Week in Review: Amazon, trees, and tacos

Guest host Mike Lewis discusses the week’s news with Publicola’s Erica Barnett, Insider’s Katherine Long, and KUOW’s Mike Davis.

On Monday, the Washington Post first reported that some Amazon employees would be holding a planned walkout on May 31st. The walkout is reportedly a response to the return-to-office mandate, recent layoffs, and the company’s impact on climate change. The walkout will happen only if at least 1,000 employees from the Seattle offices commit to it. Is it wise (or fair) for the company to require those former at-home employees to come back three days a week?

On Tuesday, the Seattle City Council passed a new tree ordinance which protects five times more trees than are currently protected. It pits advocates for rapid expansion of new housing development against the stewards of the Emerald City's existing canopy. Can Seattle both preserve the city's leafy neighborhoods and find more places for people to live?

From July 1, 2021, to July 1, 2022, Seattle had a net gain of about 17,750 people, bringing the population to nearly 750,000. This put the city’s growth rate at 2.4%, easily the fastest among the 50 largest U.S. cities. Given the other news reports of high crime, record overdoses, and unaffordable housing, the simple question is: Why are we still so popular?

Bicycle policing originated in Seattle. And while it started as both an effective way to move around Seattle and a "softening" of the police image, there are indications it has also become a tool of aggressive police crowd control. Should the Seattle police disband its bicycle police or reform its practices?

In all of the coverage of Marc Dones' resignation one point gets made time and time again: That leading the King County Regional Homeless Authority is an impossible job. Is this true? If so, why? One of the flash points among Dones' critics was their tepid endorsement of tiny home villages as a component to solve the region's homeless problem. What role should tiny homes play?