WEBVTT - Inside Amazon’s Big Showdown With Seattle 0:00:02.160 --> 0:00:10.720 There's an ugly standoff going on in Seattle. Anxiety is 0:00:10.840 --> 0:00:14.200 in the air, the housing market is nuts. Hundreds of 0:00:14.240 --> 0:00:17.080 people are moving to Seattle each week. They're attracted by 0:00:17.120 --> 0:00:20.279 Amazon and other booming tech jobs here, and the homeless 0:00:20.280 --> 0:00:23.240 population is growing, with tents popping up across the city. 0:00:23.880 --> 0:00:28.120 Housing has become scarce and expensive. Local authorities say they 0:00:28.120 --> 0:00:30.720 don't have the money to deal with the problem, so 0:00:30.760 --> 0:00:34.080 the city has been considering something called a head tax 0:00:34.200 --> 0:00:39.800 on big businesses. Then on May two, Amazon, Seattle's largest employer, 0:00:40.000 --> 0:00:44.280 decided to play hardball. Amazon employees more than forty people 0:00:44.280 --> 0:00:47.160 at its headquarters and said it was halting its expansion 0:00:47.159 --> 0:00:49.880 plans in the city pending the vote on the head tax. 0:00:53.560 --> 0:00:58.320 Amazon's move provoked an outpouring of rage on both sides. 0:00:58.720 --> 0:01:04.760 Construction workers tested the tax outside Amazon's headquarters. Meanwhile, homeowners 0:01:04.760 --> 0:01:07.760 are divided, with tensions running high. It led to a 0:01:07.760 --> 0:01:10.800 showdown at a meeting several city council members hosted later 0:01:10.840 --> 0:01:15.560 that day. I'm a lifelong Democrat, I have never been 0:01:15.600 --> 0:01:19.720 so fed up and disgusted and embarrassed for my city. 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:29.240 All Right, we do not trust you anymore. You have 0:01:29.560 --> 0:01:35.000 the most regressive tax structure in our city, which is 0:01:35.200 --> 0:01:38.600 in a state with the most regressive tax structure in 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:45.280 the entire country. So who are you gonna take the 0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:48.160 money from. I'll tell you say, we need five billion. 0:01:48.280 --> 0:01:50.880 That's a pretty conservative estment. Five billions how much Jeff 0:01:50.880 --> 0:01:53.640 Bezos made in ten minutes when Amanon announced they bought 0:01:53.640 --> 0:02:04.680 Whole Foods. We're gonna tax that mother. On Monday, the 0:02:04.800 --> 0:02:07.640 city council had to decide whether or not to move 0:02:07.680 --> 0:02:27.080 ahead with this controversial new tax. Hi, I'm Brad Stone 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:31.160 and I'm Karen Wise. And this week on Decrypted, we're 0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:33.959 taking a look at Seattle, which just found itself pitted 0:02:34.000 --> 0:02:37.440 against one of the world's largest companies run by the 0:02:37.480 --> 0:02:40.600 world's richest man. The growth of Amazon and other tech 0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:43.240 companies has created a lot of high paying jobs here, 0:02:43.720 --> 0:02:46.360 but it's also contributed to soaring rents and home prices. 0:02:46.960 --> 0:02:49.720 Recent studies linked the lack of affordable housing to an 0:02:49.760 --> 0:02:53.440 increase in the homeless population. As tech clubs around the 0:02:53.480 --> 0:02:56.919 world grapple with these unintended consequences of the tech boom, 0:02:57.120 --> 0:03:07.520 can Seattle, Washington paved the way stay Last week, I 0:03:07.560 --> 0:03:09.840 sat down with someone who's been following this story for 0:03:09.880 --> 0:03:12.960 a long time. Her name is Erica C. Barnett. She's 0:03:13.000 --> 0:03:15.200 a long time city hall reporter and now writes a 0:03:15.240 --> 0:03:18.000 progressive blog see is for Crank. I came out here 0:03:18.080 --> 0:03:22.480 for a job at Seattle Weekly, and um, I came 0:03:22.480 --> 0:03:24.040 out here in the middle of the summer, and it 0:03:24.120 --> 0:03:26.240 was the most beautiful place I'd ever seen in my life. 0:03:26.639 --> 0:03:29.040 Eric has been living in Seattle for close to twenty years. 