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Seattle City Attorney Annual Report 2015

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Seattle City Attorney Annual Report 2015 CIVIL DIVISION continued Seattle City Attorney Annual Report 2015 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS 3 Statement from the City Attorney 7 Precinct Liaison Division 12 Civil Division 23 Criminal Division 38 Race and Social Justice Initiative 41 Administration Division 2 STATEMENT FROM THE CITY ATTORNEY Seattle & City Government, Reducing our office footprint from five floors in Post-Great Recession two different buildings to three floors in a single As construction cranes multiplied across the location makes possible a single “storefront” Emerald City in 2015, Seattleites expressed for receiving visitors, mail and service of legal growing concern about rapid urban change amid documents. Preparing for the move forced us worsening economic inequality. Halfway through to rethink all our office systems, moving us Mayor Ed Murray’s first term in office (my second), more deliberately toward a paperless office and we elected in 2015—for the first time in since streamlining communications throughout City 1911—seven of our nine City Councilmembers by government. It also allowed me to “flatten” my district, consistent with passage of voter initiative management structure, eliminating the chief and Amendment 19 to the City Charter in 2013. As deputy chief of staff positions and relying more City Attorney, I continued to push this full-service heavily on an Executive Team comprised primarily exceptional “in house” law firm to ever greater of division chiefs. levels of performance. Leaner CAO Management A Much-Needed New Home for the City My Executive Team has also evolved. In midyear Attorney’s Office 2015, we said goodbye to Civil Division Chief In 2015, we successfully consolidated our 101 Jean Boler, who retired to her hometown of St. lawyers and 79 legal professionals into efficient, Paul, Minn. Following an executive search, I again striking new offices on the 18th, 19th and 20th promoted from within CAO ranks and appointed floors of Columbia Center. For the first time in Greg Narver to the post, where he has continued many decades the Seattle City Attorney’s Office to inspire ever-increasing excellence from the (CAO) now brings the full, coordinated expertise of Civil Division. A true “Lawyer’s Lawyer,” Greg has its Civil, Criminal and Precinct Liaison Divisions to exceeded all of our hopes and expectations. bear on every new initiative and challenge Seattle Pete Holmes In December, Craig Sims finally succumbed to faces. Our quarters, including an outstanding intense recruiting and returned to private practice. conference center where we meet with City Our second nationwide executive search yielded clients, is strategically housed near the municipal another inspiring chief for the Criminal Division government campus. in Kelly Harris. Kelly returned to the Pacific And while the move itself necessarily taxed the Northwest late in the first quarter of 2016 after logistical resources of Administration Chief Dana some seven years in the Litigation Section of Anderson, this physical consolidation enhanced the U.S. Justice Department’s Counterterrorism her division’s support for all CAO operations: Division. No stranger to Seattle, Kelly began his 3 STATEMENT FROM THE CITY ATTORNEY continued Pete with Chief O’Toole Aki Kurose students The floorplan of the new space legal career more than 20 years ago under the late King Headed by a veteran criminal prosecutor, civil land use nightclubs, massage parlors, strip clubs and other County Prosecutor Norm Maleng, thereafter becoming lawyer—even former precinct liaison—Tamera Van regulated industries under SMC Title 6 allows for an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Western District Ness brings her broad experience in the CAO to this more targeted enforcement, tailored to the impacts of Washington before beginning his stint with DOJ in innovative, multidisciplinary effort to address quality of of any particular activity. REEJ attorneys not only Washington, D.C. life issues in Seattle. And Tamera’s team at REEJ truly collaborate with compliance officers from multiple city hit the ground running in 2015. For instance, half of the departments; thanks to our newly consolidated offices CAO: Melding Public and Private Sector Legal unlicensed marijuana dispensaries in Seattle at the start they can more easily coordinate with their fellow civil Best Practices of the year were shuttered by year’s end, with little or litigators and criminal prosecutors in applying the most Annual reports from my first and second terms no direct police action. (Most remaining stores at this appropriate remedies to gain compliance and enhance previously acknowledged my private sector philosophy writing have at least a theoretical chance of obtaining public