Erica C. Barnett
Seattle-based reporter, founder/editor of PubliCola.com, and author of Quitter: A Memoir of Drinking, Relapse, and Recovery
She/her, Latina, Texan
- ICYMI: Municipal Court Judge Pooja Vaddadi Files Bar Complaint Against City Attorney Ann Davison and Her Former Criminal Chief publicola.com/2025/05/08/m...
- Flippity-flip! This former duplex near me, which last sold for $975,000, has been transformed from two 980-square-foot apartments with a total of 3 bedrooms into a 5-bedroom, 3.5-bath single-family house they're offering for $2.4 million. WE NEED TO ALLOW APARTMENTS EVERYWHERE.
- This is what I keep coming back to. There is no constituency for weakening council ethics rules other than council members themselves. The public does not feel disenfranchised (and of course they used unspecified marginalized people as a shield) when elected officials can't vote due to conflicts.
- Sometimes the lack of self awareness for the #Seattle city council is so astounding. Like yes weakening the ethics code at a time of unprecedented political corruption in order to benefit certain special interests is uh, gonna cause folks to get a little heated. 🤷🏾♀️
- Kshama Sawant has taken over council chambers after Council President Sara Nelson called a recess because people were chanting.
- I'm sitting in an unusually crowded meeting of the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission, which commissioner Kristin Hawes just said had an "unprecedented" amount of public comment—all of it against changes to the ethics code that would remove recusal reqiurements for councilmembers with conflicts
- The Most Common Reason for Past City Council Recusals: Owning Rental Property As the city council considers rolling back ethics rules, we look at the reasons past councilmembers have decided to sit out votes that would benefit or harm them. publicola.com/2025/05/07/t...
