Seattle Nice

What does a former rock star know about crime and justice in Seattle? We put that question to this week's guest, King County District Court Judge Bardi Martin, who played bass for the hugely successful Seattle rock band Candlebox in the 1990s before trading the traveling circus of rock and roll for the strange theater of the American justice system.

These days, he confronts some of the region's most intractable problems from the bench: addiction, homelessness, poverty, and crime.

We dig into the Seattle area's experiment with community court, following up on our recent interview with Seattle City Attorney Erika Evans, who has revived the program with a greater emphasis on accountability under a new name, Connection Court.

Martin oversees a community court program in suburban King County, where people charged with low-level crimes can have their cases dismissed by completing treatment, community service, and other requirements. But what happens when they don't comply? Does community court actually reduce property crime or repeat offenses? And why does Martin believe it isn't right for everyone?

And, of course, we find out why Martin walked away from one of Seattle's biggest rock bands, and whether he got rich along the way.

Thanks to Uncle Ike's pot shop for sponsoring this week's episode! If you want to advertise please contact us at [email protected]

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Holy shit. That wasn't just a blue wave. Democrats drove a political steamroller through some of the reddest states in the country last night, and we're here for it. We recorded this special emergency edition of Seattle Nice at 9 p.m. on election night, with results still rolling in across the country. So, what's Seattle's piece of the story?

After the first count, progressive Nilu Jenks was crushing moderate Julie Kang in the race for Seattle City Council District 5. We talk about why progressives are doing so well in Seattle after voters seemed to be moving toward the center just a few years ago.

But are voters actually moving further left? And what does another progressive on the council mean for Mayor Katie Wilson's agenda?

We also get into Washington's statewide ballot measures, including the effort to repeal the millionaires' tax and the controversial proposal to ban trans girls from girls' sports. Why is that measure leading in a state that's otherwise voting so blue?

Thanks to Uncle Ike's pot shop for sponsoring this week's episode! If you want to advertise please contact us at [email protected]

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Your support on Patreon helps pay for editing, production, live events and the unique, hard-hitting local journalism and commentary you hear weekly on Seattle Nice. 

Seattle's progressive new city attorney, Erika Evans, is bringing back a version of the community court that her predecessor, Republican Ann Davison, axed in 2023. Evans hopes to fix what she sees as flaws in the old system by giving people accused of relatively minor crimes better access to services and treatment, with more accountability.

Evans joins us on Seattle Nice, along with Jenna Robert, the criminal division chief in her office, to explain how the new Connection Court is supposed to work and why they think it will succeed where the old community court fell short. They also walk us through a related new policy, known as HiPRO, which targets repeat offenders.

Sandeep, who was a harsh critic of the old community court, likes a lot of what he’s hearing. Erica has serious doubts about the overall approach, particularly the push for more aggressive prosecution and potentially more jail time for people charged with three offenses in 90 days. David likes the idea of combining progressive compassion with accountability but wants to see clear measures of success.

We also get into Seattle's stubbornly high property crime rate, what Evans learned from a recent fact-finding trip to San Francisco, and her plans for a new sex trafficking prosecutor focused on Aurora Avenue.

Thanks to Uncle Ike's pot shop for sponsoring this week's episode! If you want to advertise please contact us at [email protected]

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Your support on Patreon helps pay for editing, production, live events and the unique, hard-hitting local journalism and commentary you hear weekly on Seattle Nice. 

Our planned District 5 debate had to be canceled after one of the candidates came down with COVID. But we got together and blabbed in front of the folks who showed up anyway! Thanks to the National Nordic Museum for hosting us and to everyone who came out.

One of the more surprising things we talked about was how Mayor Katie Wilson’s new homelessness plan is bringing together some strange bedfellows. Homelessness advocates and some downtown business leaders both seem to like it, including Jon Scholes of the Downtown Seattle Association.

The idea is to have outreach workers get to know people living on the streets, figure out what they need, and find them somewhere appropriate to stay. Efforts like this have worked in Seattle before, including in Pioneer Square ahead of the World Cup. But can the mayor pull this off across the city? And will there be enough shelter and housing to make it work?

We also talk about the City Council’s new RV legislation, which would create a permit system for some people living in RVs, require them to accept case management, and impose new parking restrictions. The ultimate goal is to get RVs off Seattle streets. We debate whether this will actually help the people living in RVs or whether the city is creating another complicated program that won’t work in practice.

And we kick things off with the District 5 City Council race between Julie Kang and Nilu Jenks, including where they stand on policing, surveillance cameras, and the problems on Aurora Avenue. We consider what the results might tell us about where Seattle politics is headed in 2027.

