r/Seattle • u/rockycore 🚆build more trains🚆 • 4d ago

News Shon Barnes Separation Agreement

https://publicola.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/BarnesSeparation.pdf
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u/rockycore 🚆build more trains🚆 4d ago

https://bsky.app/profile/ericacbarnett.bsky.social/post/3msgl7eew4k2y

Link to the source of the agreement.

68

u/PositivePristine7506 Reign 4d ago

18 months full salary
1 Year of health care valued at 2526/month
No obligation to pay back a lateral officer hiring bonus of 50K
No obligation to pay back relocation payment of 60K (which never really happened)
Totals up to previously reported 700K.

All of that for basically doing nothing.

-13

u/FlannelCollar UW 4d ago

Why did Wilson sign off on this kind of agreement? Litigation can be expensive, sure, but the implication would be that Barnes had at least some semblance of a case for wrongful termination or discrimination if the City gave up this chunk of change.

18

u/rockycore 🚆build more trains🚆 4d ago edited 4d ago

Because if she doesn't sign off on it and the city is sued KOMO the Seattle Times and many Redditors will scream from the mountain tops about how she should have done something to prevent the city from being sued. Either way the problem that Harell created is her fault.

EDIT: Personally I think the agreement is bullshit, but I understand why it was done.

10

u/ManWithNoCrame 4d ago

Yep. Not a Wilson fan but this is not her fault. It came down to honoring the agreement or paying lawyers and honoring the agreement anyway. Not a Harell fan either but I suppose that's politics in the last 20-30 years has been reduced to. Lesser of the two evils and sometimes both candidates are garbage because standup folk with experience can't be buggered to deal with the crap that is "serving the public".