The last time the city council appointed a new member was in 2024, when they filled the outgoing Teresa Mosqueda’s city-wide seat by appointing Tanya Woo. This appointment came right after Woo’s unsuccessful challenge against Tammy Morales. Despite District 2 constituents clearly rejecting Woo as their representative, the council appointed her anyway.
This time, District 2 residents are hoping for more influence in the selection process. On Monday, after a 20-day review, the council will appoint District 2’s next representative from a pool of six nominees chosen just over a week ago.
The problem is that District 2 residents haven’t had a chance to get to know the candidates, let alone form opinions about them. When I reached out to notable community members, many declined to comment, saying they hadn’t “kept up with the D2 seat” or felt they didn’t have anything meaningful to contribute.
After several unanswered calls, I decided to learn more about the candidates by reaching out to their supporters. Here’s what District 2 supporters had to say about Adonis Ducksworth, Chukundi Salisbury, Eddie Lin, and Hong Chhuor. Unfortunately, though I tried my damndest, I did not connect with anyone from Mark Solomon’s or Thaddeus Gregory’s camp—sorry!
Ducksworth
Willie C. Seals, pastor at the Christ Spirit Church, on Beacon Hill formed a working relationship with Adonis Ducksworth, Mayor Bruce’s Harrell’s transportation operations and policy manager, when Ducksworth did outreach for a Seattle Department of Transportation project on 23rd Avenue.
“He met with the pastors,” Seals said. He appreciated how Ducksworth listened to him and other “elders” in the community.
That wasn’t the first time Seals met Ducksworth.
“I’ve known him ever since he’s been in the world,” Seals said. “His mom and dad and I went to school together.”
From Seals’ perspective, Ducksworth has always been a standup guy with “character and integrity always intact,” Seals said.
Seals’ biggest concern for the district centers around public safety, especially as the community’s relationship with law enforcement is concerned. He wants police to have a better, closer relationship with District 2. In last week’s community forum, Ducksworth said he wanted to make that happen, though that may be outside his purview as a council member.
Regardless, Seals sees Duckworth as someone who can bring his community’s needs into City Hall.
“If Adonis gets in there I’m gonna wear him out,” Seals laughed.
Salisbury
Dominique Davis from Community Passageways is throwing his support behind Chukundi Salisbury, long-time Parks and Recreation manager and community figure.
“I want to support him in that seat because he grew up in that community that’s been marginalized, disenfranchised, and underserved,” Davis said. “He knows the needs of the community because he is the community.”
This isn’t Salisbury’s first attempt to represent this district in public office. In 2020, he ran against Kirsten Harris-Talley for the 37th Legislative District representative seat but received only 33% of the vote. However, Salisbury has stated that if he is appointed to represent District 2, he won’t run for election when the seat’s term is up. Instead, he views it as a caretaking position.
“The biggest issues I care about on a 30,000-foot level is institutional racism,” Davis said. “Then on the next level is gun violence, unemployment, housing, and stability. I feel like [Salisbury] would be a strong advocate to address those issues to the best of his ability.”
At a time when Donald Trump is invalidating hard-fought diversity and inclusion measures on a national level, Davis sees Salisbury, who is Black, as an important pick for representation.
“Sometimes that voice needs to be heard in those back hall meetings,” Davis said. Having Salisbury on the council would make it so they couldn’t be “totally racist,” he explained.
Lin
Cameron, a Rainier Vista resident who preferred not to use his last name, is backing Eddie Lin, the Seattle City Attorney’s Office veteran. Cameron said Lin lives down the street from him and the two have worked together in the past.
“Eddie is a great neighbor and a great friend,” Cameron said. “District 2 right now is both great and also has its challenges. I think Eddie is someone who understands multiple truths can exist.”
Cameron explained that Lin can see a “challenge” like what’s happening on 12th Avenue South and South Jackson Street in Little Saigon, where violent crime has spiked in recent months, takes nuance to address.
“He can take into account the needs and concerns of business owners, residents, and those being preyed upon,” Cameron said. “He is someone who genuinely understands there’s many facets of life and there’s not a one-size-fits-all solution.”
Not only that, but Cameron believes Lin’s work in the city as well his passion for city issues will be a good fit for District 2. His primary concerns for the district are affordability and pedestrian safety.
“[Lin] has the temperament and in-depth knowledge of how the city works, and the human side, to address those issues,” Cameron said.
Chhuor
Huy Pham, the executive director of the non-profit Asian & Pacific Islander Americans in Historic Preservation (APIAHiP), commented on his friend and fellow Friends of Little Saigon board member and small business owner, Hong Chhuor, via email.
