The Seattle City Council met Tuesday afternoon for the first time after the 2023 election replaced five of the nine council members in one fell swoop.
During its first meeting, the new council’s messaging, leadership choices, and committee structures made it clear that they see themselves as the more responsible, and, yes, more conservative successors to the previous body.
Sara Nelson’s Seattle
In its infinite wisdom, the new council elected Council Member Sara Nelson as president. That role sets the council’s agenda, assigns legislation to committees, and becomes Mayor when Bruce Harrell needs a sick day. So, after two years on the dais (and more than a decade working under former Council Member Richard Conlin in the early aughts), Nelson went from being an antagonist of the most progressive City Council in Seattle history (believe it or not) to the ring-leader of a group of centrist newbies eager to play nice with her and the pro-business Mayor.
In her two years in office, Nelson’s crowning achievements include passing hugely wasteful hiring bonuses for cops, giving the Republican City Attorney the authority to prosecute public drug use, and endorsing a slate of candidates who will help her do more for business, landlords, and cops.
As president, Nelson assigned and restructured the committees, most notably eliminating the Renters’ Rights committee, which former Council Member Kshama Sawant had chaired since 2019. The council’s spokesperson did not respond when I asked for comment about this decision, but it should not shock you that renters no longer get their own committee—Nelson used her own committee to host makeshift landlord support groups, and corporate landlords spent good money on the new council to do the same.
Nelson said she made committee assignments based on who expressed the most passion for the area. Must have been a stiff competition for the Public Safety Committee!!
New Committees, Who This?
Nelson assigned Council Member Rob Saka to chair the Transportation Committee, which oversees policy related to transit, traffic, and pedestrian safety.
Saka is passionate about transportation alright—as Publicola reported, he sent a bunch of heated emails to the Seattle Department of Transportation asking the department to remove a road-divider near the preschool his children attended. SDOT put up the divider to decrease collisions between vehicles and cyclists, but Saka likened it to Donald Trump’s wall at the southern border. Glad to have this guy working on the Levy to Move Seattle, which provides about 30% of the City’s transportation budget.
Nelson gave two-term Council Member Tammy Morales the Land Use Committee. The move gives her a powerful position in negotiating the all-important Comprehensive Plan, a once-in-decade opportunity to set allowances for growth throughout the City. Urbanists should celebrate this one—Morales is the only sitting council member to support Alternative 6, a community proposal to plan for more housing density.
Nelson assigned Council Member Joy Hollingsworth to the Parks, Public Utilities & Technology. Conversations about public parks in Seattle usually involve sweeps or encampment removals. Hollingsworth, despite getting Harrell’s blessing, may not be as sweep-happy as the current administration. In a KUOW survey, she said she would ban sweeps in cases of extreme weather and that she only “maybe” agrees with Harrell’s approach to removals.
Nelson gave Council Member Maritza Rivera the chairship for the Libraries, Education, & Neighborhoods Committee. Rivera marketed herself as a concerned mother of students who attend Ingraham High School, where a student shot and killed another student in the fall of 2022.
Nelson assigned the Housing & Human Services Committee to Council Member Cathy Moore. Moore puts on an urbanist hat from time to time, but, according to an interview with Crosscut, she’s concerned tall buildings can disrupt the vibe of a neighborhood. Moore will play a key role in redefining the City’s relationship with the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, as some in the chattering class speculate that Harrell will try to defund the authority after its rocky start. Her committee will also have to decide the future of LEAD, a diversion program that will reportedly soon reach capacity under the new drug ordinance.
Returning Council Member Dan Strauss will chair the Finance, Native Communities, and Tribal Governments. This fall, he will lead budget negotiations in the face of a gaping budget hole that the previous council failed to fill after a dramatic year of Seattle Processing.
