Reportgate. It’s a thing. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, good. If you do I am truly sorry. As in many things in life, if I had it to do all over again I would have written my original post about the missing report by McKinsey and Company that some Councilmembers said meant we needed to spend $400 million a year to “solve” housing differently, with the full knowledge of the big uproar it would create. I don’t mind the uproar. I’m used to that and consider that essential to my role. But what has happened in the days since the publication of my post is a lot of negativity. Some people have suggested I am a liar and that I have introduced a false narrative. Others have gone as far as saying I don’t want to help people, that I don’t have compassion, and even that I should disappear.

Well, that’s not going to happen.

I think it’s possible to regret how things turned out while standing by the original premise. That premise is that the public and the press was not given all the information to support the claim that a report by McKinsey indicated that Seattle should spend $400 million to “solve” homelessness. I based my conclusion that a report cited to support this conclusion was neither a report nor available to anyone but a select group of Councilmembers. I extensively sourced my original post. Some are now waving the PowerPoint offered by Councilmember Gonzalez as proof that I am a liar. But I referenced that document in my original post. It is linked and accounted for. I even contacted McKinsey and asked them, “is this PowerPoint the report?” I had already, in my drafting of my post, concluded that there was a strong distinction between the PowerPoint and a forthcoming report. McKinsey agreed with me.

This won’t change a lot of minds about me or what I wrote.

But a very wise person told me that I should express my regret about this not because I was lying but because perhaps I could have been more clear. I tried. I knew that such a claim would generate a lot of controversy. I am not sorry for that. But I wish the controversy was about a process that introduced a big number, $400 million a year, into a debate at the last minute without any way for the public or press to really dig into that number. That’s controversial enough. Councilmember Gonzalez and her colleagues were secretly briefed, McKinsey put numbers out without any methodology behind them, and the press blasted that number out all over the world. That’s just wrong.

But now we’re arguing about whether a PowerPoint can be a report.

The word author has deep meaning. As a Christian, I note that the liturgy sometimes refers to Christ as the “author of our salvation.” The notion of authorship indicates a responsibility, good or bad, for what happens and how and who uses what is written and created. As Jacque Derrida in this clip says, what writers do is serious. I strongly associate myself with his comments. What ever the consequences, writers or creators do what needs to be done. But I do regret that the conversation has degraded the way it has, and as the author, I have to be accountable for that even if I stand by the facts. So I am sorry.