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Guest Articles

Woodinville has residents with a wide diversity of experience and thoughts.  OneWoodinville is proud to host  medium to long form articles on a variety of topics, by guest contributors.  

Police Surveillance Proposed

Automated License Plate Readers: Woodinville’s Latest Overreach - posted July 7, 2024

By guest contributor Jeff Lyon

The Woodinville City Council majority led by Mayor Mike Millman has a simple agenda: urbanize the city to further the interests of county and state politicians, spend and tax, and marginalize those who may not agree with their vision. They have woven a fiction of being public servants who will transform our downtown away from small town charm into a bustling, walkable destination by spending tens of millions on new infrastructure. This year alone they colluded with private equity groups and mega-developers to introduce unprecedented upzoning into the comprehensive plan, gave themselves a 67% raise, and censured an honorable councilmember in a kangaroo court of flimsy claims as retaliation for her advocacy. opposing views.


With all of that out of the way it’s time to control Woodinville residents. Two recent proposals demonstrate the majority’s disrespect for the public perfectly. 


Two months ago the council discussed adding speed cameras near a private school to the capital improvement plan. Proponents will argue that these cameras are necessary to protect our children who walk to school. Yet zero students walk to that private school at the edge of downtown. That location was selected to maximize ticket revenue generation. As a father of a three year old daughter, nothing is more important to me than a child’s safety, but giving the government more control over Woodinville residents is not the solution. I shared my concerns with the city council in an email.


I never received a reply; it was promptly filed under “N” for “Nobody cares.” Unfortunately, the council majority kept going. 


On Wednesday right before the start of our Independence Day weekend the city quietly introduced another discussion item for Tuesday, July 9th meeting: Automated License Plate Readers (ALPR) for general surveillance. Yes, the city wants to reintroduce a surveillance program from 2013 that would read and record the license plate of passing cars at several major intersections and along with a sign that looks something like the graphic to the right:


Yes, that is the exact text in the Woodinville Police Department’s policy document. Nothing says come spend the day in Woodinville’s beautiful wine country like “THIS AREA IS SUBJECT TO VIDEO MONITORING BY THE WOODINVILLE POLICE DEPARTMENT.”  There is a sad irony in introducing a surveillance program just days after we celebrate our independence from an oppressive government.


Woodinville is a safe community. The Woodinville Police Department is doing an amazing job and it shows in crime stats. Our violent crime rate is 50% lower than the rest of King County. Unfortunately, our property crime rates per capita are higher than benchmarks. Police Chief BJ Myers provided the council the following justification for ALPRs:


“As Staff presented to Council in the 2023 WPD Annual Report, most crime in Woodinville is property crime and our rate of property crime is higher than neighboring cities and Washington as a whole. Property crime is difficult to solve, often lacking information and evidence that might be available to investigators in other types of crime. A key challenge in property crime investigations is identifying a suspect. As a tool for identify (sic) vehicles, ALPR would shorten the amount of time investigators spend trying to identify suspects from partial vehicle descriptions.” 

Source: Report to City Council


The Chief goes on to say that the department is aware of the potential for misuse and will have certain mitigations in place:


“WPD is aware of potential misuse of criminal justice information systems. Vehicle owner and driver information is protected by WPD in several ways.

  • ALPRs do not capture personally identifiable information.
  • ALPRs are not connected to Department of Licensing databases, driver history databases, criminal history databases, immigration status databases, police records databases, or court records databases.
  • Records automatically delete after 30 days.
  • ALPRs are not used for traffic enforcement, even though similar technology is built into red light or speed enforcement cameras.
  • King County policies prevent WPD using any information to assist with immigration enforcement, restriction of access to reproductive health care, or any use of facial recognition software.
  • Use of ALPR is limited to official use only by trained law enforcement and requires a case number justification for audit. ALPR system logs will be audited every 90 days.”

The issue with these mitigations is that they are very difficult to audit. The city wants all of the technology required for a draconian surveillance program and expects us to blindly trust that the controls are implemented and consistently monitored. Trust is earned, not given, and while I do trust Chief Myers and the WPD, I do not trust the politicians that pull the strings. We know from history that governments can change overnight. Consider this: the WPD is part of the King County Sheriff’s Office (KCSO) and the Sheriff is no longer an elected position. The county council appoints the Sheriff, which creates an environment where law enforcement officers answer to politicians and bureaucrats. 


The city does not have a compelling argument for requiring technology with a high abuse potential. Their primary use case is to solve property crimes with crimes against persons as a theoretical and an afterthought. Two years after implementing the 2013 program was cancelled -  there had been a total of five uses of the system, none of which provided any evidence, investigative leads, or enforcement assistance due, at least in part, to the quality of the cameras. Even if all five uses had been successful at solving cases, the benefit pale in comparison to the breach of trust and privacy that this system perpetuated on Woodinville residents and our visitors. The Chief offers only one example of a time when cameras might have been helpful in stopping a robbery at 7-11, but they were successful with just radios and the robbery was indeed stopped.


