Eddie Lin, an assistant attorney in the Seattle City Attorney's Office (CAO), is running for District 2's City Council seat. Last month, Lin applied for the interim position, but was not selected in the process. Instead, the council appointed Mark Solomon, who has stated that he will not seek re-election and is only filling the seat in a "caretaker" role.

Lin never intended to warm the D2 seat; he wanted to be D2's city councilman. He also, likely, never had a shot at the appointment from this council of big business sycophants.

Lin, who primarily works with the Office of Housing in his role with the CAO, is a champion of affordable housing, progressive revenue, and creating a city where "artists and bike messengers and baristas and educators can all afford to live here." He also proudly embraces being a huge "wife guy." His wife, Jennifer, a lifelong educator and leader of teachers unions, has inspired him to follow in her footsteps in fighting for his community and public education, he explained.

Affordability

Back in the late 1990s, Lin moved to Seattle from Minnesota with his then-girlfriend, now-wife. Post graduation, she was working with AmeriCorps, teaching a reading program that paid $700 a month. He hadn't managed to finish college. Instead, he took up odd jobs around the city. He worked as a bike messenger for years. Later, he manned the counter at a French bakery in the University District and the arts section in the University Bookstore.

"It wasn’t easy, but we were able to afford to live here," Lin said. "I don’t think today 22-year-old me and my wife would be able to move out here and make ends meet."

Lin fears a Seattle smoothed over by wealth.

"All the quirky little groups," Lin said (he sucked up to me and cited my column about local subcultures, which I did not hate), "all these different cultures, the Seattle I moved here to be a part of—that’s getting pushed out."

Making Seattle affordable for all types of people, according to Lin, starts with addressing economic inequality and housing.

Lin sees economic inequality as the root cause of disenfranchisement locally and nationally. He supports existing progressive revenue strategies and new ones to right those wrongs.

He's supportive of the Jumpstart payroll tax, the one Mayor Bruce Harrell raided to fill budget holes. Though, Lin doesn't mind using Jumpstart to pay for essential services. Instead of picking and choosing where the money goes, Lin says he'd support increasing the tax.

Additionally, he's in favor of a local capital gains tax. He'd also look into a vacancy tax on homes if need be.

To do any of that, Lin will need allies on a very moderate, and allegedly toxic, council.

"I would hope the other elected officials reading into what happened with the capital gains tax and now social housing realize that this is what the public supports," he said, referring to how voters approved both measures. "You need to get on board so we can fund our social services."

Housing

One of Lin's biggest issues with Bruce Harrell's One Seattle Comprehensive Plan is it doesn't "go far enough with density and supply," he said.

"We need housing of all types: market rate, affordable housing, social housing," Lin said. "We need to have it throughout the city and we need supply and density. We can’t have this suburban lifestyle in the city."

However, not all of that density can happen in District 2.

"We can't just have it all in D2," he said. "It needs to be north of ship Ship Canal."

Although the comprehensive plan will likely be finalized before his potential election, Lin believes his knowledge of the process would make him valuable in its implementation.

"I have a big picture understanding of how our housing and taxes work," he said, referring to property taxes, multifamily tax exemptions, the housing levy, and so on, "and whether they're working."

Lin also wants to increase home ownership for communities of color.

"We say Black Lives Matter, but our Black community is getting economically displaced and pushed out of Seattle," he said.

He said he would work with the Black Legacy Homeowners to help boost home ownership. Lin said he would work with community members to help them understand how they could take advantage of upzone laws in their neighborhood, like how Councilmember Joy Hollingsworth's grandmother converted her house into a triplex.

Public safety

Lin believes chipping away at wealth inequality will improve public safety. Since fixing the tax code is a long way down the road, Lin also supports adding more police officers to the Seattle Police Department (SPD).

"I do think we need more police officers," Lin said.

However, he wants the police force to be more diverse. He is supportive of SPD's "30x30" program aimed at having 30% of new police recruits identify as women by 2030. He wants to increase Seattle's non-emergency response team, the CARES Team , too. Though, as it stands now—unless a new bill sponsored by Rep. Shaun Scott makes it through the legislature—the CARE team is capped because of the Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG).

"It's unfortunate that we were not able to get any accountability or changes as part of this last contract," he said.

Lin, who has spent his adulthood championing unions in large part because of his wife, said he doesn't think SPOG really counts as a typical union.

"This is contrary to most labor union values that I hold since usually I take an expansive view of bargaining," he said. "But when it comes to police, they are in a unique situation."

If it came to it, Lin would be inclined to lobby the legislature and modify SPOG's bargaining ability.

"Accountability is not what you bargain over," he said.

Quick hits

As a city attorney, Lin largely stayed out of local politics. He focused his energy on advocating for public schools and funding because it was a big part of his life as a husband to an educator, and a father to kids in public school. If elected, he wants to work on the city's "lack of coordination and lack of planning" with  Seattle Public Schools around enrollment planning. Additionally, Lin will work on programs that help D2 youth such as working with local organizations to reduce youth gun violence and helping connect young people with jobs.

On transit, Lin (a light rail rider and a sometimes route 36 bus rider) said he will side with the Chinatown community over the new light rail extension station shit show . According to what he's heard from those stakeholders, that means going for the 4th Avenue location. Urbanists agree that's the best of Sound Transit's modified station location options .

Back to Lin

Eventually, Lin completed his college degree and spent five years working as a secretary at two law firms in Oakland, California.

During that time, his wife was leading her union, Oakland’s schools were facing massive deficits, and the firms he worked for were handling cases on livable wages and voting rights.

"I started seeing these patterns of where our government was failing and why it was important for our community to have information and knowledge," he said. "That's when I applied to law school."

That's why he's running for office now in the midst of a Trump presidency that's feeling an awful lot like the start of an authoritarian regime.

"So many of our neighbors are in an extremely precarious position," Lin said. "What am I doing in my life that is more important than protecting our community from going down? My experience and knowledge is one way that I can be of service."