Week In Review With Bill Radke Oct. 29 2021

Bill Radke reviews the week's news with Seattle Times mental health reporter Esmy Jimenez, Publicola police accountability reporter Paul Keifer, and Crosscut editor at large and host of the Mossback's Northwest, Knute Berger.

Seattle’s city elections are set to tally this Tuesday. At the center of this year’s elections is what seems to be a lot of doom and gloom -- struggling business downtown, a rampant homelessness problem, and the fragile state of pandemic recovery in the region. Maybe it’s a little old fashioned, but whatever happened to optimism as a selling point for politicians? Is sunny optimism in politics a privileged piece of the past, or is it something we still want?

In other political news, the Biden administration has named Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman to an election-security post in the Department of Homeland Security. Like many Secretary of States before her Wyman is a Republican, and has been a key supporter of voting by mail -- a political position that’s become more fraught for conservatives in the fallout of the 2020 election. Who will take her place here in Washington?

You might remember that back in May of this year Seattle Inspector General Lisa Judge sent a letter to Interim Police Chief Adrian Diaz asking SPD to eliminate traffic stops for minor civil and non-violent violations. In the letter, Judge wrote that “Stopping a person is a significant infringement on civil liberty and should be reserved for instances when a person is engaged in criminal conduct that harms others.” This week Diaz sent a memo to the city council and Mayor Durkan agreeing to phase out the stops. How will this decision change police work in Seattle?