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At least 41 cops have left the Seattle Police Department this year, many of them reportedly citing frustration with the city's politics and a perceived lack of support from local officials. Though documents showed some officers left the force due to retirement, a source in the department told Q13 FOX some 20 officers left and sought employment at other law enforcement agencies. The source also said younger officers "don’t feel appreciated" and the number of those leaving who felt “frustrated over city politics is higher than usual.” “Worker bees on the street, they don't feel appreciated. I’ve never seen anything...

**SNIP** We have a similar lack of leadership at home. From the Seattle City Council head-tax debacle, to the growing lack of safety and now a mayor’s trip to protest at the border with a U.S. Conference of Mayors delegation. If all were well at home, we could applaud this effort. But that isn’t the case. Mayor Jenny Durkan flew away from 180 unsheltered children and 1,000 unsheltered young adults. Violence and crime are on the rise alongside tent encampments, including an attack on a tourist near the Space Needle and a rape in a Ballard car-dealership bathroom.

The area surrounding the King County Courthouse in downtown Seattle is dangerous. Crime is rampant. Homelessness is out of control. It’s not safe to visit as a juror. It’s not safe to work in the buildings nearby. You can’t even walk around the neighborhood without olfactory offenses, human waste everywhere. The solution? Ping-Pong! Seattle City Councilmember Sally Bagshaw says that she’d like to bring a host of amenities to the area as an “inclusive” way to make the area safer. She’d like to see Ping-Pong tables, seating, and food trucks come to the area.

SEATTLE - A family from Arizona was attacked by a man from a homeless camp just as they parked to visit the Space Needle earlier this month. Details are just now being made public of the June 2 attack. Officers responded to a reports of a fight in progress in the parking lot next to the Wells Fargo Bank at 3rd Avenue and Denny Way, one block away from the Space Needle. There is an unsanctioned encampment with about a dozen tents along one-block stretch of 3rd Avenue, that has been growing over the last three months. Tourists often walk...

Don’t believe the hype that “Amazon killed the Seattle head tax,” the new levy that the city recently passed on businesses to fund an affordable-housing initiative. The truth behind the city council’s stunning reversal—repealing the tax by a 7-2 vote, just four weeks after passing it 9-0—is that Seattle citizens have erupted in frustration against the city’s tax-and-spend political class that has failed to address the homelessness crisis, despite record new revenues. As recently as a few years ago, it seemed as if Seattle voters largely viewed our hyper-progressive city council as a harmless oddity in an otherwise tolerant, thriving,...

Don’t believe the hype that “Amazon killed the Seattle head tax,” the new levy that the city recently passed on businesses to fund an affordable-housing initiative. The truth behind the city council’s stunning reversal—repealing the tax by a 7-2 vote, just four weeks after passing it 9-0—is that Seattle citizens have erupted in frustration against the city’s tax-and-spend political class that has failed to address the homelessness crisis, despite record new revenues. As recently as a few years ago, it seemed as if Seattle voters largely viewed our hyper-progressive city council as a harmless oddity in an otherwise tolerant, thriving,...

The 32-year-old biker who was killed in a horrific cougar attack in Washington State, has been identified as SJ Brooks (right). His friend, Isaac Sederbaum (left), 31, survived with injuries.

Seattle leaders on Tuesday repealed a tax on large companies such as Amazon and Starbucks after a backlash from businesses, a stark reversal from a month ago when the City Council unanimously approved the effort to combat a growing homelessness crisis. The council voted 7-2 after supporters and opponents packed a meeting with signs saying, "Tax Amazon, housing for all" and "No tax on jobs," with some shouting for more time to discuss the issue. The vote showed Amazon's ability to aggressively push back on government taxes, especially in its affluent hometown where it's the largest employer and where some...

Just weeks after passing a new tax on big businesses, Seattle political leaders signaled late Monday they would reverse course and repeal it. Mayor Jenny Durkan and city council President Bruce Harrell said in statements that they would end the tax, initially meant to combat rising homelessness in a city where housing prices have soared. “We heard you,” Durkan and seven of the nine city council members said in a statement. “This week, the City Council is moving forward with the consideration of legislation to repeal the current tax on large businesses to address the homelessness crisis.” Business groups, led...

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan and city council members on Monday said they would consider legislation to repeal a “head tax” on the city’s large businesses, just weeks after the measure’s passage drew public criticism from Amazon, Starbucks and others. [SNIP] Amazon vice president and spokesman Drew Herdener said last month that the bill’s passage forced the company “to question our growth” in Seattle. "The city does not have a revenue problem – it has a spending efficiency problem. We are highly uncertain whether the city council’s anti-business positions or its spending inefficiency will change for the better," Herdener said at...

