: PAX, Bumbershoot, Midsummer Night's Dream
If you're looking for tips on how to experience art in the Seattle area, you're in the right place. In this weekly post, KUOW reporter Mike Davis has suggestions for what to do around Seattle over the weekend so you can have your own adventures in arts and culture.
Arts Events
PAX, aka, the Penny Arcade Expo, is downtown in the Convention Center this weekend. This marks the 19th year of the event that has grown from 3,000 gamers in Bellevue to over 120,000 descending on downtown. For those unfamiliar, this is kind of like comic con for video games. What makes this event so special, besides the homegrown roots and the robust community, is that PAX has always been about the people who play video games, not the retailers. So for anyone who plays games on their cell phone, or enjoys gathering around board games with friends and family, or more modern gamers on PC, Playstation, or Nintendo — this event will have something for you! As an added bonus, for the first time outside of Japan, Nintendo will be hosting their big event, Nintendo Live, right here in Seattle at PAX.
For more info on PAX, check out this segment from Soundside.
PAX West, at the Convention Center Labor Day Weekend.
Bumbershoot, is back at the Seattle Center for Labor Day weekend. This year's revamped festival will feature the live music folks remember from recent years, but will now have a ton of arts experiences infused into the festivities. This includes not only visual art and sculptures, but tattoo art, fashion, culinary art, semi-pro wrestling, and more. I’m excited to check out the new festival and find out more about the Cat Circus that I keep hearing about!
Bumbershoot, at the Seattle Center September 1-2
Theater
"A Midsummer Night’s Dream," is playing at Tacoma Arts Live. This production led me to contemplate on why this column exists. The purpose I hope to serve is more focused on tips for enjoyable experiences in the arts than theatrical or artistic critique. I tend to do both at times, but I believe enjoying art is more important than discussing whether or not the art is “good.” I say this here, because if I were to approach this discussion of Tacoma Arts Live’s production of "A Midsummer Night’s Dream" from a critical standpoint, it would be harsh. The reason why I am not focusing on a critical review that may deter readers from seeing this production for themselves, is because despite the deficiencies of this production, I had a really good time! And it is my hope that people come to this column not for theatrical critiques that nail down the technical components we see on stage, but instead to hear about places people can go for fun and enjoyable experiences in the arts. So, before any of you — and you know who you are — fire off that email or post on social media about everything that this production is not, allow me to tell people what this production is…
Fun! It’s a Shakespeare play, set in Hawaii, in the space that houses Utopian Garden. About 80% of the space is covered in a floor-wall LCD screen that acts as a backdrop with flowering gardens, hidden cottages, and castles that at times blend into the story unfolding on stage, but also has moments of distraction. For example, in solemn moments when characters are professing their love through flowery Shakespearean dialogue, the bright fauna filled screen is alive with fireflies wheezing around that for some reason are audible and pulling my attention away from the actors. I want the illusion of being in the forest, not the audio experience of being there.
But even with the technical hiccups, the production was successful. And the crowd played a role in that. I seemed to be the only one that didn’t get the memo that we were all supposed to show up in Hawiian shirts and flower lays. The seating also leaned into the aesthetic. There were two rows of folding chairs on either side of the stage, but the center was a big soft “carpet” that functioned as sand on a beach. Some folks brought beach chairs, some laid out on towels, and some just cozied on the rug. It was like watching a play while sitting at the beach.
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Oregon Road Fire survivor recounts harrowing escape
Justin Knutsen and his family had mere minutes to escape their home in Elk, Washington, as the Oregon Road Fire bore down on them.
"We need to get out of here now," Knutsen recalled, while sharing his experience with UW Medicine from his hospital bed at Harborview Medical Center.
It was Friday, Aug. 18, and Knutsen had just packed up his wife and infant daughter when a sheriff's deputy warned that the wildfire, north of Spokane, had changed direction — it was headed straight for them.
But there were others Knutsen had to warn first. He sent his family to safety in a separate vehicle and took off in his truck to find a friend and his mother. As we was driving back, however, he ran into a think wall of thick black smoke.
"I probably made it 45 seconds past that black smoke, and my truck shut off," Knutsen said.
