Jim Street
Council District No. 1
Lisa Herbold
We have now arrived at the battle for the soul of the Seattle City Council! And what better place to start than incumbent council member Lisa Herbold, who last year voted for the homelessness-services-funding "head tax" that made Amazon so furious that the company halted construction of a downtown office building in protest. Such a big-ass, floor-pounding fuss was kicked up over this "head tax" that the council—including Herbold—soon voted to repeal it. But Amazon is not done flexing, and a political action committee the corporation is bankrolling is now going after Herbold.
Good thing Phil Tavel, one of the folks getting help from Amazon, is pretty much a walking reason to vote for Herbold. Just listen to what Tavel told the SECB: "Lisa cares more about the renters' rights"—sold!—"and not necessarily someone who owns a home, or is a landlord, or owns a business."
Herbold does care about homeowners and small-business owners, by the way, and there are plenty of them in West Seattle, where Herbold is quite popular. Among other reasons, people in District 1 like Herbold because she's spent her first term on the council as a dependable vote on progressive issues, fighting for secure scheduling laws and more renter protections, and trying to find ways to make Seattle's tax system more equitable.
In being a strong voice for her district, Herbold has at times come dangerously close to sounding like a NIMBY. For example, she wants to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on an expensive light-rail tunnel in West Seattle just because some wealthy West Seattleites don't want to see an elevated light-rail track. She also voted against allowing reduced parking requirements. But Herbold has community-first defenses for these stances and her opponents are far, far worse.
Tavel, a public defender and former video-game developer, lost when he ran against Herbold in 2015. (He also lost in 2014, when he ran for district court judge under the slogan "Give the gavel to Tavel.") This time around, Tavel is pledging to fight like hell for parking spaces. He also helped sue the city to try to stop up-zoning. Herbold's other opponent, Brendan Kolding, is a cop who wants the city to be tougher on clearing encampments, hates up-zones, and makes campaign statements that sound like promises to fight police accountability. Yikes.
Vote Herbold.
Council District No. 2
Tammy Morales
This South Seattle district is currently represented by Council President Bruce Harrell. But Harrell is retiring, and longtime community advocate Tammy Morales, who came within a few hundred votes of pushing Harrell into retirement back in 2015—just like the SECB wanted her to!—is still the right person to take Harrell's job.
Morales grew up with a mom holding down three jobs, sometimes living in public housing. She wants to "serve working families so they don't have to struggle the way my family did." She has a master's degree in community planning and experience working on tough issues in Texas, New York, and Seattle. Most importantly, she's ready to tax Big Business and fight for more progressive taxation in general. "We can't keep growing this city on the backs of working folks," Morales says—to which the SECB says, RIGHT ON.
She has sophisticated views on how to achieve both greater density and less displacement, which is the trick that needs to be pulled off in the fast-gentrifying South End. And to the people who are always calling for more police in her diverse but under-resourced district, Morales says: "If we're going to hire more officers—and I don't think we need to be hiring more officers—then in the South End, at least, they need to be unarmed community service officers who are there for conflict management and resolution, and relationship building."
Morales is endorsed by Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, she's for housing rentcontrol and commercial rent control, and her bottom line is this: "We need to stop prioritizing the voices of corporate power brokers in this city and shift economic control back to our communities." YES, YAAASSS, AND YES AGAIN. Her most interesting opponents—city employee Christopher Peguero and Black Girls Do Bike member Phyllis Porter—were each a real pleasure to chat with, but they lack the kind of deeply researched, comprehensive vision this district needs. Vote Morales.
Council District No. 3
Kshama Sawant
After watching Council Member Kshama Sawant loudly tell the SECB a thing or two, one SECB member, quoting Lizzo—and meaning this as a high compliment—described Sawant as "100 percent that bitch."
For sure, Sawant's brash, uncompromising, movement-style politicking offends those with delicate sensibilities. But she's not worried about the comfortable and delicate, and those "movements" she's always uplifting have helped win us a $15 minimum wage, progressive renter protections, $29 million for affordable housing, and more. Give her another term, and we might win more rent and relocation assistance, as well as significant investments in public housing.
