Seattle will not have a functional city government until Sara Nelson is KO’d so far out of our political orbit that she’ll be nothing more than a footnote: a forgettable, one-time City Council President who reigned over this legislative body during a remarkably chaotic and useless time in its history.
At this point, progressives would endorse a cinder block over Nelson if it had a pulse and a fixed Seattle address. Fortunately, we don’t have to. Because we have Dionne Foster, an excellent candidate for this office. Rejoice!
Foster, a former policy advisor for the city and the former executive director of the nonprofit Washington Progress Alliance, is a knowledgeable, likable, competent wonk. She wants to lead the way on economic justice. Stop this city’s affordability crisis and addiction to sweeps from displacing people. She’ll fight conservatives on this council willing to divert JumpStart funds from affordable housing. Unlike Nelson, Foster knows Seattle must go harder for housing density than the legal minimum set by the state and that it’s unrealistic for a real city expecting major growth in the next two decades to click its ruby red heels, ignore its housing needs, and remain an overgrown, dysfunctional suburb forever.
Foster also wants to embrace affordability and outrun Washington’s regressive tax code with progressive revenue. She wants a municipal capital gains tax, a vacancy tax, and working with the state on a mansion tax. She has the right plans and can articulate exactly how she’d implement them, a rare quality on our curb-busting city council. She’s granular, but not myopic. And we believe her because she already did this work at the state level to pass the limited capital gains tax
Foster has earned a heap of endorsements from politicians like Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, State Rep. Shaun Scott (D-43), and Scott’s dearly departed predecessor, Frank Chopp, because she is the best, quickest-witted candidate to walk through our door this election cycle. With two other seats up for reelection, that’s a chance she won’t be a progressive island on council.
Nelson, on the other hand, is a fundamentally un-democratic chaos agent and a disastrous leader whose sole purpose has been to accumulate political power. Her Council’s “accomplishments” have been wildly unpopular: Approving a police contract with big raises and no accountability? Putting blast balls back in the hands of untrustworthy cops, and ensuring they can surveil us? Establishing “stay out” zones for drug users and sex workers that stigmatize people and don’t work? Attempting to weaken our ethics code and repeal protections for gig workers? We’re embarrassed.
Seattle is immobilized in Nelson’s… full Nelson, controlled by business interests who shelled out hundreds of thousands of dollars for her meandering status quo that squeezes the renters, the poor, the homeless, and the disadvantaged on the margins. A skilled politician at least pretends to listen. Nelson is either incapable or indifferent. She shuts down anyone who is too loud and cumbersome for her taste. Her hostility for representative government and working people is boundless. But in her hallowed chambers at least we’ll have decorum, won’t we?
Her contempt for the public seemed like the only reason competitor Connor Nash, a former state and federal employee, joined this race. Mia Jacobsen, on the other hand, is running a protest campaign to overhaul the system that puts people like Nelson in the driver’s seat. Nash was angry, shooed away too many times.
But Nelson isn’t just the rock and the hard place. She’s a liability. A threat to reforms from a more progressive council, a roadblock to desperately needed progress on housing and homelessness, and the last person we want in city government when President Donald Trump comes to play. We’re tired of incompetence. We want someone with ideas, who loves this city and its people. A vote for Nelson is a vote for nihilism. A vote for Foster is a vote for intelligence, compassion, solutions, and a chance for a future.
Vote Foster.