Join me at the Woodinville City Council chambers on Tuesday, July 9th, 2024 at 7:00 PM to voice your concern. If you don’t want to speak, you can make a written comment or quietly attend. You don’t have to be a Woodinville resident. Your presence and participation is critically important to hold our government accountable and prevent dangerous resolutions from passing quietly.

ALPR warning sign

Part of the mitigations proposed will be a requirement to post signs stating: “THIS AREA IS SUBJECT TO VIDEO MONITORING BY THE WOODINVILLE POLICE DEPARTMENT.”  Obviously this will not be good for tourism or citizen confidence.

Council Salary

Comments on the Salary Commission - posted February 25, 2024

I am Steve Yabroff and I live in the city of Woodinville. I have decades of progressive experience in the field of compensation culminating in the promotion to Compensation Manager at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, with about 7,500 employees.


With respect to process, unlike the other city commissions, this Commission was resurrected without public notice, the members were selected in secret, without open interviews and so rightly or wrongly, they serve under a veil of suspicion. Thus, their personal integrity is on the line to do this properly and to serve only the Woodinville taxpayers, not just the council that appointed them. 


I believe that Blaine Fritts is a very good finance professional, but Compensation is not his area of expertise. The comparisons outlined in the last meeting [February 12th 2024] and criteria selected are not best practices.


The position of Council member is not a job in the traditional sense. It is a volunteer position sought by those who should wish to serve their city. We don’t have a turnover problem—instead we have citizens competing to be elected to Council. Truly what they receive is an honorarium., not a paycheck.


Let me say, I believe the proper criteria for comparables would include:  

  • Government structure: Council-Manager vs Mayor-Council (Woodinville is a Council-Manager city),
  • Do they manage Fire/Police or contract for it; Woodinville contracts for these services. 
  • Number of citizens served; that’s who the Council represents and it is a significant factor.  Larger number of citizens served normally yields higher compensation, but economies of scale tend to lower the dollars per resident. For example, if we look at just the average compensation of the five comparator cities selected with the number of citizens ranging from 13K (Newcastle) to 31K (SeaTac), it is $895/mo. But if we adjust the compensation based their respective cost per resident, the resulting average compensation is $496/mo.  That is $104/mo less than Woodinville’s current compensation. 
  • Number of employees supervised (this includes ability to hire/fire, evaluate for performance, etc.). Woodinville Council supervises exactly one employee: the City Manager.
  • Level of Financial responsibility, typically ability to commit dollars.   Determining what “responsible for” really means is important, as this is often subject to a lot of embellishment. A significant portion of the City Budget is obligated: State/County mandates and previously signed contractual agreements such as with the King County Sheriff and various Developer Agreements, and long-term projects such as cyclical road maintenance - all circumscribe the responsibility of Council.
  • Lastly, I must caution you, typically fewer than 10 comparable data points is viewed as low quality, as even one significant outlier can skew any averages.


Having reviewed the available data, I must call out a number of questionable or invalid criteria discussed at their first meeting:

  • Assessed property values can be swayed by one big company, but doesn’t necessarily impact overall job responsibilities.
  • Using historical city salary data and updating it by CPI numbers, assumes that the initial base salary was correct. That may or may not be the case. Also, CPI #s can be very volatile as we have seen recently. Government entities, as a policy, typically should not be contributing to inflation by giving equal or higher percentage increases during a period of high inflation. Doing so fuels further inflation. 
  • Area Median Income has no relevance to Council compensation. All councilmembers are already living in Woodinville without this honorarium. 
  • Having Council compensation based on their economic circumstances risks running afoul of Equal Pay for Equal Work laws. 


Another consideration: 

  • Should overall performance of the Council play a part in compensation? Over the last few years, Woodinville has lost some large, iconic businesses, such as Columbia Winery and Molbaks. Should this trend continue, it will be necessary to raise property taxes to compensate for the lost tax revenue.


In summary, compensation levels have had no effect on getting people to run for office in Woodinville. Considering all the data and since this is really an honorarium for a part-time volunteer position that these people have sought, there is little reason to change their current compensation. 

About Steve Yabroff:

My background includes a BA in Economics, and an MBA in Industrial Relations & Finance from UC, Berkeley. 


I have decades of progressive experience in the field of compensation culminating in the promotion to Compensation Manager at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, with about 7,500 employees, including all of the types of jobs the city has, plus a large number of Scientists & Engineers, and both Exempt & Non-Exempt Technicians. I served in this position for over a decade. 