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:32.079 I couldn't believe, you know, the mountains and the water 0:03:32.320 --> 0:03:36.480 and just you know, the beautiful hills and the neighborhoods 0:03:36.560 --> 0:03:39.880 and just everything about it was so beautiful. And I agree, 0:03:40.040 --> 0:03:43.800 it is gorgeous, rainy, but gorgeous. That's part of what 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:46.360 drew me here too. But the city has changed a 0:03:46.360 --> 0:03:49.080 lot since Erica first moved here. I lived in Ballard 0:03:49.120 --> 0:03:51.240 when I moved here, and and I left because it 0:03:51.280 --> 0:03:55.160 was so sleepy. And look at Ballard now, it's completely different. 0:03:55.880 --> 0:03:58.480 Seattle is the fastest growing housing market in the US, 0:03:58.560 --> 0:04:01.640 and home prices have gone up ab in the past year, 0:04:01.880 --> 0:04:04.200 and they did the same in the previous year. The 0:04:04.200 --> 0:04:06.720 median cost of a single family home is almost eight 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:09.880 hundred and twenty thousand dollars a lot of that growth 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:12.880 has come from the tech boom. Amazon was founded here 0:04:12.880 --> 0:04:17.320 in Today it's an eight hundred billion dollar company with 0:04:17.360 --> 0:04:22.440 more than five hundred thousand employees worldwide. Microsoft, Expedia, Zillo 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:26.000 are also based in the area, and Google, Facebook, Uber. 0:04:26.160 --> 0:04:28.760 So many tech companies have opened up large offices in 0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:32.040 Seattle too. I know some people hate it. It feels 0:04:32.080 --> 0:04:34.080 a little more anonymous than it used to, and it 0:04:34.160 --> 0:04:36.960 also um just feels like there are a lot of 0:04:37.000 --> 0:04:39.360 people coming here that only plan to be here for 0:04:39.360 --> 0:04:41.560 a year or two, you know, and that does kind 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:45.120 of impact the way that your interactions are with people. 0:04:49.160 --> 0:04:52.080 One economist I spoke to said that every new tech 0:04:52.160 --> 0:04:55.159 job creates about four to five new non tech jobs. 0:04:55.760 --> 0:04:57.840 Some of that non tech work is for professionals like 0:04:57.920 --> 0:05:00.480 lawyers and doctors, but the bulk of it is not 0:05:00.640 --> 0:05:05.160 think Uber drivers and plumbers. In boomtowns like Seattle, wages 0:05:05.240 --> 0:05:07.880 generally go up across the board, but cities don't add 0:05:08.000 --> 0:05:10.360 enough housing supply to keep up with the growing demand. 0:05:11.000 --> 0:05:14.719 That makes cities way less affordable. The economist said. Seattle 0:05:14.760 --> 0:05:16.960 is an extreme example of what's happening in other tech 0:05:17.000 --> 0:05:20.640 hubs like the Bay Area and in Austin. Yeah, Karen, 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:23.119 it really reminds me of the of the same exact 0:05:23.200 --> 0:05:26.000 dynamic that's going on here in San Francisco. You know, 0:05:26.080 --> 0:05:29.640 cities competed so hard to be the home to these 0:05:29.640 --> 0:05:33.360 tech companies, and now they are realizing that there there 0:05:33.360 --> 0:05:35.919 are some drawbacks from having these high growth companies in 0:05:35.960 --> 0:05:38.760 their myths. It's interesting Seattle is actually doing a better 0:05:38.839 --> 0:05:41.000 job than the Bay Area of building new housing, but 0:05:41.080 --> 0:05:44.360 even that isn't keeping up with the growing population here. 