“Hong’s leadership stands out because he doesn’t just understand the challenges facing District 2—he’s lived them,” Pham wrote. “As a refugee, LGBTQ+ community member, and legacy business owner, he knows what it takes to overcome systemic barriers while lifting others along the way.”
Pham believes Chhuor’s “incredible ability to connect with people” will be indispensable on city council.
“He balances this warmth with the expertise of someone who has successfully built support and raised millions for vital social service organizations, ensuring they can thrive and meet the needs of our community,” Pham wrote. “It’s a rare combination, and it’s exactly what we need in City Hall.”
No one
Local comedian Brett Hamil was the only one of those original unaffiliated resident calls who picked up the phone and dished about the council’s impending appointment.
“I don’t like any candidate that this city council supermajority would choose and I don’t think anyone they do choose would win on their own merits in an election,” Hamil said.
He believes the nominees are “further to the right” than the actual politics of the District 2 electorate.
One thing he feels strongly about is not appointing a nominee who has already lost an election in this district. That means, by Hamil’s metrics, Salisbury and Mark Solomon, the Seattle Police Department crime prevention coordinator, who lost handily against Tammy Morales in 2019, shouldn’t be considered.
“Why do we have these big time losers sniffing around for a free seat? It’s gross, it’s unseemly, it’s not how the system should work,” Hamil said.
Regardless, he doesn’t have much faith in the system as established by the current council.
“I’m hard-pressed to pick a favorite [of the nominees] because I know the council is just going to find the next Tanya Woo,” he said.
The council will appoint the next council member to run District 2 on Monday at 9:30 am.
My neighbors and I would like a CM who is responsive to their constituents and advocates for a clean and well-run city. Stuff like fighting institutional racism should be a given.
A council position is not just a platform for advocacy. There’s definitely a place for that, but their primary reason for being there is to make sure the trash gets picked up and all the other boring stuff that makes a city run.
• someone who will return calls/ emails.
• someone available to the residents of the district, and will hold regular forums within the district at local school/libraries to hear comments/questions/concerns once a week.
• someone who will form and lead a bimonthly clean-up/beautification in our many troubled hot spots.
• someone willing to stand up to the continual “International District/Chinatown/Rainier/Columbia city” doesn’t matter, because no one there speaks english.
• someone not afraid of their own shadow, who is willing to call out the posturing and virtue signaling of fellow council members when needed.
• someone who will snub this publication always.
“Who Does District 2 Want to Fill Their Seat?”
Who cares? It’s not their decision right now. When Morales quit, she left the decision with the very persons she was complaining about. That’s on her, for stiffing the very voters who believed — wrongly, as it turned out — that she would do the job.
The Council will pick someone now. The voters will pick someone at the next election. That’s what Seattle’s charter requires. All else is meaningless chatter.
1 and #2 – nailed it.
@2 “• someone who will return calls/ emails.
• someone not afraid of their own shadow, who is willing to call out the posturing and virtue signaling of fellow council members when needed.
• someone who will snub this publication always.”
So respond to calls and emails and don’t virtue signal, except do virtue signal by not responding to The Stranger’s calls and emails. Cool.
Still dumping on Tanya Woo?
Maybe it’s time to move on from that complaint line.
Yes to @1 and @2. Fewer gunshots and fewer potholes.
More funding for community services (parks, community centers) available to our diverse part of Seattle. Someone else (from their million plus dollar houses in Wallingford or North Beach) can do the virtue signaling.
Solomon won. Poor Brett Hamil. Oh well. Also too bad it makes Nathalie’s entire exercise here not just moot, but also irrelevant. Le sigh.
I think it’s interesting that soon after Morales left, the city started a daily disinfection of 12th Ave S, from Jackson to the Dr. Jose Risal bridge, along with the side streets (King and Weller). Big SDOT tanker trucks full of some sort of soapy solution spray everything down, with SPD monitoring it. It’s a vast improvement, but there’s one business that I think is dealing drugs.
@7 it’s pretty funny that after being accused of looking for the new Woo the conservative Council lived down to expectations by chosing another person who ran against and lost to Morales. Good news is he has a demonstrated inability to beat a progressive so D2 can probably look forward to a Rinck-esque CM after the next election.
@9 – Solomon stated he will nor run for election. So the content of the next D2 candidate slate is wide open.
*not run
@10: Shhhhh, if thirteen12 had wanted to mention that, he would have learned about the candidates. Right now, he really, really just needs to fantasize about future progressive victories.
That would depend on which candidate banged the correct Stranger writer.
@12 — Reminds me of a Manic Street Preachers lyric:
And on the street tonight, an old man plays / With newspaper cuttings of his glory days
@5 Virtue signaling would be forcing the council to vote on ‘caste systems’ or ‘stances on Gaza’. Replying to emails and phone calls from their constituents in District 2 is their job.
@15 Bingo!