Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown declared an emergency this week to address the city’s opioid crisis. 

“We’re here today because our community is dealing with the devastating effects of fentanyl and other opioids,” Brown said during a news conference Tuesday. Other speakers included representatives from Spokane’s treatment providers and law enforcement agencies. 

The declaration will enable the city to implement several public health and safety initiatives immediately. The initiatives will focus on Second and Division streets, an area where unhoused residents and others have been severely impacted by substance use. 

The city will proceed with establishing a temporary transition center out of the Cannon Street Shelter, which it shut down last year. The center, operated under a contract with the Empire Health Foundation, will focus on providing services to unhoused residents in an encampment zone located between North Browne and North Division streets and from Interstate 90 to Sprague Avenue. The center would be the latest in an ongoing effort to clean up the area and connect unhoused residents to services under the Department of Commerce’s Right-of-Way Encampment Resolution Program. 

The city will also target “high utilizers” who cycle from the street to the emergency room to jail. The city is partnering with Consistent Care, a Spokane organization, to provide case management services for those individuals. The city is also working with Spokane Treatment and Recovery Services to increase the use of its CAR50 program, which provides transport for individuals under the influence of a substance to an appropriate medical or treatment facility. 

Under the emergency declaration, the Spokane Fire Department can now provide medical intervention for withdrawal management. The city is also working with local, state and federal agencies to address the drug market that has festered in the Division corridor. 

As part of the emergency response, the city will request additional fentanyl test strips and Narcan from the state and pursue opioid abatement strategies approved under the state’s settlement with opioid manufacturers.

Two city councils in Yakima County rejected a proclamation for Pride Month, deciding not to officially recognize or acknowledge summer celebrations of the LGTBQ+ community.

The Sunnyside City Council rejected a Pride Month proclamation during its May 28 meeting. That follows one week after the Yakima City Council, in a 5-2 vote, rejected the proclamation during its May 21 meeting. 

Both Yakima and Sunnyside have officially recognized Pride Month in previous years. Last year, with a 5-2 vote, the Yakima City Council proclaimed Pride Month. As part of that proclamation, a Pride flag flew in front of Yakima City Hall for the entire month. Sunnyside Mayor Dean Broersma signed a Pride Month proclamation as recently as 2022. 

Yakima Mayor Patricia Byers and Assistant Mayor Matthew Brown voted against the proclamation this year, as they did last year. This time, they were joined by council members Reedy Berg, Leo Roy and Rick Glenn, who were all elected to the council last fall, ousting less conservative incumbents. 

Council members Janice Deccio and Danny Herrera voted for the proclamation. 

A draft version of the rejected proclamation states, “Now, Therefore, I Patricia Byers, Mayor of the City of Yakima, on behalf of the City Council, do hereby proclaim the month of June 2024 as “LGBTQ2S+ Pride Month” in the City of Yakima and encourage all residents to join in commemorating diversity, fostering inclusion, and advocating for equal protection under the law. Let us unite in our commitment to eradicate prejudice and discriminatory practices, ensuring that all cultures, races, and groups are treated with dignity and respect.”

Yakima Pride, a local advocacy group, expressed disappointment with the Yakima Council’s rejection on its Instagram page, but is moving forward with planned events on June 8, which will include a parade through downtown Yakima, an outdoor festival and a rainbow prom. 

In Sunnyside, the pride vote was split 3-3, with one council member absent. The vote came after numerous comments supporting and opposing the proposed proclamation.

Mayor Bruce Harrell announced today that the city of Seattle will not implement a controversial acoustic gunshot locator system as part of its $1.8 million crime prevention technology pilot program after large public outcry against the technology. 

This pilot program is meant to deter criminal activity and aid with police investigations. The pilot will use only closed-circuit television; a real-time crime center which will respond to crime alerts; and expand its use of automated license plate readers to all police vehicles with dashcams. 

CCTV cameras will be installed in three neighborhoods that the Mayor’s office says suffer from a disproportionate amount of criminal activity: Aurora Avenue North, the downtown Third Avenue corridor and the Chinatown-International District. The real-time crime center will use technology to integrate data sources for analysis and investigations. 

The response at community safety forums showed the lack of support for the acoustic gunshot technology, and the proposal got pushback from organizations like the NAACP and ACLU as well as from advisory groups in pilot areas of the city.