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Bad news about tonight’s debate. It’s cancelled because one of our two candidates for Seattle City Council District 5 has a nasty cold that turned out to be COVID.

But the show goes on!

We’re still going to show up at the National Nordic Museum to tape a live episode of Seattle Nice. We’ll talk about the upcoming election and other spicy issues in Seattle politics.

Tonight, Wednesday, October 21, at the National Nordic Museum in Ballard.

Start time: 6 p.m. Doors open at 5:30 p.m.

We hope to see you there!

Special Thanks to Our Patreon Donors

This podcast is a labor of love and a public service, and you help make it possible.

For this event, the National Nordic Museum generously donated the venue and its staff time. But our additional expenses for a board operator, editor, and other help add up to nearly $1,000 for just this one event.

So thanks to everyone who believes in democracy and local journalism for chipping in to make these live events, and serious discussions about the issues facing Seattle, possible. 

Click the following link if you want to help: patreon.com/seattlenice

Support the show

Your support on Patreon helps pay for editing, production, live events and the unique, hard-hitting local journalism and commentary you hear weekly on Seattle Nice. 

The big Seattle Nice City Council District 5 debate is right around the corner! Join us at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 21, at the National Nordic Museum, where we’ll be drawing out candidates Nilu Jenks and Julie Kang on their positions – and their differences. It’s free and will be an informative and illuminating debate. We hope to see you there!

In this episode of Seattle Nice, taped a couple of weeks ago while Erica was away, Sandeep and David invite Walter Hatch, a former Seattle Times journalist, retired professor of politics at Colby College, and frontline homelessness volunteer, to discuss why Walter, the co-author of two recent pieces on the topic at Post Alley, believes Seattle’s homelessness response is failing. Walter is a staunch progressive, and our conversation exposes disagreements over housing costs, addiction, encampment removals, and government spending, but also substantial agreement: Seattle needs more housing, more shelter, better services, and a system that people can actually navigate.

Walter contends that Seattle’s homelessness crisis reflects a community failure rather than simply a collection of individual failures, and he argues that Seattle’s primary obstacle to making progress on homelessness is a fragmented system organized around nonprofit providers rather than the needs of homeless individuals, along with an inhumane overreliance on sweeps. He argues that inconsistent data sharing, disconnected caseworkers, and weak coordination force people to repeat their stories and paperwork without making progress. Drawing on examples from other cities, he calls for stronger political leadership, shared information, and clear responsibility for getting each person appropriate help.

We don’t entirely agree with Walter’s diagnosis, with Sandeep and David defending both Katie Wilson’s continuation of the previous administration’s relatively fast pace of encampment removals and Sandeep arguing that the biggest problem with the current response is insufficient resources commensurate with the scale of Seattle’s homelessness problem.

“Our system here in Seattle can’t even be called a system,” Walter contends. “What we have in Seattle is just a shit show of failing both at the political, moral, economic level, and I think we’re all responsible, and I think we can fix it.”

Walter Hatch and Mark W. Garrett, "The Homelessness Blame Game: Let's Challenge That," Post Alley, May 6, 2026.

Walter Hatch and Mark W. Garrett, "Seattle Homelessness Is a Complex Problem: Here's How to Solve It," Post Alley, Sept. 10, 2026.

Thanks to Uncle Ike's pot shop for sponsoring this week's episode! If you want to advertise please contact us at [email protected]

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Your support on Patreon helps pay for editing, production, live events and the unique, hard-hitting local journalism and commentary you hear weekly on Seattle Nice. 

First, a quick invitation: Seattle Nice is hosting a live debate for City Council District 5 between Julie Kang and Nilu Jenks. Join us at the National Nordic Museum on October 21 at 6 p.m.

On this week's show: What happens when government agencies can't keep track of millions of dollars? And why aren't Seattle voters more upset about it?

First, the King County Regional Homelessness Authority says it's solved the mystery of the $8 million it previously claimed Seattle and King County owed it. Turns out, according to the agency, it was an accounting error. So how did the agency get something this big so wrong?

Then there's the city's roughly $13 million mistake in overpaying Seattle Police Department employees. How did the city manage to send out millions in extra paychecks? Why did it take so long for the mistake to come to light? And will taxpayers ever get that money back? The police union says it wants the city to sort out its ongoing Workday payroll problems before its members pay anything back.

Meanwhile, the King County Council has approved another well-meaning sales tax increase to help children and families, including those experiencing homelessness, but without a detailed spending plan yet.

Plus, at the top of the show, we talk with Transportation Choices Coalition Executive Director Kirk Hovenkotter about Proposition 1, which would double Seattle's transit sales tax to pay for more bus service. 