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:48.240 Such an emotional issue for people, you know, and it's 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:51.520 worth noting that, you know, these are both heavily democratic cities, 0:05:51.839 --> 0:05:54.080 and so you ask most people in Seattle or in 0:05:54.120 --> 0:05:57.880 San Francisco, and they're intellectually in favor of more housing 0:05:58.000 --> 0:06:00.800 or more affordable housing. But then when it comes to 0:06:00.839 --> 0:06:05.799 their neighborhoods, or putting high density apartment buildings with affordable 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:10.000 housing units below marker rate units in their neighborhoods, or 0:06:10.040 --> 0:06:13.160 even along kind of transport you know, public transportation lines, 0:06:13.760 --> 0:06:16.440 and you know, you get a kind of quiet resistance 0:06:16.480 --> 0:06:19.640 to it. And and even I would say modest things 0:06:19.720 --> 0:06:23.760 like adding a backyard cottage or allowing a single family 0:06:23.760 --> 0:06:25.760 home to be a duplex, not even building, you know, 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:29.960 low rise, multi family things are very contentious. The city 0:06:30.200 --> 0:06:32.560 in Seattle is currently debating something that would resone just 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:36.039 six percent of single family neighborhoods to allow that type 0:06:36.040 --> 0:06:39.280 of kind of more basic development, and that I'm sure 0:06:39.279 --> 0:06:41.159 will be very contentious when it actually comes up to 0:06:41.160 --> 0:06:46.040 a vote. When people say that we're becoming San Francisco, 0:06:46.080 --> 0:06:48.799 they're not wrong. I think that is exactly where we're headed. 0:06:52.520 --> 0:06:55.920 Seattle has seen a surge in homelessness. There are so 0:06:55.960 --> 0:06:59.559 many contributing factors. The opioid crisis, a lack of mental 0:06:59.560 --> 0:07:02.960 health re sources, but also rising rent is probably part 0:07:02.960 --> 0:07:05.719 of it. There are as many as four locations in 0:07:05.760 --> 0:07:08.640 the city where people are living in tents or makeshift shelters, 0:07:09.040 --> 0:07:10.920 and at times that has been a source of friction 0:07:10.960 --> 0:07:14.560 with residents. People are torn between having compassion and being 0:07:14.600 --> 0:07:17.440 frustrated with what seems like the city's inability to help. 0:07:17.760 --> 0:07:21.040 Here's Erika again. When you go to other cities, and 0:07:21.080 --> 0:07:23.760 I travel quite a lot, and um, you just don't 0:07:23.840 --> 0:07:26.840 see anything like what's in Seattle. I mean, I was 0:07:26.880 --> 0:07:30.320 in Houston recently, and Houston is a much less expensive city. 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:32.800 They have very different economic issues than we do. But 0:07:32.960 --> 0:07:36.200 I mean, you just don't see any tents outside, and 0:07:36.360 --> 0:07:38.760 so I think when people are going to other cities 0:07:38.800 --> 0:07:42.000 are comparing Seattle to what Seattle was like even twenty 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:44.720 or ten years ago. It's shocking and the fact that 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:48.280 there are tents everywhere is absolutely unacceptable. But Seattle is 0:07:48.280 --> 0:07:52.160 an unusual bind. That's because the Washington State constitution forbids 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:55.200 income tax. That means the city is unusually dependent on 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:58.680 property and sales taxes. As a result, people with less 0:07:58.720 --> 0:08:01.000 money spend a bigger share of the income on taxes. 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:03.200 So the city council came up with the idea of 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:05.880 a head tax, where businesses making more than twenty million 0:08:05.920 --> 0:08:09.680 dollars in annual revenue would pay up to five per employee. 