Similarly, earlier this year, the city of Chicago decided not to renew its six-year, $49 million contract with popular company ShotSpotter, which placed the technology in largely Black and Latino communities. It joined other cities that have pulled out of contracts, including Charlotte, North Carolina; Atlanta; New Orleans; Trenton, New Jersey; and San Antonio. 

The original proposal for the technology was approved by the City Council in 2021; currently the new expansion proposal is being reviewed by the Council. 

Seattle says other efforts as part of this program will take a crime-prevention approach, with tactics such as increased police patrols, community-based initiative investments and enhanced light and cleaning in crime-concentrated areas. 

The city also said the Seattle Office of Inspector General for Public Safety will continue to review the program for efficiency and results. The evaluation will be completed after the first pilot year, with a final evaluation in the second year.

Washington State Department of Labor & Industries fined two central Washington companies a combined $650,000, the agency announced Wednesday, after a fruit storage worker died from asphyxiation inside a controlled-atmosphere room in October.

The worker for Pace International LLC was found unresponsive after spraying apples in a Stemilt Growers’ storage room in East Wenatchee in which the oxygen had been removed to help preserve the fruit. 

In an investigation, L&I found the worker from Pace entered the room without a safety monitor as required by law. A Stemilt employee also failed to warn the worker that his oxygen monitor alarm had sounded near the entry to the storage room, indicating the room lacked sufficient oxygen, according to L&I.

“Both companies own a piece of this preventable tragedy,” Craig Blackwood, assistant director for L&I’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health, said in a news release, adding, “It’s a wonder that Pace hasn’t had a worker die before now. They’ve been gambling with workers’ lives for a long time and they finally lost.”

L&I also discovered Pace International’s training handbook allowed workers to enter controlled-atmosphere rooms with an oxygen level of just 17.5% despite state regulations requiring oxygen levels to be at 19.5% or higher.

L&I fined Pace $574,000 and Stemilt $76,300. Pace has appealed. The agency also placed Pace on its severe violator list for the eight willful and two serious violations the agency issued. 

The agency created the Severe Violator Enforcement Program to increase monitoring of companies that are “resistant or indifferent” to safety rules. A recent Cascade PBS analysis of L&I records found more than a third of severe violator companies had not received required follow-up inspections. 

Stemilt was also fined $2,700 in 2022 after two employees worked in a room that lacked sufficient oxygen without the use of oxygen monitors. 

University of Washington President Ana Mari Cauce on Wednesday voiced her support for a ceasefire in Gaza while strongly urging the students protesting on the Seattle campus to take down their tents and dialogue.

In an email to UW students, staff, faculty and academic personnel, Cauce reiterated her support of free speech and peaceful protest. She told the student newspaper, The Daily, that she has no plans to sweep the tent encampment on the UW Quad, as some other universities have. She believes dialogue is going to accomplish more than protest, which began more than two weeks ago and now has escalated to spray-painted graffiti on buildings all over campus.

“We believe that engaging in dialogue is the most productive path to a resolution that can see the encampment voluntarily depart,” Cauce wrote. “Indeed, even before the encampment started, we were meeting with a cross section of students who are deeply moved by the humanitarian crisis.”

Among the discussions, which Cauce described as cordial, was a lesson on how the university invests its endowment fund. A member of the UW Investment Management Company met with some of the protesters and let them know that the university has no direct investments in Boeing or weapons manufacturers, Cauce wrote in her email.

She called some of the new graffiti on buildings all over campus both antisemitic and violent, “creating an unwelcome and fearful environment for many students, faculty and staff, especially those who are Jewish.” Cauce said the graffiti appears to be an effort to compel the University to agree to the protesters’ demands, which she said have expanded beyond the initial pleas for the University to cut ties with Israel and Boeing.

Students protesting the Israel-Hamas war have continually reaffirmed their commitment to remain on the Quad until their demands are met, and say they have no plans to disassemble the encampment.

The King County Council greenlit a proposal that will boost the minimum wage in unincorporated King County to $20.29 an hour, one of the highest in the country.

