Who wants to work here?
Who wants to work here? City of Seattle

Look, everyone is waiting on pins and needles to see what’s inside Robert Meuller's special report. But I’m going to let you in on a little secret: Regardless of whether or not Mueller’s report is forever kept secret or posted to Medium tomorrow morning and even if it includes an embedded video of Donald Trump soaked in urine at a Russian orgy, there is one immutable fact: Seattle still plans on electing its new City Council this year.

So what happened in the world of Seattle’s upcoming elections?

Rob quits his job: Councilmember Rob Johnson announced on Thursday that he would quit his job on the council early, ending his term on April 5. The council has 20 days to fill Johnson’s seat with a replacement and it appears that the council is leaning toward selecting someone who will only hold the seat until the end of the year and not run for reelection in Johnson’s District 4 seat. Johnson announced back in November that he would not seek reelection in the district, which includes the University District, Eastlake, and Sandpoint.

Johnson announced earlier this year that he was taking a job with Seattle’s new NHL franchise, a private company that the council recently approved a deal with that included hundreds of millions of dollars in private and public monies for the redevelopment of the KeyArena. Johnson told King5 that his decision to quit the council early had nothing to do with his new private sector job. Nathalie Graham asked him a few more questions today and it turns out Johnson plans to start his new job sometime in April or May, a full six months before his council term would have ended.

Councilmember called out: Q13 Fox News reporter Brandi Kruse created a mini-viral sensation this week when she tweeted out a clip of the City Council appearing to ignore a man giving public comment during a meeting. The video, however, originated on Reddit.


In the video, some of the council members appear to be looking at their phones instead of giving the man his full attention, so the friendly looking guy starts his testimony by saying “It’s real discouraging to come up here and see all the heads down…” and then goes into discussing how he thinks it’s unfair that during a previous hearing U.S. Representative Pramila Jayapal was given “four or five minutes” of public comment while everyone else was limited to just one.

FWIW, Lisa Herbold and Debora Juarez both appear to be giving the guy plenty of attention, but Kruse, channeling her inner Safe Seattle Facebook commenter voice, describes the scene as: “He gets completely ignored, per what’s becoming pretty typical.” I’m no City Hall reporter, but I’ve spent more time watching public testimony than I care to admit in the last year and I’ve seen this council sit through hours of testimony far more politely than I would. After twenty minutes of Alex Tsimerman Nazi salutes and single-family homeowners (falsely) claiming they are poor I would be taking hits off my mobile dab rig and playing Minesweeper. But then again, I’m not an elected official getting paid over $115,000 a year. So, I guess there’s some room for criticism here?

Emily Myers wants to bring science to the Seattle City Council: District 4 candidate Emily Myers told The Stranger that she wants to take her scientific credentials to Seattle's government. "Scientific leadership means speaking truth in public and using evidence and data to back up... the policies we want to see pushed," Myers told my colleague Nathalie Graham. Myers, who is a PhD candidate at the University of Washington, also wrote an op-ed for us arguing how the city can be more equitable to women.