A true underdog story unfolded today in City Hall. After Tanya Woo lost a campaign supported by more than $100,000 in donations from big business interests, the new Seattle City Council dutifully obeyed the wishes of its corporate overlords by voting 5-3 to appoint her to the citywide seat left vacant by Teresa Mosqueda, effectively replacing a strong advocate for progressive taxation with an anti-tax extremist. It doesn’t get more grassroots than that!
If a careful audit showed the City needed more revenue to fill the big gap, would you support new progressive revenue? pic.twitter.com/1pdQO4flIN
— Hannah Krieg (@hannahkrieg) January 22, 2024
The vote comes more than a week after Tim Ceis, a corporate-PAC-wrangler and consultant to Mayor Bruce Harrell, told corporate donors to push the council to appoint Woo. The new council members apparently knew it would be a bad look to so easily fulfill the wishes of big business, or at least during the meeting they defended themselves as if it were a bad look
Council President Sara Nelson, who cast the decisive vote for Woo this afternoon, asked her colleagues not to allow the “weaponization of a leaked third party email distract us from what should be a celebration of making this body whole so we can go about the important work of the City.” She accused people who mentioned the letter of trying to cast doubt upon the process that happened to result in their friend getting elected.
Nelson said, “Let’s not let the weaponization of a leaked third party email distract us from what should be a celebration of making this body whole so we can go about the important work of the city” in reference to this email: pic.twitter.com/Am1GkR2agm
— Hannah Krieg (@hannahkrieg) January 23, 2024
Council Member Tammy Morales, who voted for her own nominee for the position, Mari Sugiyama, voiced a different perspective. In her remarks before the vote, Morales said she felt “disappointed” in the process that all along seemed like a “forgone conclusion.” She claimed that the nominees did not get a “fair shake” because of Ceis’s attempts to tip the scales toward Woo. Morales said that Seattle voters do not want corporate interests “buying” influence. They said that loud and clear during the backlash election against Amazon in 2019. So, no, Ceis. The corporate donors who backed the newbies on council did not have a right to decide who fills the vacancy, as he suggested in his letter to them.
Council Member Cathy Moore, also a “proud” Woo supporter, pushed back. No matter how journalists report her vote for Ceis’s darling, no one bought her vote, she said.
Regardless of who put Woo’s name in the council’s ear, one thing is clear: This is a solidly conservative City Council. Nelson, once a conservative outcast, got elected council president and will likely lead a strong conservative bloc with Council Members Rob Saka, Maritza Rivera, Bob Kettle, and now Woo, who gives them a five-person majority. Like any other conservative majority, that means they will support austerity measures to preserve the wealth of corporations, bend over backwards to hire more cops that do not exist, promote sprawl and NIMBYism in its housing planning, and to roll back important protections for workers and renters in Seattle.
Woo’s appointment also sends an obvious “fuck you” message to Morales and to the progressives she represents. Woo lost to Morales, making the incumbent the only purely labor-backed candidate to win a seat in 2023. Now, not only is she a minority on the council, but her colleagues undermined her victory by giving the person she beat a consolation prize. Not to mention—though Morales mentioned it on the dais—Saka also nominated another one of her former election rivals. Morales agreed to play nice with the new council despite their differences, but they aren’t making it easy for her!
The vote split in itself may reveal challenges to come. While Nelson, Saka, Rivera, Moore, and Kettle voted together, Council Members Dan Strauss, Joy Hollingsworth, and Morales all voted for their initial nominees—Vivian Song, Linh Thai, and Sugiyama, respectively. If progressives hope to win anything or even defend what the last council already won, these three will have to work together and whip some fucking votes.
If we’re channeling what the voters/people want, Woo got the most votes of any of those candidates. Filling a vacancy left by an elected official can’t ever be perfect, but the rules were duly created by a democratic process. Godspeed, new council. It’s a tough time to lead.
HAHAHAHAHAHA – LMFAOOOO
The DSA sycophants are going to have a rough few years – this should be entertaining
@1 Woo got more votes than people who didn’t run, wow great point incredible logic
At least Hollingsworth showed some spine. Hopefully this doesn’t mean the cabal primaries her next time around.
I fear Our Dear Hannah has descended into Grayson Hall territory. Here’s hoping for a speedy recovery.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oASNp9ap5KY
@4 – A poor man’s Eve Arden. Thanks for the memory!
Woo’s appointment also sends an obvious “fuck you” message to Morales and to the progressives she represents
I’m glad to hear the message was received and understood. Now let’s start repairing the damage done by a decade of progressive policies.
It must be exhausting for you to come up with progressively more ridiculous statements in each piece you write. “Promote sprawl”? Seriously? I must have missed those hundreds of empty acres of land out there in the parts of the city you never visit.
I voted for Morales and Tanya Woo, (in different elections) so I see this as great for District 2.
As much as the Stranger is dumping on Tanya Woo, she will have to run as a citywide representative in 1 year, which means a 1 issue campaign is much less likely to work citywide.
But having voted for her, I don’t think she was the best selection, in this case. This just proves the council members are not strategic thinkers.