Councilmembers Girmay Zahilay, Rod Dembowski, Teresa Mosqueda and Jorge L. Barón co-sponsored the measure, which aims to lift wages in unincorporated areas to match those of nearby cities. For example, the current minimum wage is $16.28 an hour in Skyway, a county neighborhood next to the city of Tukwila, which has a minimum wage of $20.29. Seattle’s minimum wage is $19.97 per hour and the state’s is $16.28. 

This ordinance impacts only unincorporated areas of King County, and would not include cities like Redmond or Bellevue that abide by the state’s minimum wage, or cities like Renton, where voters recently set a city minimum wage of $20.29, which starts in July.

The proposal, which would also need a signature from King County Executive Dow Constantine, would take effect on Jan. 1, 2025, and could be subject to increase based on inflation at that time. 

There would be exceptions for small businesses with lower revenues and fewer employees. Businesses with 15 or fewer employees and an annual gross revenue of less than $2 million would be allowed to pay employees $17.29 an hour, $3 less than the proposed legislation. This difference would decrease annually by 50 cents until there is no difference in 2030. 

Businesses with 15 or fewer workers but have an annual gross revenue of $2 million or greater, and businesses with more than 15 but fewer than 500 employees, would have an hourly minimum wage of $18.29. This difference would decrease annually by $1 until there is no difference in 2026. 

Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson has filed a subpoena to try to force the Seattle Catholic Archdiocese to turn over records on suspected sexual abuse, he announced Thursday.

In July 2023, the Attorney General’s Office requested massive amounts of information from the archdioceses of Seattle, Yakima and Spokane, so it could map the extent and details of sexual-abuse incidents, the number of priests involved and the transfers of suspected priests from assignment to assignment. So far the three archdioceses have not provided the requested information, Ferguson said.

“We need a public accounting of childhood abuse,” Ferguson said.

Consequently, the Attorney General’s Office filed the subpoena in King County Superior Court, requesting a May 22 hearing. The three archdioceses share a common trust fund that is used to compensate victims of sexual abuse, and Ferguson wants access to those records as well.

In a written statement, the Archdiocese of Seattle said it had been generally cooperating with the AG’s office without specifically addressing the breadth of the information sought in the attorney general’s requests and subpoena.

“Sexual abuse of minors and vulnerable adults is an issue the Archdiocese of Seattle takes very seriously and has been proactively addressing for more than 40 years,” the statement said, noting that the church has taken many steps toward preventing abuse, including reporting abuse, supporting victims and their families and publicizing their actions. “We have a good understanding of the content of our files and we have no concern about sharing them with the Attorney General lawfully and fairly,” the statement said.

Michael Pfau, a Seattle attorney whose firm specializes in abuse cases, estimated that over the past 23 years his firm has represented roughly 90 sex-abuse victims in the Spokane Archdiocese, fewer in the Yakima Archdiocese and “hundreds” in the Seattle Archdiocese. His firm has successfully obtained records from the archdioceses, but he noted that the Attorney General’s Office’s requests are much broader than asking for a specific file on a specific person.

Lifelong Catholic Mary Dispenza, 84, of Bellevue, attended Thursday’s press conference. As an elementary-school girl in the Los Angeles area, she was sexually abused by a priest. 

“Even at the age of 7, I knew it was wrong. … In my own way, I felt ashamed.” She “buried” those memories until she was 52 — even during a 15-year period as a nun. “I didn’t share with anybody, but I talked to God,” she said. 

“All the dioceses in the world need to become transparent. … There is no justice without truth-telling,” Dispenza said. 

Ferguson, also a lifelong Catholic, said: “I don’t speak much about my faith. … But what the church is doing is inconsistent with the teachings of Jesus. … The church needs to be transparent about what happened.”

The attorney general’s office can instigate only civil actions in Washington, not criminal actions. Whenever the AG’s office handles criminal cases, it does so at the request of a county prosecuting attorney’s office. 

The number of students experiencing homelessness in Washington has grown by about 15% compared to the school year when the pandemic began, according to new data from the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.

OSPI reports 42,436 students were homeless or had insecure housing during the 2022-23 school year compared to 36,996 during the 2019-2020 school year, while the total population of students enrolled in public school decreased during that time.

The every-other-year report to the Legislature explains that the number of homeless students reported in the past few school years may have decreased during the pandemic because school districts had difficulty identifying and serving those students.