0:08:09.920 --> 0:08:11.720 The city wants to use the money to build more 0:08:11.720 --> 0:08:14.440 public and low income housing and to boost services for 0:08:14.440 --> 0:08:17.280 the homeless. How does this relate to Amazon. I think 0:08:17.280 --> 0:08:21.480 people see Amazon, rightly or wrongly, as like our golden 0:08:21.520 --> 0:08:24.840 goose kind of our modern Boeing. Amazon would be the 0:08:24.880 --> 0:08:27.840 company most affected by the head tax. Amazon chose to 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:29.640 grow in the city, not in the suburbs, and it 0:08:29.800 --> 0:08:33.359 just dominates here. The Seattle Times did an amazing analysis 0:08:33.440 --> 0:08:36.680 last year and found that Amazon occupies more office space 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:40.160 in the city than the next forty employers combined, and 0:08:40.200 --> 0:08:43.720 it's building even more. I think people see Amazon as, 0:08:44.080 --> 0:08:47.360 you know, this economic force that's driving jobs at striving growth, 0:08:47.400 --> 0:08:50.920 that's driving their home prices up, because a lot of 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:53.440 the kind of split in the city right now is 0:08:53.480 --> 0:08:56.400 between homeowners who are seeing you know, their meet their 0:08:56.400 --> 0:08:59.640 home values go up so and then on the other hand, 0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:06.040 renters who feel like they're being left out. In September, 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:09.600 Amazon announced plans to build a second headquarters, which kind 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:12.240 of freaked the city out. Just the whole idea that 0:09:12.280 --> 0:09:14.920 Amazon could decide to move jobs away from Seattle or 0:09:14.920 --> 0:09:18.120 at least grow elsewhere. That might partly explain the shock 0:09:18.200 --> 0:09:20.880 when Amazon announced it was halting construction planning on a 0:09:20.920 --> 0:09:23.079 new office tower until it sees the outcome of the 0:09:23.160 --> 0:09:25.960 vote on the head tax. To the head tax would 0:09:26.000 --> 0:09:29.080 be a new tax on large employers in Seattle to 0:09:29.120 --> 0:09:33.040 help fund wholelessness programs. Amazon does not like it at all, 0:09:33.160 --> 0:09:35.960 so much so that they are halting construction on this 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:39.760 seventeen story building in downtown Seattle. Let me tell you 0:09:39.840 --> 0:09:49.839 about this head tax. The plan that would applies to Karen. 0:09:49.880 --> 0:09:53.360 The relationship between Amazon and Seattle, it reminds me of 0:09:53.400 --> 0:09:57.280 like a bad romantic relationship. Seattle is having a hard 0:09:57.320 --> 0:09:59.400 time with Amazon, but it doesn't want Amazon to go 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:02.200 and date any body else. Yes, they're definitely kind of 0:10:02.240 --> 0:10:05.400 codependent in a weird way right now. So Amazon is 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:08.240 bringing a lot of jobs, a lot of revenue into 0:10:08.240 --> 0:10:11.240 the city, but it's also just creating an obvious burden 0:10:11.520 --> 0:10:14.640 on city services. I mean, it's the head tax a 0:10:14.640 --> 0:10:17.200 good way of addressing that. Yeah, the head tax is 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:20.560 very interesting because it risks slowing down the job growth 0:10:20.600 --> 0:10:22.199 if you listen to what the company is saying, and 0:10:22.280 --> 0:10:25.280 we may not put as many new jobs here. So 0:10:25.320 --> 0:10:27.040 that's one way to manage the growth is just to 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:30.040 actually slow it down. And it also tries to solve 0:10:30.080 --> 0:10:32.640 a little bit on the housing supply side because it 0:10:32.679 --> 0:10:37.040 does go to fund