Seattle City Council, time to wake up: An open letter to our first-year councilmembers
Yesterday needs to be this City Council’s worst day if 8 out of 9 of them want a chance at another term. They pulled one of the most chickenshit moves I’ve ever witnessed from my years covering city politics when they decided to hold an expensive special election for the voters’ initiative 137 rather than put it on November’s high-turnout general election ballot. They did this for the sole purpose of weakening its chances because they know the more Seattleites who vote on the initiative, the more likely it will be to pass.
The Seattle City Council (minus Tammy Morales) is admitting that their opinion on the initiative is unpopular among the people they are elected to represent, and they are pulling a chickenshit procedural trick in order to circumvent the people’s will. Not only are they wrong to do this, they should stop and think for a moment about the implications for their political prospects in this city.
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It didn’t help that they then retreated to their offices to remotely approve a contract for more jail cells to imprison low-level offenders because the outcry of public opposition in the council chambers was too loud. It also didn’t help that they somehow didn’t anticipate last week how unpopular it would be to roll back the minimum wage law. Not sure how many more signs folks will need before realizing they are making deeply unpopular decisions.
Here’s what I think is going to happen. Councilmember Woo will be toast in November, losing her second City Council election in the span of a year. It won’t be close. One down. At the same time, the voters of Washington House District 43 (entirely within the bounds of Seattle) will elect Shaun Scott despite a majority of the City Council endorsing Republican Andrea Suarez (who pretends she’s a Democrat because she thinks her voters aren’t paying attention). Suarez may not even make it into the general election depending on how late primary ballots turn out, that’s how out of touch this City Council is with the people they represent (Full disclosure: My family recently hosted a fundraiser house party for Scott’s campaign because he’s great). Seattle will then hold a special election, and we will pass I-137. But even worse for this Council, they decided through their action yesterday to turn the I-137 vote into a referendum of the city’s support for investing in affordable housing (spoiler, we want more) as well as a symbolic referendum on this City Council. Not a smart move, y’all.
Is it too late for them to save themselves? For Tanya Woo, yeah it’s too late. I also doubt Sara Nelson can reform her image, either, since she’s the leader of it all and she’s up for election next year (she’s welcome to try). But most of the others are still in the first years of their first terms. They get to use the “I was new and didn’t know better” card one time, and this is a great time to deploy it because that card expires soon. They are clearly getting advice from the wrong people right now, but there is no law that says they must continue following them into the abyss. They were elected by the people, and the office belongs solely to them and their constituents. It doesn’t matter how much corporate PAC money was spent to get them into office, they don’t owe those funders anything.
Kick your cynical bad faith advisors to the curb and go out into your community in search of real problems to solve to make our city a better place. Untie from the sinking ship that is Council President Nelson and be your own leader. Seattle is still a big small town, and elections are still usually won based on community support.
If councilmembers don’t turn things around fast, they may not even make it to 2027. Coucilmember Tammy Morales suggested during yesterday’s meeting that by not prioritizing their consideration of I-137, they likely ran afoul of the City’s Charter and could face recall elections. I personally do not like recall elections and hope it doesn’t come to that, but that’s the path this Council is walking (running?) down. Once you start taking actions to defy the will of the people, recall is the people’s recourse.
I love Seattle, and I believe in our city’s potential to be the city the rest of the nation looks to when trying to solve big problems. That’s why I love writing Seattle Bike Blog. This is my love letter to our city. We don’t always rise to our potential, but folks here never give up. Then every once in a while, we do something extraordinary. We are due for something extraordinary.
None of what I said above will happen on its own, but I believe the people of our city will put in the organizing and volunteer work to make it happen. Seattleites are desperate to make housing more affordable, and we are beyond sick of being told by elected leaders year after year that for some reason we can’t do it. That’s the energy behind I-137. If you all won’t do it, then we will. We’re not going to continue sitting on our hands pretending like there’s nothing more we can do while more and more people get priced out of our city’s cheapest apartments and forced to sleep in the fucking rain.
As our elected leaders, you can join us in an extraordinary victory as we create social housing that people can afford, or you can fight us. But if you fight us, you will lose. You made a big mistake yesterday, now you gotta figure out how to make it right. Which side of Seattle history do you want to be on?
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Tom Fucoloro
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