Strauss is not calling on anyone to eat the rich by any means, but he’s not the worst ally for tax supporters. During his campaign, he advocated for progressive taxation more than any other current member besides Morales. However, that advocacy has not always translated to votes. In November, he voted down three tiny increases to the “JumpStart” payroll tax, including the one that passed, which bumped the tax rate by less than one-twentieth of one percent to pay for mental health counselors at public schools.
Nelson assigned the coveted Public Safety Committee to Council Member Bob Kettle. Kettle wants the City to hire 1,400 cops that do not exist, crack down on public drug use, and increase the police budget, which takes up a quarter of the general fund and, by the way, never got defunded! You can count on him to be very friendly to his boys in blue during the police union’s contract negotiations.
Nelson will chair the Governance, Accountability, and Economic Development Committee. The committee title perfectly summarizes her belief that Seattle’s 2019 voters elected a bunch of disagreeable children who spent daddy’s money without a second thought, and now she’s here to fix it all with euphemisms for austerity and even more process.
Job Opening
After the meeting, Council Member Teresa Mosqueda resigned from her citywide position so she could take the King County Council seat she won in November. Nelson assigned whoever fills that vacant seat to chair the Sustainability, City Light, Arts and Culture Committee.
With Mosqueda’s resignation, the council now has until Jan 23 to appoint someone to keep the seat warm until the next election in November. If you’re cool and happy to do The Stranger’s bidding, you can apply between now and Jan 9. Otherwise, there are enough schmoozers, ladder-climbers, and insiders already eyeing the opening.
For example, during public comment Tuesday, a woman made the case for the council to appoint their buddy from election season, failed City Council candidate Tanya Woo. Woo fits in well with the new council—she’s a cop-loving NIMBY who recoils at the thought of taxing the wealthy and large corporations.
During the meeting, Morales, who beat Woo, seemed to at least indirectly advocate against her by saying she wanted to appoint someone with experience in making policy. After all, the new council may be the least experienced one we’ve had in the last 100 years. With big tasks such as passing the Comprehensive Plan, authorizing the Seattle Police Officer Guild contract, and filling the big ole budget shortfall ahead of them, Morales’s call seems wise.
No one else weighed in on the qualities they wanted to see in an appointee. According to Nelson, the council will not host any committee meetings until they fill the vacancy. That reality sort of breaks the Council’s get-shit-done messaging, but Strauss, the lil minx, found a positive spin.
“I wanted to also highlight that we’re on the second day of 2024, not even at the end of our first business day of the year, and it’s because of [Nelson’s] steadfast hard work and because of staff’s steadfast hard work that we are in this position [to fill the vacancy] before this vacancy has been created officially… So thank you, council presidents. Thank you.”
All hail queen Nelson.
Hannah, how long has Sara been living rent free in your head?
I was happy to see both Morales and Mosqueda voting in favor of Nelson’s presidency (will be interesting to see what can be accomplished with centrists in charge – won’t miss the performance art actions of Comrade Sawant).
Next up, let’s get City Staff back in the office (supporting the businesses that help fund their jobs).
Perhaps if the most “Progressive” city council wasn’t such an abject failure at running this city, you would have an argument. Total fail boat.
“… and corporate landlords
spent good money on the
new council…”
housing as
Commodity’s
gonna price the
Citizenry right outta
both hearth and home
it’s
just
Business.
I’m not quite sure I see Nelson acting as a “queen” here. By your own admission she gave Morales one of the most important assignments the council has coming up and put someone in charge of the budget that also leans progressive. What could she have done differently that would appease TS? As for the “Renter’s Rights” committee let’s be honest about that one. Sawant rarely actually held meetings and when she did it was to use it for propaganda for her movement. It has been a joke for a long time like her.
What actual cops on the beat will be hired?
My guess is zero.
Would you like some cheese with your whine?
While 2020-2023 had unique challenges for the health of the city, it will be nice to have a council not so steeped in some insane revolutionary ideology that they won’t aggressively try to make everything worse.
Best of luck to new Councilmembers and thank you for your service. It is not an easy time to lead. Looking forward to some diversity of ideology and backgrounds on our new council.