The big businesses in the big glass buildings all around us are going to do everything in their power to unseat Sawant, in part because they fundamentally don't want to pay their fair share. And there's no doubt—not even in the SECB's cynical, pot-addled brain—that Sawant will do everything in her power to make sure they do pay their share.
Sawant's opponents call her "divisive" and "ineffective." But if being "divisive" and "ineffective" means voting for all the up-zones, casting one of only two votes NOT to repeal the "head tax" on big businesses, and being the sole vote against a bad police contract, then we could use a little bit more of that kind of "divisiveness" on the council.
Sawant challenger Egan Orion is chamber of commerce bait who cannot wait to prostrate himself before Daddy Amazon "the biggest innovators" in the city. Zachary DeWolf is an elected official, but he hasn't done much with his post on the Seattle School Board. King County public defender Ami Nguyen moved here two years ago, and she sounds like it when she talks about the issues. Logan Bowers is a small-business owner and urbanist who does a good job explaining wonky things to people, but up-zoning isn't the answer to everything.
Sawant's pressure continues to make legislation and budgets more progressive. If she's not in there calling out the bullshit and being "100 percent that bitch," then Seattle will just regress to patting itself on the back for hating Donald Trump while people continue to die in the streets. Fuck that. Vote Sawant.
Council District No. 4
Shaun Scott
Northeast Seattle's District 4 is poised to become one of the most exciting and diverse districts in the city. With two light-rail stations opening up in the next two years, a University of Washington master plan that's set to reshape the University District as we know it (hello, Innovation District), and one controversial street—35th Avenue Northeast—that's at the center of a brawl over bike lanes, District 4 needs a city council member who's adept, progressive, and not a fucking snake.
That's Shaun Scott. The 34-year-old knows District 4 inside and out. He was a student at UW, where he studied the nitty- gritty of racist zoning laws, and now he's a Democratic Socialist of America member and a force in this election. Scott is maxing out on Democracy Voucher donations because so many Seattle residents recognize his vision: a more inclusive city, a promise of transparency, and a Green New Deal for Seattle that puts climate ahead of everything else (because IF YOU DIDN'T KNOW, we are all doomed).
If the lawn signs in Wedgwood and other wealthy, white parts of this district are anything to go by, Scott has his work cut out for him. Those signs are generally for Alex Pedersen, the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and Amazon favorite who's sweeping little old ladies off their feet and winning the single-family vote with a promise of accountability and trust. Hard pass on that guy.
And even with a few other compelling liberal candidates in this race (hi, Emily Myers and Cathy Tuttle), Scott is the clear choice. You and all your friends better turn the fuck out for him, because YOU KNOW the older crowd and their bike-phobia and homeless-people-panic are going to stuff the ballot boxes with their Pedersen votes. Scott especially needs an edge in the primary, since the crucial student vote will be hard to come by in August, when UW is on break. Vote Scott.
Council District No. 5
Debora Juarez
Seattle needs a vibrant North End that is more than a bedroom community for downtown and a rest stop for Interstate 5—and reelecting Council Member Debora Juarez is North Seattle's best chance for getting more housing, more jobs, and more transit.
As a council member, Juarez voted for the Mandatory Housing Affordability up-zones, brought a $75 million hockey training facility to Northgate, and lobbied Sound Transit to build a new light-rail station at 130th Avenue Northeast. She told the SECB she supports even more up-zones, including allowing duplexes and triplexes in all single-family-zoned areas.
Juarez's strengths on housing make up for her other failings. She rarely talks to the media and, according to many community members, is slow to respond to constituents. She also has a problem taking responsibility for her fuckups. She can seemingly admit wrongdoing and pass the buck in the same breath. (Which is a good skill for a politician! But also pretty annoying.) Juarez always seems to find a way to show how everyone other than herself is mistaken, or as she put it to the SECB in the midst of one long-winded, sidestepping response, "Let me just finish this, and then I'll tell you how you're wrong."
