Next month, the newly elected members of the Seattle City Council will join at-large Councilmember Sara Nelson in what many are hoping will be a new era of leadership for the city. Rob Saka (District 1), Joy Hollingsworth (District 3), Maritza Rivera (District 4), Cathy Moore (District 5) and Bob Kettle (District 7) are all first-term representatives, paired with incumbents Tammy Morales and Dan Strauss.
A replacement for at-large Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda, who was elected to the King County Council, is still needed. Mosqueda beat Burien Mayor Sofia Aragon 55.0% to 44.7% for the seat.
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“I think the message from voters is pretty clear that they’re looking for a new direction,” Jon Scholes, CEO of the Downtown Seattle Association (DSA), told Tim Gaydos, filling in for Jason Rantz, on KTTH 770 AM. “We haven’t seen this kind of turnover in the city council in quite some time. We know that voters have been unhappy.”
Turnout in this year’s general election was a relatively low 46.3%. For comparison, the 2021 general election for mayor, city attorney and at-large council members had a 54.6% turnout. In 2019, the city council election had 54.5% turnout citywide.
“We’re all saying the same thing. We have to hire more police officers. We got to improve public safety in our neighborhoods. We got to help more people off the street,” Scholes said. “And we should be delivering more results than what we’ve seen over the last several years. So I think voters sent a clear message to City Hall, we want a new direction.”
Of the city council changes, four representatives decided not to seek re-election. Bob Kettle defeated Andrew Lewis for the District 7 seat, making him the only Seattle council incumbent to lose this year.
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Downtown Seattle retreating or expanding?
Occurring tangentially with the city council changes are downtown’s revitalization efforts. DSA published a year-end development report last week that revealed Seattle and Denver are responsible for nearly half the residential units being built in downtowns across the nation as well as approximately two-thirds of the office space.
But, despite the projected growth, Amazon is abandoning its roughly 209,000-square-foot lease in downtown Seattle’s 1800 Ninth Tower. Amazon has been in the building since 2013, according to The Puget Sound Business Journal, with the lease running through February 2024. The 1,100 Amazon employees based in the building will move to other local offices.
“Our overall flight path is positive, but there’s turbulence, no doubt. And we’re in a fragile spot,” Scholes said, referencing Amazon’s decision to leave another downtown office building. “We’re competing with other cities and other downtowns, both around the country, the world and within our region in some cases, so we’re still in a fragile spot.
“But overall, we’re headed in the right direction,” Scholes continued. “The progress over the last two years simply under the leadership of Mayor Harrell has been very positive. We got more people living downtown than ever before. We’re continuing to see increases in the number of people back in the office. The number of visitors that were here this summer pretty much matched the number of visitors here in the summer of 2019.”
Scholes also cited the expanding waterfront as another sign of positive growth alongside the city hosting NHL’s Winter Classic in 2024 and the World Cup in 2026.
“Even the NBA at some point here in the next few years,” Scholes added, hinting at the rumored reunion between Seattle and its Sonics.
Police staffing still a grey cloud hanging over Seattle
But with this growth comes policing, and the Seattle Police Department (SPD) has dropped to its lowest staffing levels since the early 1990s, according to KOMO News. The city has offered hiring bonuses of up to $7,500 for new recruits and $30,000 for experienced officers for more than a year, but SPD data still states that more officers have left than have been hired. SPD has been losing officers in droves since 2020, when the Seattle City Council voted to defund the department.
“We’re going to have more drug overdoses on the streets than we ever have had and we are still digging out from losing 500-600 police officers and have a police department the size of the department we had in the 1990s when our city was much smaller,” Scholes said. “So I think this was a message, whether you’re a progressive, or a moderate or a conservative, calling for more substance, less style, more action and results, and less performance.”
Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell proposed a $7.8 billion budget for 2024 earlier this year with the goal of increasing spending for affordable housing and homelessness, drug treatment, first responders and downtown recovery. Last month, the Seattle City Council voted 8-1 to pass the city’s 2024 budget.
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In the budget, Harrell directs approximately $106 million to the King County Regional Homelessness Authority to support its work on housing homeless individuals. $88 million of an additional $334 million investment within the budget would be for the Seattle Housing Levy, which passed in the November election. 69.2% of voters voted for it, while 30.8% voted against it.
“I think there’s an assumption in a lot of cases that every dollar that’s been collected is sacred and being applied appropriately to the right set of programs that are delivering results,” Scholes said. “But we rarely go through that level of analysis and rigor once budgets are adopted or new programs are funded or new taxes are raised.”
Listen to the Jason Rantz Show weekday afternoons from 3 – 7 p.m. on KTTH 770 AM (or HD Radio 97.3 FM HD-Channel 3). Subscribe to the podcast here
