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MAY 7, 2025
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ROCK PAPER SCISSORS
VOL. 106, NO. 19
Seattle sees police hiring surge 500% after sweetening the deal for recruits
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QueenAnne Magnolia TOURNAMENT news By Spencer Pauley The Center Square
The Seattle Police Department is seeing recruitment efforts improve as it hired 500% more officers in the first four months of 2025 than the same time span last year. The city has hired 60 officers through April 2025. Last year, the police department managed to only hire 10 at this point in 2024. According to a press release from Mayor Bruce Harrell, the 60 hires are more than in the last three years at this point combined. If the trend continues, the city expects to hire over 150 officers in 2025. The number of applications the Seattle Police Department has received shows promise in that trend continuing as there have been 1,218 officer applications through the first quarter of 2025, compared to 690 through April 2024. “Our work to modernize recruiting and increase qualified applications is showing results through record hiring in 2025 – putting us on a path to restore Seattle Police Department staffing,” Harrell said in a statement.
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Sound Transit ridership still below pre-pandemic levels despite new services By TJ Martinell The Center Square
COURTESY BROOKE JOHNSON
John Hay Elementary School's Rock Paper Scissors Tournament was a huge success! On April 25, students from all grades came together to compete in their third annual tournament. They had food and games, and competition and fun. Ultimately, Makai the kindergartener (right) was named as the champion. Anna and Agastya were the runner-ups. Brooke Johnson is the parent volunteer that created the event and she says it is her favorite event of the year. "I wanted to create a competition that was inclusive to all children, and brought our community together to have fun. We have achieved that and so much more!" she said. She is hoping to continue the tradition in future years and welcome other local schools to participate. PRSRT STD U.S. POSTAGE
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SEATTLE, WA PERMIT 1271
Although it has been several years since the state-imposed lockdowns in response to the COVID-19 virus in Washington state, Sound Transit’s ridership and revenue have remained below pre-pandemic levels despite the expansion of services since then. One transit expert attributes that in part on a shift toward remote work, as other metro transit systems in the country are also suffering from decreased ridership numbers, while Sound Transit notes boarding levels for some of its services have since recovered. “Transit run the same routes they ran 100 years ago,” Randal O’Toole told The Center Square. O’Toole is a Cato Institute senior fellow working on urban growth, public land, and transportation issues. “When we build light rail, we build lines that all focus on downtown," he said. "That’s fine, 100 years ago when all the jobs were downtown. They’re not downtown [anymore].” Prior to the 2020-2021 lockdowns, Sound Transit ridership increased year-over-year between 1999 and 2018, when annual boardings increased from a few million in 1999 to 47.3 million in 2018. O’Toole says much of that
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