safety. And REEJ was launched with no new in delivering top-tier legal services to the City. CAO a state license from the Washington State Liquor & City resources, by recruiting assistant city attorneys, professionals are proud to provide innovative legal Cannabis Board (LCB) by July 1, 2016, when medical prosecutors and legal support staff with experience counsel to perhaps the most progressive city in the marijuana enterprises became subject to LCB rules.) and enthusiasm for code enforcement. Regulatory country—not to mention the 18th largest, and one of enforcement is truly the smart answer to more of the fastest growing. Even while acclimating to our new REEJ is by no means limited to enforcing Seattle’s today’s multidisciplinary urban challenges. home, we stayed ever focused on the work at hand, marijuana rules. In a variety of commercial settings, chalking up an impressive list of accomplishments for City code compliance inspectors and analysts Key Litigation Victories 2015 in service to the People of Seattle. from other departments—the new Department $15 Minimum Wage. Seattle’s groundbreaking $15 of Construction & Inspections (DCI); Financial & Regulatory Enforcement & Economic Justice (REEJ) minimum wage ordinance was successfully defended Administrative Services (FAS) (business licenses and is the name of our newest Civil Division section. In a by Civil Division Chief Greg Narver against a challenge taxes, taxis and TNC regulations); the new Office of rapidly growing city like Seattle, to combat escalating by former U.S. Solicitor Paul Clement (the successful Labor Standards (OLS); the rental housing inspections housing costs and simultaneously help preserve SCOTUS advocate in Bush v. Gore) in the U.S. District team, to name a few—team up with REEJ lawyers every surrounding rural, agricultural and wilderness lands Court for the Western District of Washington through day to find innovative approaches to gaining regulatory from overdevelopment, increasing density is a must. the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. compliance. Enforcing Seattle Municipal Code With increased density comes ever the greater need for Now that plaintiffs have recently abandoned further (SMC) regulatory licenses for marijuana businesses, thoughtful building codes that are consistently enforced. appeals, REEJ lawyers are already actively enforcing 4 STATEMENT FROM THE CITY ATTORNEY continued the ordinance’s graduated introduction of the new real property hoarders who allow precious residential regarding possible complementary strategies to keep higher minimum wage across the board in Seattle. housing stock to become uninhabitable. struggling families in their homes. We have worked closely with several City Councilmembers to attempt Gun Violence Tax. When the National Rifle Shared Prosperity: Confronting the Affordable Housing to determine the extent of ongoing foreclosures in Association (NRA) challenged Seattle’s innovative Challenge. The same support we offered the new Seattle and King County. We have examined the new tax on guns and ammunition in order to fund Murray Administration’s HALA (Housing Affordability possible contributions to mortgage abuses from the academic research into the ways to reduce gun & Livability Agenda) initiative in 2014 continued Mortgage Electronic Registration System (MERS), and violence, lawyers from our Government Affairs throughout 2015, just as we supported parallel efforts the recording requirements under Washington’s Deed Section were ready. Teaming up with Steptoe & on City Council. of Trust and Foreclosure Fairness Acts [chapter 61.24 Johnson lawyers from their Palo Alto offices and Much like our support and defense of Seattle’s $15 RCW]. Finally, we are working hard to implement the Seattle’s Gordon Tilden Thomas & Cordell firm—both minimum wage law, CAO’s affordable housing work latest housing regulations recently promulgated by the on a pro bono basis—we have been twice successful in is just part of a major pillar of my second term: U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development defending this innovative funding approach. Combating homelessness and income inequality. (HUD) under the federal Fair Housing Act, known as One main reason for our successful defense of the I have been personally involved in attempting to “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” [24 CFR Parts gun violence tax thus far is the early collaboration assess the extent of single-family home foreclosures 5, 91, 92, et al.]. CAO lawyers offered to the ordinance’s prime in Seattle, in the wake of the collapse of the housing Transportation Network Companies (TNCs) & Drivers’ sponsor, then-City Council President Tim Burgess. bubble precipitating the Great Recession—including Right to Organize. In perhaps one of Seattle’s more By helping to navigate the peculiar vagaries of state the
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