The report breaks down the homeless student population by ethnicity, and notes that while 3.8% of all public school students statewide have experienced homelessness, the percentages are greater among Native Hawaii and Pacific Islander students (11.8%), Black or African American students (7.4%), Native American or Alaskan Native students (7.2%) and Hispanic or Latino students (5.4%).

The federal definition for students who are entitled to special services related to homelessness is different from the generally accepted definition of what it means to be unhoused. This report follows this broader definition and offers some detail about the students’ living situations.

About 76% of homeless students are “doubled-up” or sharing the housing of other people due to the loss of their housing, economic hardship or a similar reason. Another 6.4% are living in hotels or motels, 10.9% live in temporary shelters and 6.7% are unsheltered or living in a car, campground, abandoned building or substandard housing.

OSPI also reports that more students experiencing homelessness fail to graduate than the general student population, more are reported as truant and have poorer attendance overall and more were suspended or expelled from school. 

On Thursday morning, Washington Supreme Court Commissioner Michael Johnston issued a ruling upholding a temporary statewide ban on the sale of high-capacity magazines for guns.

Earlier this month, Cowlitz County Superior Court judge Gary Bashor ruled that the state Legislature’s 2022 law banning high-capacity magazines is unconstitutional. Commissioner Johnston issued an emergency stay immediately following Bashor’s ruling to temporarily keep the state ban in place.

Johnston’s April 25 ruling extends the temporary ban on the sale of high-capacity magazines while the case makes its way through the appeals process.

In September 2023, Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson sued Gator’s Custom Guns in Kelso. The suit alleged the store had offered more than 11,400 high-capacity magazines for sale since the state ban on magazines with more than 10 rounds went into effect in July 2022.

After Bashor issued his ruling overturning the ban on April 8, Ferguson successfully petitioned the state Supreme Court for an emergency stay, arguing the law was both constitutional and critical for addressing mass shootings. Limited-capacity magazines force shooters to stop and reload more frequently, giving people time to escape or disarm the shooter, he argued.

In the ruling today upholding that emergency stay, Johnston emphasized the use of high-capacity magazines in mass shootings. He wrote, “The State contends there is an unacceptable public safety risk if I do not impose a stay and the trade in [high-capacity magazines] resumes.”

The brief continues, “It is all but certain mass shootings will occur in Washington. This legislation will not necessarily prevent them from happening, but it will increase potential victims’ chances of survival. By declaring the statute unconstitutional and enjoining its enforcement, the superior court deprives Washington’s citizens of needed protection enacted by their elected representatives.”

Johnston also cited the rush to buy high-capacity magazines in the 90 or so minutes between Bashor’s ruling and Johnston’s issue of an emergency stay.

Today’s ruling states that Gator’s Guns boasted on social media that they sold high-capacity magazines to about 250 customers in that brief window on April 8.

King County was awarded a $6 million grant from the Washington State Department of Commerce to create more than 400 electric-vehicle charging ports throughout the county. King County Executive Dow Constantine announced the grant on Tuesday, and says this is part of the county’s mission to expand its zero-emission vehicles. 

King County applied for this grant in a joint effort with 20 partners around the region – for example, community centers, multifamily housing, retail businesses – places where these charging stations will be installed. The charging grant was made possible through the state’s cap-and-invest program, Climate Commitment Act. 

These charging ports will be available to the public in 55 locations, including nine King County charging sites, 13 multifamily residential buildings and 16 other locations like Metro bus bases. 

Installation could begin in three months in areas that already have charging stations, and take longer for areas that do not, said Ross Freeman, King County Fleet Electrification and Electric Vehicle Infrastructure planner. 

King County, along with other public agencies, have been moving toward lowering carbon emissions from vehicles. King County Metro Transit has a combination of diesel and hybrid vehicles, but they’re making the move to fully battery-operated buses, Freeman said. The county recently created a fully electric base for 120 zero-emission buses. 

Freeman said about 10% of King County support vehicles are electric. These vehicles perform operation check-ups or service locations. About 5% of other vehicles are fully electric, but, Freeman said, a majority of county vehicles are hybrid. 

Earlier this year, the state Department of Commerce announced that it will spend $85 million to expand access to electric vehicle charging throughout the state, including in Yakima, Vancouver and Spokane.