Nothing worked. It was dead. He then only had one option — he had to run.
He did his best to cover his face with his shirt while he was surrounded by heavy smoke and extreme heat. He could barely open his eyes as he ran.
Knutsen screamed as he ran, and suddenly, he heard a faint honking — "'beep beep.' And then, a second later, 'beep beep.' And then, a second later, 'beep beep.'"
Soon, he saw the headlights.
"At this point, I was watching my skin drip off, like, like, drip off," Knutsen said. "My skin was melting."
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Listen to the last song Toki, the captive orca, sang, a tune her mother taught her
In all the coverage of Tokitae, the captive orca who died at the Miami Seaquarium on August 18, perhaps the most heartrending detail was that Toki sang the songs her mother and pod taught her before she was captured in the Salish Sea in 1970, at age 4. She reportedly sang these songs her whole life in her tank in Miami.
On Sunday on San Juan Island, Lummi tribal members honored Toki’s life and what she meant to them. They played what is believed to be the last recording of her singing before she died, at age 57.
Toki’s song is a clear whistle, starting with four plaintive notes. It is sophisticated and beautiful and haunting:
For those who wished for Toki’s return to her native waters as she grew older, there were small comforts that emerged after her death.
Orca Network Langley posted that as she began to struggle and move onto the next world, “her entire family was off the west side of San Juan Island in what these days is a rare gathering, with all three pods swimming up and down the island, socializing in a superpod.”
A superpod happens with the J, K, and L pods come together. Among the pod is L25, believed to be Toki’s mother. L25, also known as Ocean Sun, is believed to be 94 years old and the oldest living Southern Resident killer whale.
The orca network wrote, “This is often a cultural, social ritual to mark a significant event in their community, and we believe they were welcoming her home.”
They continued, “Toki is finally home, maybe not the way we wanted, but her family seems to know she is with them once again, in ways we may never comprehend.”
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Asian American community on edge after targeted home invasions in South Seattle
Asian American leaders and city officials are reacting to news this week that a series of more than a dozen violent robberies in South Seattle targeted elderly Asian residents and their families.
The crimes have revived concerns that non-native English speakers and first-generation immigrants might be wary of police, even if they are the victims of violent crimes, and renewed a push to provide the Asian American community in South Seattle with resources so they can better protect themselves and their families.
At a press conference Tuesday, Seattle Police Detective Judinna Gulpan said police suspect all 14 robberies since June have been conducted by the same group of teenagers.
During the robberies, some victims have been pistol whipped. In one instance, a 10-year-old was led through their house at gunpoint while the family was robbed.
Connie So, president of the Organization of Chinese Americans of Greater Seattle and a professor at UW, lives in Beacon Hill, one of several neighborhoods that have been targeted.
So said home invasions have been an issue in South Seattle for a long time.
“My mom passed away a few years ago, and at that time, she was always telling me, ‘This person just got a home invasion robbery, that person has gotten a home invasion robbery,” So said.
Some of the people targeted in the most recent string of robberies were first-generation immigrants, part of inter-generational homes, who were not native-English speakers, and might not have trusted institutions like the local government and the police, So said.
“I think what hits home is the fact that so many of the people I know who have been going through these crimes, they don't really want to talk about that much,” she said.
What’s likely driving these home robberies are ongoing problems — a lack of resources and lack of community connection, So said.
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Ingraham High School seeks federal funds to cope with repercussions of school shooting
As a new schoolyear begins, Seattle's Ingraham High School is applying for nearly half a million dollars in federal funding to help it rebound from last November's deadly school shooting, in which one student was killed.
In its grant application Seattle Public Schools said, “The impact the shooting has had on students’ learning as well as student and staff wellbeing is beyond what could have been imagined. Review of the data suggests Ingraham students and staff are hurting. However, with adequate resources and support, we can get back to a routine of consistency, predictability, and structure within the Ingraham school community.”
According to the application, the largest single priority for the $494,000 federal grant would be the ongoing salary for a full-time “house administrator,” a staff member in charge of holding reentry meetings with students who have been disciplined and creating safety plans, among other duties. That position was hired last year.
The grant would also fund an additional security specialist, and resources to contract with community-based, culturally responsive mental health supports.