“In November, he voted down three tiny increases to the “JumpStart” payroll tax, including the one that passed, which bumped the tax rate by less than one-twentieth of one percent to pay for mental health counselors at public schools.”
For those who haven’t been following Hannah’s prior coverage, the “tiny” funding increase was $20 million.
Shorter version: elections have consequences.
Well, it’s illuminating to see that, once again, The Stranger continues its racist ways. Please note the cover photo to this story; it shows 8 Councilmembers. Who is the one person not in the photo? Joy Hollingsworth, the first Black woman to be elected to Seattle City Council since Sherry Harris back in 1991. The first Black female on the Seattle City Council (after defeating the first Black member, Sam Smith), Harris served one term. Like Harris, Hollingworth is also a “triple minority” — a woman, a lesbian, and Black. The Stranger used to care about two of those constituencies before abandoning all pretenses of achieving equity in elected bodies.
Not that The Stranger has every paid one iota of attention to this. In fact, the Seattle City Council again has a supermajority of women holding those seats. In case anyone forgot, that matters in public policy. It was the five female members of the Seattle City Council that voted in 2016 against giving San Francisco hedge fund manager Chris Hansen the street vacation and sale of the street he wanted to build a new basketball arena in SODO for a team that does not exist.
One has to hope that Hollingsworth, with fellow long-time Central District alum, Mayor Bruce Harrell, will be able to effectively change the displacement trajectory of Seattle’s African American population in the face of housing advocates and urbanists continuing to gentrify traditional Black neighborhoods.
“In her two years in office, Nelson’s crowning achievements include passing hugely wasteful hiring bonuses for cops, giving the Republican City Attorney the authority to prosecute public drug use, and endorsing a slate of candidates who will help her do more for business, landlords, and cops.”
Maybe Hannah needs to read the Stranger more often?
“Yesterday, the Seattle City Council voted unanimously to approve Council Member Sara Nelson’s bill to establish a Seattle Film Commission.
[…]
“The commission is something the Seattle film industry has been advocating for the City to create for years.”
(https://www.thestranger.com/film/2022/09/21/78508166/smell-that-its-the-sweet-smell-of-seattles-new-film-commission)
You have to read closely to figure out why The Stranger is directing this level of vitriol towards Sara Nelson, a very liberal elected official who is essentially a mainline big city Democrat. If you do, and you are aware of some Seattle political history, it becomes obvious:
“…and more than a decade working under former Council Member Richard Conlin in the early aughts…”
And there it is. Nelson worked for Conlin, who Kshama Sawant defeated in 2013. Because Conlin had the audacity to run a contested election against Sawant to try to keep his job, for The Stranger he is therefore the enemy. Because Nelson worked for Conlin, she too is the enemy. And that’s how you wind up with ridiculous claims that a very liberal Democratic elected official is in fact conservative.
The correct lesson to take here is that he people of Seattle made it pretty clear they would prefer moderates, given the miserable fucking disaster progressive “governance” has wrought on the streets.
Sara Nelson is libertarian tech bro Seattle’s wet dream.
“…hugely wasteful hiring bonuses for cops,”
How were these “hugely wasteful”? If the prospective hire declined the job offer, then the bonus was not paid. If the prospective hire accepted the job offer, then s/he received the bonus, and SPD hired a new employee in a tough hiring market.
How did the total amount of money thus spent compare to the (as also reported by the Stranger) insultingly tiny, minuscule, infinitesimal blip of money spent on new school counselors — which was a mere trifling $20,000,000?
“giving the Republican City Attorney the authority to prosecute public drug use,”
GOOD
@14: You needn’t go all the way back to 2013. In 2021, the Stranger endorsed “defund” candidate Nikkita Oliver over Sara Nelson. Nelson won big citywide, the Stranger promptly pledged undying fealty* to their Goddess Oliver, who then skipped town without saying goodbye. The Stranger will never forgive Nelson for Oliver’s abandonment of them. 😉
*”And if backing Nikkita Oliver was a dumb move, then we’ll probably make that dumb move again, and again, and again until they win…” (https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2021/11/03/62528438/five-takeaways-from-the-2021-seattle-elections)
Nikita’s campaign signs are still up at a coffee shop on Beacon Hill.