Among my responsibilities were supervising staff in the selection of salary surveys or designing our own as needed. As an experienced compensation professional, I ensured the integrity of the salary survey process including the quality of the surveys, their analysis and the conclusions drawn from them. 


Prior to that I gained progressive experience in compensation at Idaho National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory. I also did some consulting work in compensation for Boeing. 

Permanent Supportive Housing

My experiences with "No Barrier" Housing

I witnessed up close the realities of what the politicians in Washington State call no-barrier housing. The use of words like dignity and compassion come to mind when hearing the description of policies around homelessness and the drug epidemic in Seattle. They might even tell us that this program saves lives. I have seen something very different. I see it as abandonment.


Many years ago people told stories about coming home to find homeless addicts passed out in their yards, so the politicians or a task force came up with the idea of placing people who were on the streets in housing units, with no expectations that they seek help for their addiction or afflictions. They were placed in apartments, shelters, and old office buildings. They were given the opportunity to come in off the streets with their drugs, sex work, pets, and severe mental disorders, and live in what I witnessed to be more dangerous, unhealthy, and undignified conditions.


A woman in her mid-fifties with schizophrenia, an addiction to heroin, and homeless for many years on the streets of Seattle is placed in a low or no-barrier housing unit with her sick and neglected pet. The woman trades herself for drugs and is riddled with the pain and sickness that comes with addiction and sexual abuse. And all of this in what we have been told is safe and dignified housing for the less fortunate. I believed that the streets were cleaner and safer than the housing the government is providing for so many homeless adults who need real help and care. The unmedicated adult with schizophrenia or delusional disorder doesn't have the ability to make sound decisions for themselves. They need interventions that effectively address their needs. They need clean bedding, clean water, healthy food, and medical care. They need treatment for their addictions and plans for their recovery. I believe all of this is possible.


If you walk down the hallway of some of the subsidized housing units in Seattle, you will smell feces or rotting animals. You will notice the sights, sounds, and smells of neglect and sickness. It isn't a solution to the problem. It was a relocation of the problem with no plan to really help people.


I am wondering if the county’s elected officials have ever been inside a low barrier housing unit.  As a mental health clinician who worked in Seattle last Summer, I can tell you that Seattle's housing policies are unethical and doing far more harm to people who are already hurt. We owe it to people to believe in their ability to help themselves. 


Housing alone is not the answer. And an offer of services is not the same as a requirement to receive services. We can't force people to accept help, but giving them housing for nothing in return is doing more harm. Housing should be offered to those ready to receive help and those who desire to better themselves.

Article by Elaine Cook, former mayor of Woodinville - posted February 2024

Park and Ride - September 2023

Comment from a regular commuter (pseudonym "M")

Woodinville P&R: An Important Transportation Resource

[Article published anonymously at author's request with a pseudonym of "M".]

Situated right next to town center, surrounded by existing housing, and just a 10 minute walk from the new housing developments, the Woodinville Park and Ride is a vital transportation resource for Woodinville residents, visitors, and commuters alike. 


As Woodinville embraces growth and town center shifts to a more dense, pedestrian-focused area, congestion along NE 175th St worsens - both residents and visitors deserve an effective transit solution to reduce congestion and equitably serve mobility needs. The Woodinville Park and Ride is strategically located to play that role if invested in properly. For example, pre-pandemic usage data showed that the Woodinville P&R helped remove ~600 vehicles from the road each day. And, of course, this does not account for the nearby riders who arrive by foot. 


Despite this, routes like the 931 which carried some 200 riders per day between intra-Woodinville locations and connected them with the most popular destination from Woodinville (Redmond, according to Sound Transit data*) have been permanently cut leaving a patchwork of rush-hour commuter routes like the 311 and 522 to move people locally between the downtown retail area and other parts of Woodinville. At the same time, those same routes face unprecedented highs in over capacity trips and lows in on-time performance. These failures in service push more people to solo commute, adding to the congestion, and further marginalizing those without that option.


Just as Woodinville plans for additional housing capacity to handle growth, the city must also consider and invest in mobility options to complement that growth and the Woodinville Park and Ride is paramount to that plan. Fortunately, and after much fanfare, the P&R is the pivotal component connecting Woodinville to high capacity transit as part of the upcoming Sound Transit BRT project. However, that connection is threatened. Lets speak up and engage the city to prioritize investing in the P&R as part of a transit solution in Woodinville. 


*slide 24: https://woodinville.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=11&clip_id=1679&meta_id=160013

Screenshot of King County Metro performance dashboard for the 311 route

King County Metro performance dashboard for the 311 route

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