new affordable housing, but it doesn't 0:10:37.120 --> 0:10:40.160 touch that huge issue about zoning and where you're gonna 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:42.600 put new housing, and that is the thing that has 0:10:42.679 --> 0:10:47.480 just really stifled new development in the Bay Area, in 0:10:47.600 --> 0:10:51.200 Seattle and other kind of booming tech cities too. So 0:10:51.280 --> 0:10:55.079 the h Q two search was announced last year, but 0:10:55.280 --> 0:10:57.520 the whole dispute this year on the head tax. It 0:10:57.559 --> 0:11:00.360 just makes me think that Amazon was awfully farcet sited 0:11:01.040 --> 0:11:03.800 uh in trying to find another city. Did they foresee 0:11:03.840 --> 0:11:06.560 all this? Yeah, I mean there's no doubt that the 0:11:06.600 --> 0:11:09.960 pressures on the city have been growing a lot, and 0:11:10.040 --> 0:11:12.560 particularly in the past couple of years. I mean, they 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:15.640 have to imagine there were own recruiters here trouble about 0:11:16.280 --> 0:11:19.000 concerns about the housing stock here and the and the 0:11:19.160 --> 0:11:21.360 ability even for a high paid engineer to find to 0:11:21.400 --> 0:11:24.640 find something. And they they have said, you know, I 0:11:24.679 --> 0:11:26.319 think the most talent thing I've heard out of them 0:11:26.400 --> 0:11:30.160 is Jeff Wilkie, the executive, at a conference in Seattle 0:11:30.280 --> 0:11:33.880 last fall, said something to the effect of, I love Seattle. 0:11:33.960 --> 0:11:36.080 It's been fabulous for me and my family, but not 0:11:36.160 --> 0:11:38.160 everyone wants to live here, and we are growing at 0:11:38.160 --> 0:11:39.680 a rate where we really need to be able to 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:42.400 find a place to work for anyone that we can get. 0:11:42.920 --> 0:11:47.200 Not everyone enjoys those rainy winters. So what what should 0:11:47.200 --> 0:11:51.400 Amazon apply in terms of the lessons of its long 0:11:51.559 --> 0:11:54.520 tangled relationship with the city of Seattle. What should it 0:11:54.559 --> 0:11:57.800 apply to the search for another city? To host its 0:11:57.800 --> 0:12:01.160 second headquarters. Amazon was really it for a really long 0:12:01.200 --> 0:12:04.280 time in Seattle, and I suspect probably they have regrets 0:12:04.280 --> 0:12:06.600 about that because they didn't help the city get ahead 0:12:06.600 --> 0:12:08.839 of this problem really, and so when they're talking to 0:12:08.920 --> 0:12:11.520 new places, they're really trying to understand how how is 0:12:11.520 --> 0:12:14.640 this city going to accommodate all of these kind of 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:17.320 housing needs and the transportation needs, and all of the 0:12:17.720 --> 0:12:20.880 additional burden on the infrastructure that comes with really building 0:12:21.280 --> 0:12:25.120 as we've talked about, not just the headquarters for these employees, 0:12:25.120 --> 0:12:28.800 but then all of the additional auxiliary work rights. And 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:32.280 cities can also learn from Amazon's experience in Seattle and 0:12:32.360 --> 0:12:34.959 know that if they win HQ two, they're getting a big, 0:12:35.000 --> 0:12:37.880 powerful company. They're getting a lot of jobs, but they're 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:40.160 also going to be dealing with some political issues that 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:42.880 are very hard to predict. Yes, I mean, Amazon has 0:12:42.920 --> 0:12:45.040 shown it can play hardball, and so if I were 0:12:45.080 --> 0:12:47.240 a city, I'd be a little nervous at the same time. 0:12:48.400 --> 0:12:52.080 Next up, strong reactions he roughed on all sides. After 0:12:52.120 --> 0:12:55.960 Amazon pauses its expansion plants in Seattle until it knows 0:12:56.000 --> 0:13:10.880 the