The Seattle Times reports that the city’s mayor is quietly trying to clean up homeless encampments and has so far collected 42,000 pounds of trash in just three weeks. But it seems efforts to break up vehicular encampments (people living in cars) are going about as well as could be expected: The program, which quietly started in mid-May, has resulted in the collection of almost 42,000 pounds of garbage and waste from cleanups around RVs and other vehicles parked in Sodo, Georgetown, Ballard and the Central District.But in the meantime, residents of these vans and RVs continue to play...

A former officer with the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency was arrested over the weekend for allegedly trying to spy on the United States for China, the Justice Department said on Monday. The Federal Bureau of Investigation took Ron Rockwell Hansen, 58, into custody on Saturday while he was on his way to the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to get a connecting flight to China. The department said he has been accused of trying to transmit national defense information to China and with receiving "hundreds of thousands of dollars" while acting illegally as an agent for the Chinese government.

In the wake of Seattle’s decision to enact an Employee Head Tax (EHT) to fight homelessness, media reporting has largely focused on the backlash from large businesses such as Amazon. It’s not hard to see why. Amazon, which employs more than 10 percent of the city’s workforce, has suspended planned investments in protest, and more than 100 leaders of large businesses operating in the city signed an open letter opposing the tax increase. But local residents tired of Seattle’s stagnant economic situation are beginning to take action against the EHT as well. It is truly difficult to imagine a worse...

SEATTLE – Amazon, Starbucks, Vulcan and other companies have pledged a total of more than $350,000 toward an effort to repeal Seattle's newly passed tax on large employers intended to combat homelessness. Just days after the Seattle City Council approved the levy, the No Tax On Jobs campaign, a coalition of businesses, announced it would gather signatures to

Seattle’s mayor on Thursday unveiled a proposal to fine gun owners $500 to $10,000 for failing to lock up their firearms. The legislation, drafted by Mayor Jenny Durkan and Councilmember M. Lorena González, follows recent deadly school shootings in Florida, Texas and other locations. The bill was forwarded to Seattle's City Council for consideration, the Seattle Times reported. In 2016, Washington state enacted an "extreme risk" gun law that has allowed Seattle police officers to confiscate 43 weapons from citizens, the Times reported. The gun-control movement in Washington state has been aided by former Microsoft executive and NFL team owner...

MOUNTAIN VIEW — Plans for a “Google headcount tax” moved ahead Wednesday in Mountain View after a municipal panel recommended that the full city council approve the proposal. A three-member subcommittee of the Mountain View City Council endorsed the concept on Wednesday of a tax on the number of workers a company employs within the city limits, although government officials refer to it formally as a “restructuring” of the business license tax. The Mountain View City Council is scheduled to meet June 5 to make a final decision on whether it will order the city staff to prepare a ballot...

EATTLE -- People who own a home in King County are paying about 17% more in property taxes this year than last year to help pay for the state’s funding of public education. But come November, Seattle leaders will be asking voters to approve a bit more of an increase for city dwellers. City Council members say while the state funding property tax hike pays for basic education, the levy they want to be renewed will be an extra investment to ensure that kids from preschool to high school will have what it takes to succeed.

Seattle Seahawks and Portland Trail Blazers owner, Paul Allen, is pushing a Washington State gun control initiative in response to the May 18 Santa Fe High School shooting. The initiative, No. 1639, is called “Safe Schools, Safe Communities,” and it expands the gun controls placed on law-abiding citizens via the universal background check initiative that passed in 2014. Allen tweeted: Paul Allen ✔ @PaulGAllen 18h My statement on a gun safety initiative in my home state of Washington: Initiative 1639 is a reasonable and necessary measure that will improve the safety of our schools and our communities, which is why...

Bruce Kendall said Monday his phone at the Economic Development Board for Tacoma-Pierce County has been ringing steadily since last week's vote by the Seattle City Council to tax big businesses $275 per employee. "I've received inquiries over the last week from companies that have indicated they are exploring options for locations in Pierce County," Kendall said. "And they are telling me that's why they are calling me, because the head tax passed. Now companies have another reason to call: A $275 tax credit per employee for new, family-wage jobs. "Note the value, it's not random," tweeted state Rep. J.T....

In a shortsighted effort to fight homelessness, Seattle’s city council has approved a new employee “head tax” on companies based in the city. The policy pits growth and progress against each other in a zero-sum game that will do far more harm than good. The head tax is exactly what it sounds like: a straight levy of $0.14 per hour per employee—about $275 a year for a full-time worker—targeting every business in Seattle with revenues of $20 million or more. The proposal’s backers aim to raise around $48 million per year to fund various affordable housing initiatives in order to...