When asked about her repeal of the head tax last summer, Juarez told the SECB, "You're absolutely right, we fucked it up," while also finding a way to blame former mayor Ed Murray and King County Executive Dow Constantine for not putting the head tax to the voters. Confusing!
Juarez's repeal of the head tax is especially troubling now that the Amazon-backed Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce PAC has endorsed her this year. But Juarez assured the SECB that she wants to bring the head tax back (her preference is a voter initiative) and make the tech companies pay more in taxes.
While Juarez is not the SECB's favorite member of the city council, and she's hardly the best on police reform, and we really can't believe we're endorsing someone who's also endorsed by the Amazon-funded PAC (she's the one drowning in money in the illustration at the top of this article), she's also a lotbetter than her competition.
Ann Davison Sattler is a Safe Seattle–aligned NIMBY who describes legalizing backyard cottages as opening the "floodgates to mindless up-zoning development." Yuck. And John Lombard is a well-intentioned activist who is against legalizing density in single-family-zoned areas and seems like someone who would call the cops on his neighbors for growing weed. Vote Juarez.
Council District No. 6
Dan Strauss
Dan Strauss introduced himself to the SECB as "Ballard's paperboy" because, well, he actually delivered papers around Ballard as a kid. That's how he comes off: a bright, affable young guy who everyone seems to know. Sort of like a younger Mike O'Brien without the baggage that apparently comes with being Mike O'Brien. (We'll miss you, buddy.)
But Strauss is no chummy dummy. He's been a professional wonk for a decade, serving as chief policy adviser to Council Member Sally Bagshaw and as a legislative aide to state senator David Frockt. He understands the severity of the challenges ahead. "Kids that I grew up with are living homeless," he said. "We've been in a state of emergency, and people continue to die in the streets." Of the approximately 172 people running for this seat, Strauss is the candidate with the depth of knowledge and the community connections to address those issues.
Strauss is also impressive on transit, which will be especially important as the process for expanding light rail to Ballard continues. His good ideas include supporting an increased network of protected bike lanes, requiring big employers to subsidize ORCA cards for employees, and using normal buses on RapidRide routes so we can speed up transit now.
Chamber-backed candidate Heidi Wills has too many mob ties. (No, we are not over "Strippergate"! Google it!) Chamber-backed Jay Fathi couldn't give us a straight answer on anything. Melissa Hall was good on the issues, but she hasn't generated enough excitement to be viable in the general election. We invited Jon Lisbin to the meeting just to make sure he still sucks, and he absolutely does. And though Sergio García's mustache is undeniably beautiful, he told us he was against I-940, the statewide police accountability initiative. Vote Strauss.
Council District No. 7
Andrew J. Lewis
We have to be honest. We didn't really love anybody running for Council Member Sally Bagshaw's soon-to-be- vacated seat, which covers downtown and Queen Anne.
Michael George said he was "ideologically opposed" to the head tax, so we were ideologically opposed to him. Jim Pugel, a former cop hated by other cops for his reputation as a reformer, seemed progressive during our endorsement meeting, but then we read his Chamber of Commerce questionnaire and discovered he's talking in circles on taxes. Jason Williams is a broken PowerPoint presentation who said he wanted to approach big employers "with humility" and then work with them to "define the problem [of the housing shortage], use design thinking to diverge and converge on a series of solutions... and then to ideate on those kinds of solutions." If we weren't so stoned, we would have gotten out of our chairs and chased him out of the room.
Andrew J. Lewis is an assistant city attorney in Pete Holmes's office. He describes himself as a "labor Democrat" who descends from a long line of union workers, and he's endorsed by SECB fave former city council member Nick Licata. (Miss you, buddy.)
He's also a renter who organized in support of the Fort Lawton housing project before it was cool, and, of all the candidates, his housing policies seem the most fleshed out. Lewis got our attention when he said he wanted to create a "public option for housing," where the city buys up and sets low rents for tons of housing units and then uses our bonding capacity get more money for more units. And though he was against the head tax, he said "there could be a scenario" where he would support a head tax, which was, unfortunately, the best answer out of the whole group. Vote Lewis.