outcome of the head tax vote. Amazon statement hit 0:13:10.920 --> 0:13:15.200 around midday on May two, Amazon has stopped construction on 0:13:15.320 --> 0:13:19.200 a new office building in Seattle, where its current headquarters are. 0:13:19.360 --> 0:13:21.920 This comes after the city proposed a new tax on 0:13:21.960 --> 0:13:25.000 top business. Since then, things have been moving really fast. 0:13:25.280 --> 0:13:28.840 The tax has become a polarizing issue. The construction workers 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:32.160 union has come out against it, but services sector unions 0:13:32.160 --> 0:13:34.800 are supporting it. Some residents are happy that the city 0:13:34.880 --> 0:13:38.280 is pushing back on Amazon, which let's remember, is the 0:13:38.320 --> 0:13:41.520 second largest company in the world run by the wealthiest 0:13:41.559 --> 0:13:44.480 man in the world, but other residents don't trust the 0:13:44.520 --> 0:13:48.200 city to spend the new money wisely. Emotions came to 0:13:48.240 --> 0:13:51.280 a head later that night. Hundreds of people packed into 0:13:51.320 --> 0:13:53.160 a Methodist church where what was supposed to be a 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:56.760 town hall meeting but instead and evolved into just inventing 0:13:56.760 --> 0:14:04.360 a rage m It's refreshing to see ordinary citizens revolting 0:14:04.400 --> 0:14:10.839 against this lousy city council. This clause a religious organization 0:14:11.240 --> 0:14:13.400 that tells us how we're supposed to think, what we're 0:14:13.400 --> 0:14:15.319 supposed to do with our money, what we're supped to 0:14:15.320 --> 0:14:19.040 do with our plastic bags. We cannot be trusted homeowners 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:21.520 shouto down the council members, saying the money they pay them. 0:14:21.560 --> 0:14:25.440 Property taxes have been spent unwisely. And if you've lived 0:14:25.480 --> 0:14:28.520 here for a few years and you've seen this city 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:34.120 government take on affordability by bulldozing all the backyards and 0:14:34.280 --> 0:14:38.000 ballard and putting up nine dred thousand dollar condos, you 0:14:38.120 --> 0:14:40.760 might start to think maybe they should just kind of 0:14:41.080 --> 0:14:46.240 deal with water, sewer, garbage, police, fireman, libraries, and parks 0:14:46.880 --> 0:14:49.720 and get out of the rest of this step. Because 0:14:49.760 --> 0:14:52.840 it's you're it's not. But other people told the council 0:14:52.880 --> 0:14:56.000 they couldn't afford taxes to go up even more because 0:14:56.040 --> 0:14:58.520 I know that as a middle class worker in the city, 0:14:58.880 --> 0:15:01.200 I'm a future in the You should be homeless myself, 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:03.600 because that's the way our city is going. Our middle 0:15:03.640 --> 0:15:08.320 class is not able to afford our houses, our rents 0:15:08.520 --> 0:15:10.840 were not able to afford any of it. All of 0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:14.120 you here wants to live in a in a happy 0:15:14.200 --> 0:15:17.360 life with Erica was there. She saw people struggling with 0:15:17.400 --> 0:15:19.680 how to deal with the city's growth. And I think 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:22.400 there's a weird sort of brain split where like, we 0:15:22.520 --> 0:15:24.520 like the economic growth and we like the fact that 0:15:24.560 --> 0:15:26.880 home prices are rising, but we don't like the fact 0:15:26.920 --> 0:15:29.400 that those people need places to live. They're living in 0:15:29.440 --> 0:15:33.520 town homes and apartments that you know, or we're maybe 0:15:33.520 --> 0:15:36.320 built where a single family house was bulldozed. A lot 0:15:36.320 --> 0:15:39.040 of residents invented about the way tents and makeshift housing 0:15:39.080 --> 0:15:43.160 was affecting their neighborhoods. They're sick of seeing tents everywhere. 