Hannah’s concern about an inexperienced council is pretty funny in light of the Stranger consistently supporting candidates with zero relevant experience (running your own clique doesn’t count).
Gosh, you mean on the first day Nelson didn’t pass resolutions supporting Claudine Gay and free aluminum foil and McDonald’s straws for every street addict? How utterly MAGA of her… /s
This was democracy in action- what’s the whining about? God knows we had to live through 4 years of Orange Jesus
The worst thing that could happen to Stranger readers is that- hopefully fewer items will be stolen, and maybe it will be a bit safer walking around Pioneer Square – or Capitol Hill at 1am. The liberal Council members saw this coming, and knew what to do.
@24 – “Goddess Oliver?” For shame! It’s Goddey/em.
On a side note, have you ever wondered why the council has a Parks, Public Utilities & Technology committee, but City Light is paired with Arts and Culture?
I have.
Sloggers should thank their lucky stars for San Francisco- the only reason Seattle isn’t #1 on the
‘This west-coast city is a lawless drug-infested hellhole’ list. You wouldn’t believe the number of You Tube clips badmouthing San Francisco (and Portland). Maybe the new Council can actually accomplish something!
The new City Council will give Seattle some much needed positive spin in the national news cycle.
The alternative is to start a Seattle Doom Loop tour on 3rd Ave – next to Ross Meth for Less!
Hannah, when you are older (and let’s hope much much wiser) you will look back at your writings as nothing more the musings of a child. I believe you Gen z’ers have a word for it…cringe. We went through years of the most ridiculously ineffective city council in the 30+ years I have lived in Seattle (longer than you have been alive I am guessing). Sara Nelson is an outstanding leader. She has built businesses, employed people and now is the president of the council. She has led an impressive life. One that you will aspire to one day when you have completed your adulting.
@30 – The lights on Broadway? Stage lights? I don’t know…I got nothin’.
Why does the Stranger even keep a comments up any more? It’s always the same toxic and bitter voices that add nothing constructive whether their candidates have lost or won. They swear they’ll bring a new tone to politics, but they’re exactly the same tone no matter who’s in office.
Just take your comments board down altogether, unless your point, dear Stranger, is for Seattle voters – who didn’t turn out to vote nearly enough – to see the real face of representation behind people like Sara Nelson.
Her first act in office while the city has no money? Give the police raises and businesses tax breaks and eliminate renter’s rights in a city people can’t afford to live in anymore. What we really have are a bunch of representatives for the police dept hungry to keep dipping into the public coffers while delivering nothing.. That’s who got this council elected.
Wake me when a 911 call on public transportation has a 2 minute response time, and people don’t have move out of Seattle because the rent is still too damn high.
BTW, before you post your toxic responses, and since I won’t be reading them because they’re all too predictable – same to you. Do any of you work for living, given all the time you spend beotching on social media whether you’re voted in or out?
Here is your great opportunity to prove everything you said your people were going to change. But I can very well see that you won’t. Don’t beotch at me, beotches – go out there and show me that I’m wrong.
Didn’t think so.
That’s quite a flounce, Jay Bird dear.
@32 “Sara Nelson is an outstanding leader. She has built businesses, employed people…”
A veritable Seattle Mitt Romney
Oh @36 dear, Don’t be cross. As I said at the top of the post, nobody likes a sore loser.
@35, @37: No worries; North American Jay Bird can simply return to his exhaustive wanking over the corpse of a young woman whom he’d never met when she was alive: https://www.thestranger.com/news/2021/07/14/59065522/the-strangers-endorsements-for-the-august-3-2021-primary-election/comments/142