The Seattle Public School Board voted Wednesday to accept the money from the U.S. Education Department’s School Emergency Response to Violence initiative, or Project SERV, if the federal government approves the grant and awards the funding. An SPS spokesperson said there's no set timeline for that decision.
RELATED: About the gun that killed a boy at Seattle’s Ingraham High School
Seventeen-year-old Ebenezer Haile died on the campus of the North Seattle school Nov. 8, 2022 after being shot by a fellow student. A student who was 14 at the time has been charged with first-degree murder and assault in Haile’s death. Another student was also arrested and charged in connection with the shooting.
KUOW reporters traced the history of the gun that was used that day at Ingraham High School.
According to the Seattle Public Schools’ grant application seeking federal assistance, “After police and school administration determined the school environment was safe, students were led to the auditorium for reunification with their families. The grueling reunification process took over two hours. Students and staff were crying, hungry, and in disbelief. You could see the impact and trauma the shooting already was having on the Ingraham community. The school shooting was also coming days after another Ingraham student had overdosed and died.”
The shooting continued to reverberate throughout the rest of the school year. During the remainder of the schoolyear, officials say Ingraham saw drops in attendance and academic performance, especially among seniors, and spikes in mental health referrals and disciplinary incidents including threats to others. The school also had an increased number of staff on leave.
The federal Project SERV grants are intended to help educational institutions “recover from a violent or traumatic event in which the learning environment has been disrupted.”
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Time and money: The cost of Labor Day 2023 travel plans
Washington and Oregon drivers continue to pay more for gas than the rest of the nation as the Labor Day travel weekend approaches.
The national average for a gallon of regular gasoline is around $3.83, according to AAA's data as of Tuesday morning.
RELATED: Road trip! Kicking the tires on electric travel in the Northwest
Oregon has the fourth-most expensive gas in the U.S. at around $4.80 a gallon, Oregon Public Broadcasting reports. That is slightly lower than prices in California, Washington, and Hawaii. The Medford region has the highest average price in Oregon at about $4.85, one cent higher than the Portland area. Just over the state border, Vancouver has an average of nearly $5.10.
In Washington, the average price is $5.11. King County is averaging $5.31.
OPB notes that West Coast usually sees the highest gas prices because it's relatively far from oil-producing parts of the country. Nationally, crude oil prices have simmered after a recent increase, largely driven by a cut in Middle East oil production this spring.
RELATED: What we do and don't know about high gas prices in Washington
Although national prices may be stagnating, drivers should expect a jump closer to Labor Day weekend as more people book flights and plan road trips.
The Washington State Patrol will be keeping an extra close eye on weekend traffic as drivers hit the roads. WSP is also activating its Mobile Impaired Driving Unit which specializes in DUI calls.
Over Labor Day weekend 2022, Washington State Patrol responded to:
- 448 speeding violations
- 232 aggressive driving calls
- 115 collisions
- 60 distracted driving incidents
- 21 DUIs
- 19 seatbelt violations
- 2 fatal collisions
Sea-Tac Airport
Travelers passing through Sea-Tac Airport are expected to surge to pre-pandemic levels over Labor Day weekend (estimated to be 18% higher than Labor Day 2022), according to the Port of Seattle.
Monday, Sept. 4 is forecast to be the most popular travel day at Sea-Tac — 190,000 expected travelers.
Friday, Sept. 1 is also expected to be a very busy day with an estimated 185,000 travelers. Sunday, Sept. 2 will have about 177,000 travelers.
Before Labor Day 2023, Sea-Tac Airport has already seen 3% more travelers than the Port of Seattle expected summer travel (that adds up to more than 500,000 travelers). In fact, so far, summer travel through the airport has added up to a 14.6% increase over summer 2022. A total of 29 million passengers used the airport between Jan. 1 and July 29.
The Port of Seattle expects 2023 travel volumes to be near 2019 levels, and 2024 is forecast to break travel records and exceed 2019 levels.