0:15:43.400 --> 0:15:46.520 There is a perception that there are needles everywhere, but 0:15:46.600 --> 0:15:49.680 they're just they're upset about about the issue of homelessness 0:15:49.720 --> 0:15:54.520 and UM the way it's being handled UM Council. I 0:15:54.600 --> 0:15:57.840 recognize that there's a crisis of homelessness in Seattle, and 0:15:57.880 --> 0:16:01.560 I generally support red a new and services to address 0:16:01.600 --> 0:16:05.320 that crisis. But whatever we do, it's going to take time, 0:16:06.240 --> 0:16:09.240 and in the meantime, we're going to continue to have 0:16:09.480 --> 0:16:13.200 encampments all over the city. And the impact that those 0:16:13.280 --> 0:16:18.040 encampments are having on their immediate neighbors is really tangible 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:20.440 and problematic, and I think it's driving a lot of 0:16:20.480 --> 0:16:24.600 the frustration and hostility and the anger that you see tonight. 0:16:25.280 --> 0:16:38.120 So at times the dialogue totally broke down. I see, Okay, 0:16:38.360 --> 0:16:42.880 So blaming poor people for what's going on is like 0:16:42.960 --> 0:16:54.600 blaming Syrian refugees for Isis. Amazon As isis In any case, 0:16:54.680 --> 0:16:57.080 I wish you would act more like kindergarteners than like 0:16:57.200 --> 0:17:12.840 over entitled rich white people pay. Yeah, you know, I've 0:17:12.840 --> 0:17:16.400 been to about a million of these meetings before, and 0:17:16.800 --> 0:17:19.639 I'm you know, I'm not like a shrinking flower. I 0:17:19.680 --> 0:17:23.159 don't get upset. But it felt I mean, you know, 0:17:23.160 --> 0:17:24.560 people are going to make fun of me for this, 0:17:24.680 --> 0:17:27.919 but it felt scary. Um, it felt like, you know, 0:17:28.000 --> 0:17:39.399 people were going to rush the state. Okay, so today 0:17:39.560 --> 0:17:44.320 is Tuesday. Yesterday, on Monday afternoon, the Seattle City Council 0:17:44.400 --> 0:17:48.120 voted on the controversial head tax. Please call the roll 0:17:48.280 --> 0:17:56.920 on the passage of the amended bill O. Brian Swant, Bagshaw, Gonzalez, 0:17:58.000 --> 0:18:05.200 her Bold, John one waras Mosqueta I President Harold A. 0:18:05.720 --> 0:18:09.440 Nine in favor, none opposed it. Okay, so now we 0:18:09.480 --> 0:18:12.840 have a resolution which basically embodies the spending plans just 0:18:12.880 --> 0:18:18.760 one moment here and so please read that into the record. 0:18:18.960 --> 0:18:22.840 The vote came after a weekend of frantic negotiations. Basically, 0:18:22.880 --> 0:18:25.920 the mayor said she might veto of five per head 0:18:25.920 --> 0:18:28.520 tax if the council passed it. So after all this 0:18:28.600 --> 0:18:31.000 back and forth, they got it down to two seventy 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:34.399 five dollars per employee, and then the city council passed 0:18:34.400 --> 0:18:38.280 it nine to zero. Right, So for now the standoff 0:18:38.400 --> 0:18:42.080 is over what lesson to other cities like Mountain View, 0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:44.960 which was weighing a similar Google tax. What do they 0:18:45.000 --> 0:18:48.480 take from this episode? It's interesting. I mean I think 0:18:48.920 --> 0:18:52.080 clearly you learn it's hugely divisive and a risky thing 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:54.600 to do, and it's hard to know now you know, 0:18:54.720 --> 0:18:56.920 how it will affect growth in the city. Will people 0:18:56.920 --> 0:19:00.560 pull back or is there already enough good job and 0:19:00.560 --> 0:19:02.440 and enough of a cluster of tech work here that 0:19:02.520 --> 0:19:07.360 people Amazon and others will continuing hiring here. Everybody's wondering 0:19:07.400 --> 0:19:10.919 how this impacts the search for h Q two, and 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:13.919 I don't know. Some of the candidate cities sent letters 0:19:13.960 --> 0:19:18.160 to Seattle encouraging the council to resist the pressure from Amazon. 