‘What a time we’ve had’: Contentious Seattle Police Officers Guild president won’t seek reelection

The Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) will have a new leader.

SPOG President Mike Solan announced, on a Dec. 31 episode of his podcast “Hold the Line,” that he won’t be seeking reelection.

“My second term ends this February of 2026, which will mark six years I’ve had this position. Man, what a time we’ve had,” Solan said. “I got elected about a month before the Floyd riots in 2020, and it has been a battle ever since. A lot of experiences, mostly positive, some really negative. A lot of attempts to cancel me, get me fired, cancel this union, but with the help of this audience ‘Hold the Line’ posse, we have thwarted all of it.”

Seattle Police Officers Guild president’s controversial career

Solan has been a prominent figure in SPOG, known for his controversial statements and actions, including pushing for accountability in police practices.

In May, he criticized an article in The Seattle Times that reported a sharp decline in major crimes — homicide, shootings, car theft, and robbery — in Seattle, based on 911 call data. SPOG argued the statistics were misleading, claiming the drop is due to fewer 911 calls and inaccurate data from the Seattle Police Department.

“The negative pieces are giving you the truth, talking about the crime that’s impacting this entire city, the public safety crisis that Seattle finds itself in,” Solan said on his podcast. “I can tell you, there’s a reason why the crime stats put up by the department are not as accurate as what we put out there.”

In January 2021, Seattle City Council members went so far as to try to remove Solan as the union’s president. Shortly after a mob laid siege to the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., Solan appeared to blame Antifa and Black Lives Matter supporters in posts on X.

Former Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan, retired city police chief Carmen Best, and former safety advisor Scott Lindsay subsequently called on Solan to resign. City council members shortly followed, implying Solan’s ability to negotiate a new contract for Seattle’s police officers was compromised.

Solan helps secure higher pay for Seattle officers

But despite the pushback, Solan secured multiple contracts and celebrated the end of the Seattle Police Department’s federal consent decree.

“The weaponized financial grift that is the Department of Justice consent decree process is finally over,” Solan said. “It’s over for the cops, the citizens, but also for those who profited from this process. Seattle’s taxpayers no longer must bear the financial DOJ consent decree burden, now over $220 million. With the consent decrees’ overly burdensome policy restrictions put onto Seattle’s police officers, these policies have had a detrimental impact on Seattle’s public safety.”

On his podcast, Solan touted new contracts that significantly boosted officer pay. Under the deal, the starting base salary for Seattle officers will increase by more than $20,000 annually to around $126,000, and then rise to nearly $151,000 after five years, KING 5 reported.

SPD currently has 1,200 sworn officers and 631 civilian employees, according to the city’s website. That’s up from only having 424 active officers, the lowest staffing levels since at least 1957, in April 2024.

“Numbers are up. It’s a good thing. It’s amazing what a contract can do,” Solan told “The John Curley Show” on KIRO Newsradio on Oct. 29.

A new collective bargaining agreement

Earlier in October, the City of Seattle reached a new collective bargaining agreement with the SPOG, which represents all Seattle police officers.

Under the agreement, police officers will receive a retroactive pay increase of 6% for 2024 and 4.1% for 2025. Officers will get an additional 2.7% increase in 2026, and the 2027 increase will range from 3-4%, depending on the Consumer Price Index.

“It’s been the honor of my career to be here in this position, and I wanna thank everybody, and I wanna thank the men and women who put this uniform on and for their support, couldn’t have done it without them,” he said.

Solan added that the podcast will continue, and asked his audience to stay tuned for what the future will hold.

“I’m not gonna go away, I’m gonna continue to stand up for common sense, push back against nonsense, push back against ideologs, activists — the unreasonable ones — to save this republic, this state and this community,” he said.

Solan won the SPOG presidency in a 2020 landslide, unseating incumbent Kevin Stuckey with more than 500 of 750 mail-in votes, according to The Seattle Times. The union has yet to announce new candidates.

Contributing: MyNorthwest staff; Luke Duecy, KIRO Newsradio

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