Ferries
"If you don't like waiting in line, and I think most people probably don't, don't travel when everybody else travels," said Ian Sterling with Washington State Ferries. "The way to do that is to travel later at night, or earlier in the morning, if your schedule allows that. The other hack we know doesn't work for everybody, if you can leave your car or truck at home and walk aboard, there's plenty of walk-on capacity."
In Washington state, folks with Labor Day weekend travel plans that include a ferry trip are likely going to have company. Washington State Ferries predicts that 400,000 people will come aboard this weekend, making this summer the busiest since 2019.
Saturday is set to be the peak, but drivers can expect the longest lines and wait times heading westbound to the islands Thursday through Saturday.
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Amazon CEO says ‘it’s probably not going to work out’ for employees who defy return-to-office policy
NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon employees have been pushing back against the company’s return-to-office policy for months — and it seems CEO Andy Jassy has had enough.
During a pre-recorded internal Q&A session earlier this month, Jassy told employees it was “past the time to disagree and commit” with the policy, which requires corporate employees to be in the office three days a week.
RELATED: Most workers want a 4-day work week. Here’s what might make employers come around
The phrase “disagree and commit” is one of Amazon’s leadership principles, and was used often by the company’s founder and current executive chairman, Jeff Bezos.
“If you can’t disagree and commit, it’s probably not going to work out for you at Amazon,” Jassy said, adding it wasn’t right for some employees to be in the office three days a week while others refuse to do so.
His comments were first reported by Business Insider, and later shared by Amazon.
The current office attendance mandate, which was announced in February and went into effect in May, is a shift from Amazon’s previous policy that allowed leaders to determine how their teams worked. But the company said Tuesday it rejects the notion that the prior policy was supposed to be the norm, and pointed to a blog post from 2021 where Jassy noted Amazon would “continue to adjust” things as more information rolled in.
When announcing the updated policy earlier this year, Jassy wrote in a memo to staff that Amazon made its decision after observing what worked during the pandemic and talking to leaders at other companies. He said the company’s senior executives, known internally as the S-team, concluded employees tended to be more engaged in person and collaborate more easily.
But many workers haven’t been convinced. In May, hundreds of Amazon employees protested the new policy during a lunchtime demonstration at the company’s Seattle headquarters. At the time, an internal Slack channel that advocated for remote work had racked up 33,000 members.
Some employees have also been pushing the company to supply data that support Jassy’s claims. During the session, Jassy said the company’s leadership looked at the data it has available and among other things, he said they didn’t feel that meetings were as effective from home as they were before. He added there are a lot of scenarios where the company has made some of its biggest decisions without perfect data, pointing to examples like Amazon’s decision to pursue an online marketplace for sellers and AWS, its cloud computing unit.
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White House plan to cut drug prices could lower costs for over 100K WA seniors
The Biden White House has announced plans to negotiate for lower prices on 10 drugs, which could save seniors in Washington state a lot of cash.
“Americans pay two to three times more than people in other countries for the exact same drug,” said Kristin Link Young, deputy assistant to the president for health and veterans.
The medications are used to treat a range of health problems including blood cancers, diabetes, heart failure, and arthritis. And they’re pricey. Nationally, these 10 drugs cost people on Medicare around $3.4 billion in out-of-pocket expenses last year, according to the White House.
The move to negotiate drug prices directly with pharmaceutical companies was made possible thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, which became law last year.
For their part, pharmaceutical companies object to the effort, arguing it will mean less money for the research and development needed to create new life-saving medications.
“Politics should not dictate which treatments and cures are worth developing and who should get access to them. The cancer moonshot will not succeed if this administration continues to dismantle the innovation rocket we need to get there,” wrote the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, in response.
The White House rejects that claim, pointing to evidence that big pharma spends more of its profits on stock buyback and dividend programs to benefit shareholders than it does on research and development.
“While big drug companies made record profits and spent hundreds of millions of dollars on lobbying year after year, millions of Americans were forced to choose between paying for the medications they need to live or paying for other basic necessities,” Link Young said.
The new drug prices will go into effect in 2026.
According to the White House, these 10 drugs, which include Eliquis for the prevention and treatment of blood clots, and several diabetes drugs including Januvia, are just a start. Medicare will negotiate prices for up to 60 covered drugs over the next four years, and up to 20 drugs per year after that.
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