0:19:18.640 --> 0:19:22.840 What does this impact the HQ two search? Yeah, I mean, 0:19:22.960 --> 0:19:26.040 if I were a city, I think that this shows 0:19:26.480 --> 0:19:28.560 shows two things. It shows that a city can put 0:19:28.680 --> 0:19:32.359 some onus on Amazon, or cities have can have the 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:34.720 political will to do that. But it also shows that 0:19:34.760 --> 0:19:37.600 Amazon plays hardball, and that's it's a reality. I had 0:19:37.600 --> 0:19:39.679 a guest in town this weekend from Germany, and this 0:19:39.760 --> 0:19:41.439 made the news in Germany. So I think it's not 0:19:41.480 --> 0:19:44.159 even just HQ two, but it's all their global expansion plans. 0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:46.560 People are watching this, watching to see what they'll do 0:19:46.600 --> 0:19:48.919 and how to play out. So now Seattle has a 0:19:48.960 --> 0:19:52.879 two seventy five dollar per employee head tax. Does it 0:19:53.080 --> 0:19:56.879 solve Seattle's problems? And when you talk about the congestion 0:19:56.960 --> 0:20:00.800 in the city, the ever increasing price of housing, what 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:03.760 does this do? Yeah, so this is I think one 0:20:03.800 --> 0:20:07.280 thing that definitely will help is this does build more housing, 0:20:07.480 --> 0:20:09.800 specifically affordable housing. And there was a lot of back 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:13.439 and forth over how much should go to services versus construction, 0:20:13.880 --> 0:20:16.440 and the end about two thirds of the new revenue 0:20:16.440 --> 0:20:19.520 will go to building new units. But we're talking fewer 0:20:19.560 --> 0:20:21.720 than a thousand units, and I believe that the current 0:20:21.760 --> 0:20:24.919 affordable housing gap is something like fourteen thousand units in 0:20:24.920 --> 0:20:28.879 the county. So it's it's a improvement, but not a 0:20:29.000 --> 0:20:31.960 huge one. And is it possible that this head tax 0:20:32.280 --> 0:20:36.639 slows down Seattle growth? That that is the big question. 0:20:36.680 --> 0:20:39.800 Will it slow down this kind of crazy increase in 0:20:40.080 --> 0:20:42.320 in jobs and high paying jobs that are coming here. 0:20:42.800 --> 0:20:44.640 And I spoke with one of the council members who 0:20:44.640 --> 0:20:47.520 co sponsored the legislation, Michae O'Brien. I spoke with him 0:20:47.600 --> 0:20:49.960 last week and he said, you know, I don't think 0:20:50.000 --> 0:20:51.760 it's going to slow down the growth here. I think 0:20:51.760 --> 0:20:54.560 we've got enough momentum here that will keep Amazon on 0:20:54.640 --> 0:20:57.160 others continuing to come. But if it does slow down 0:20:57.240 --> 0:20:59.880 the growth, maybe that's okay. Maybe that's what we need 0:21:00.000 --> 0:21:09.119 to catch your breath a little bit. And that's it 0:21:09.200 --> 0:21:12.720 for this week's episode of Decrypted. Thanks for listening. Do 0:21:12.760 --> 0:21:14.960 the issues we talked about today apply to the city 0:21:15.000 --> 0:21:16.840 you live in? We want to know how the growth 0:21:16.880 --> 0:21:19.639 of the tech industry has affected you. Send us an email. 0:21:20.000 --> 0:21:23.080 Our address is Decrypted at Bloomberg dot net or I'm 0:21:23.080 --> 0:21:26.720 on Twitter at pay wy Wise and I'm at brad Stowe. 0:21:27.080 --> 0:21:29.399 If you enjoy the show, please spread the word with 0:21:29.440 --> 0:21:32.719 your friends and consider leaving us a rating and a review. 0:21:33.040 --> 0:21:36.320 It really helps us find new listeners. This episode was 0:21:36.359 --> 0:21:40.440 produced by Pia Gattari and tofor Foreheads. Francesca Leave is 0:21:40.480 --> 0:21:42.840 the head of Bloomberg Podcast. We'll see you next week.