Woo hoo! Thank you for delivering a big fuck you to Morales and putting a stake in the failed and extreme leftist movement that destroyed Seattle.
@2 you beat me to it. Ha Ha ha Ha Ha Ha. I’m pretty sure hannah is on reddit too and she’s easy to see….Lower case name on purpose. The Stranger’s main advertising comes from the non profits that dole out the cities money given to them. Except their money is going to the people in charge and The Stranger.
Who on the council is really considered conservative? Please anyone make sense of that.
The Stranger calls a five alarm fire over the fact that the city (with the exception of Morales district) voted for an alternative approach to governing the city. Now they are mad that the city council won’t give the middle finger to those same voters? That Woo happens to live in Morales’ district doesn’t mean the rest of the city doesn’t approve.
But watching poor Hannah and the Stranger melt down over the at least temporary suspension of their glorious revolution is hilarious 😀
Outrage, whine, and victimhood; outrage, whine, and victimhood…. little did we know just how similar the MAGA’s and the SA’s (terrible acronym btw) would be the same…
@12 — nobody. They’re all liberal Democrats. Calling them conservatives is a flat out lie. My sense is that the constant repetitive dishonest badmouthing of them is part of a broader editorial choice by The Stranger that will eventually lead to them refusing to endorse Biden using the same tactics. Which will of course be a de facto endorsement of Donald Trump.
We’ll see. I’m not optimistic.
I like how anyone who isn’t ‘progressive’ (whatever that means) is by default, a conservative.
That’s an awfully binary way to look at things.
18: True! It’s like the MAGA folks screaming SOCIALISM!!!! at anything and everything.
I have trouble not guffawing out loud when reading anything written by Hannah. “Conservative” “extremist” “cooperate overloads” Shrill screeching of buzzwords gets exhausting to hear. This council is not conservative – as another commentator noted – they are centrist democrats. The fact that she is hating on anyone less “progressive” than her and her politics makes her an extremist. And Morales is just awful – useless extreme left-winger who can’t form consensus and gets nothing done but whine.
It’s not Morales vs Woo
They both live in District 2.
Can they make Seattle better?
Or my comments will be cheddah
The Stranger stopped being relevant some time ago, so I guess this increasingly clownish behavior isn’t really hurting them. Dead cat can only bounce so many times.
@19
Agreed.
Seems the progressives and the magas aren’t as different as they’d like to believe.
The wheel will turn again, and is already in motion.
@14 Your “morales is trash” comment crosses the line of human decency. When I last had the chance, I voted against Morales (2019). Yet I respect her for stepping up to serve the public. I think she’s wrong on some issues, but at least she gives a sh#t. She is not trash.
“one thing is clear: This is a solidly conservative City Council.”
This is one the most liberal city governments in the country.
Hannah, you must think your readers are complete morons to believe that the new council is ‘conservative’.
We are not that dumb or gullible.
Every single Seattle Council Member is a liberal Democrat.
Teresa Mosqueda abandoned the “progressives” and socialists mission in Seattle for her pure selfish ambition (hardly socialists)
But feeding readers crap to eat, will make us sick and kill The Stranger.
@ 22, completely agree. I can’t believe they still have sponsors but then again, so do the Maga folks. Two sides of the same “sky is falling” mentality when things don’t go their way.
We’re in trouble if Dan Strauss is part of the “progressive” wing of the Council.
“This is a solidly conservative City Council.” – Someone who apparently doesn’t understand the meaning of the word or the damage an actual genuinely conservative council would do.
Introducing a section called “the work history of the right wing council’s staff”
Development Coordinator at Refugee Women’s Alliance
The Peace Corps
UN’s World Food Programme
Early learning and child welfare policy expert
State Senator Reuven Carlyle
Navos Mental Health Solutions
US Rep Pramila Jayapal
U.S. Senator Jacky Rosen
Nevada Conservation League
City of Las Vegas
Director of Government Relations at the Evergreen State College
Senate Majority Leader Sharon Nelson
2012 Marriage Equality Washington
Representative Vandana Slatter
Korean American Coalition
Washington Senate Democratic Caucus
International Press Institute (IPI)
City’s ARTS office
Director of the Port of Seattle’s Office of Social Responsibility
Executive Director of InterIm Community Development Association
City’s Legislative Department
F*cking hell, Hannah. The current Seattle City Council is in no way conservative. This clickbaity, dare I say Faux Nooz style “journalism” sh*t of yours needs to stop.
The Stranger lying and calling liberal Democrats “anti-tax extremists” is pretty rich, given their history of supporting anti-tax extremist Tim Eyman. The Stranger endorsed and celebrated the passage of an Eyman initiative intended to kill light rail.
“Sound Transit: Shaky YearAfter a year like 2002, maybe even diehard Sound Transit chair Ron Sims sees the handwriting on the wall, even if he’s way too proud to admit it. For one thing, voters passed Eyman’s I-776, despite the opposition of every area newspaper (except The Stranger). If the initiative passes legal muster, it will cut 20 percent of Sound Transit’s budget and kill light rail for good.”
http://www.thestranger.com/news/2002/12/25/12917/2002-rocked
How’s the stone throwing going from the glass house?