Thanks to Uncle Ike's pot shop for sponsoring this week's episode! If you want to advertise please contact us at [email protected]

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Mayor Katie Wilson joins Seattle Nice, along with Budget Director Aly Pennucci, to defend her first city budget as some City Council members argue she's got her priorities wrong.

Wilson came into office facing a $175 million projected General Fund deficit. Her answer is a budget with nearly $50 million in General Fund cuts each year, no new taxes and a promise to balance the books through 2030.

But some councilmembers are pushing back. They want things like more surveillance cameras, more cops and different public-safety priorities. Some are questioning Wilson's cuts to fire department overtime, and Councilmember Bob Kettle has even floated cutting affordable-housing funding to free up money for other priorities.

So who's got Seattle's priorities right? And if the city spends more on public safety or other priorities, what should the council cut to pay for it? Or should the city raise progressive taxes?

Co-hosts David Hyde, Erica C. Barnett and Sandeep Kaushik also ask Wilson why she decided not to raise the JumpStart tax, whether she thinks Seattle will eventually need 1,400 cops, why she's still clearing homeless encampments, and why she's scaled back her goal of adding 1,000 new shelter units this year.

Thanks to Uncle Ike's pot shop for sponsoring this week's episode! If you want to advertise please contact us at [email protected]

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Seattle still needs a lot more housing. But construction has fallen off for some types of housing, and developers say one reason projects aren't getting built is Seattle's Mandatory Housing Affordability program, or MHA.

Seattle City Councilmember Dionne Foster joins co-hosts David Hyde, Erica C. Barnett and Sandeep Kaushik to talk about the fight over MHA and splits on the left over how to build more affordable housing.

Foster's proposal would temporarily slash the fees developers pay under MHA to get stalled projects moving again, without ditching the program. It's pretty similar to an idea Mayor Katie Wilson was considering earlier this year before backing away after pushback from some affordable-housing advocates. Foster also wants the city to study applying some version of MHA in neighborhood residential zones, the former single-family areas, which some pro-housing advocates have opposed.

So how did Foster manage to bring the fee cut back? Will it work? And why has it taken Seattle so long to rethink a program some urbanists say has been holding the city back for years?

Thanks to Uncle Ike's pot shop for sponsoring this week's episode! If you want to advertise please contact us at [email protected]

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Editor's note: We recorded this episode before Mayor Katie Wilson announced her plan to reduce gun violence this week. Wilson's plan emphasizes community violence interruption, as opposed to the "focused deterrence" approach that CM Maritza Rivera has been advocating. Although Wilson has expressed support for some form of focused deterrence, she does not support CM Rivera's resolution. And the plan she announced this week doesn't include the core law-enforcement deterrence consequences that have been a linchpin of focused deterrence programs in the many cities where the approach has been successful.

Crime is down, but Seattleites are anxious about public safety after a series of high-profile shootings. Business leaders are demanding action and critics are questioning Mayor Katie Wilson's approach.

This week, co-hosts David Hyde, Erica C. Barnett and Sandeep Kaushik ask: Is the media being unfair to Seattle's mayor on this issue? Or are there legitimate questions about her approach to public safety?

Then we get into the latest City Hall fight: Councilmember Maritza Rivera wants Seattle to try “focused deterrence,” an approach that targets the tiny percentage of people that studies have shown are most likely to be involved in (or victims of) serious violence in cities across the United States, via an integrated, unified front approach that combines community leaders, social service providers, and police. Rivera is proposing that the city spend $418,000 to bring in national experts to help Seattle do it. Wilson rejected the proposal in a recent KUOW interview as “grandstanding and politicking.” The community violence intervention approach that she is currently backing, in contrast to focused deterrence, involves deploying former gang members or others with lived experience of violence as ambassadors and outreach workers who proactively engage with at risk youth and young adults, and does not integrate police into that outreach effort. 

Read more about the mayor's new plan here: KUOW: Seattle mayor's new gun violence reduction plan pushes prevention over police

And for more insight into the policy differences between advocates for focused deterrence and more progressive, law enforcement-skeptical advocates for community violence interruption approaches, we recommend reading: 

Greg Berman, "No Program is a Panacea: The Fate of Focused Deterrence," Vital City, Jan 15, 2022. 

Thanks to Uncle Ike's pot shop for sponsoring this week's episode! If you want to advertise please contact us at [email protected]

Support the show

Your support on Patreon helps pay for editing, production, live events and the unique, hard-hitting local journalism and commentary you hear weekly on Seattle Nice.