Seattle's weak, meek mayor surrenders again

While Bruce Harrell roars on the campaign trail about what an experienced executive he is, his recent actions tell a very different story.

No, I’m not talking about the fact that Harrell:

• Got caught leaving extremely expensive shelter rooms empty and still paying for them while people are dying on the streets because his staff has a petty attitude toward the service provider 

• Let his administration promote a violent, anti-trans bigot to run the East Precinct in the neighborhood with the greatest concentration of LGBTQ neighbors in the Northwest 

• Backtracked after fierce blowback and said this bigot would not be running the place, but the dude is still there running the place!

• Tried to remove a years-long planned bus lane (and had to backtrack)

• Killed an obviously needed other bus-lane for the L8

• Flagrantly and corruptly violated the law in headlining a fundraiser for the supposedly independent PAC that is funding him. 

• Accepts help from this  PAC, which touts its vision for collaborating with MAGA

• Got caught treating the mothers of people murdered by guns like they don’t matter

No, I’m talking about negotiation—yet another of executive management that Harrell has shown himself particularly bad at. 

You see, he has been “negotiating” with the police union. In his most recent prior negotiation, he gave the police an enormous raise, making them the best paid in the state. We had a shortage, and a significant raise made sense. But what did he get in return for this HUGE increase when Seattle is famous for our problems with independent oversight, accountability and alternate response? 

He got virtually nothing.

Fast-forward to now, and everyone knows he was rushing to announce a new deal for the sake of his campaign. With his campaign pretending to be progressive and hoping we forget 16 years of history, some thought he might have made a deal to get some wins on accountability or civilian response. 

Nope.

Pretty much just another huge-ass raise, when we already spend over 2x per officer fielded as Boston spends, and have the highest pay in the state. There are some formal increases in the number of civilian responders allowed to exist, but a ton, ton more barriers to sending them out–the very barriers that have kept our civilian responders too often chained to their desks.

We all understand we need well-paid employees and that bargaining involves give and take. Well, not ALL of us, apparently.

Bruce Harrell once again proved himself a supplicant, not a negotiator. 

He (still!) does not have what it takes to be an executive for our city. 

As his former competitor Joe Mallahan (someone who has actually been a successful executive) just put it in a great 20 second video: “Katie Wilson can run circles around Bruce Harrell when it comes to management.”

Get those ballots in!