We’re now just one year from electing seven councilmembers under the new district election system overwhelmingly approved by voters in 2013. For the first time in a century, voters will have someone from their own area of the city officially representing them at City Hall. Only two City Council seats will remain to be filled via a citywide, at-large vote.
A growing list of candidates has filed or expressed interest in running for a district seat. So far, we’re not sure there’s a marked change in the caliber of candidates.
First, there are born-again incumbents who, under our previous at-large system, have a long history of representing downtown and development interests — suddenly, they’re telling us they really care about neighborhoods. Then there are out-of-the-blue newbies with near-zero experience working with neighborhoods, seemingly driven by the desire to see their name in lights. Finally, there are the well-intentioned who, we fear, lack the gravitas, know-how or resources to ever get elected.
Where we’re seeing the impact of district election is the messaging: more direct appeals and actions speaking directly to neighborhood needs in communities the candidates seek to represent.
Reinventing their image
A year ago, the current City Council wouldn’t have even considered, let alone approved, housing linkage fees soon to be required of developers when they build in Seattle. We think these fees are set too low, but still, they would have been out of the question before district elections.
Nor would council members a year ago have approved legislation regulating microhousing in our neighborhoods. All nine current councilmembers recently signed a joint letter opposing Seattle Housing Authority’s plan to raise rents on hundreds of public housing residents.
Councilmember Harrell must run in the second district in 2015, and it’s no coincidence he opposed the recent upzone of the Mount Baker neighborhood in the heart of that district.
Councilmember O’Brien, who has, for years, led the charge for runaway growth and giving developers free rein, played a key role in brokering both the new microhousing legislation and developer linkage fees.
All incumbents seeking election to the new district seats appear to be trying to reinvent themselves to some degree as the “neighborhood candidate” — they’d better. A recent citywide poll indicated the popularity of all of them, except Kshama Sawant and Nick Licata, was miserably low.
Meanwhile, the new candidates who’ve already declared are clearly appealing to neighborhood basics like police and sidewalks — so, in this sense, change is already afoot.
A unique platform
While getting back to the basics will certainly attract voters, we believe the easiest path to election to the new district seats is to run on a platform calling for limiting runaway growth, making developers pay their fair share and redirecting our tax dollars now pouring into downtown and South Lake Union back to our neighborhoods.
So far, however, no one has stepped up to grab this mantle. We’ve said all along that district elections aren’t a panacea but an unprecedented opportunity for our neighborhoods and the cause of economic justice. The playing field has been leveled so we can compete on even terms with downtown, corporate, developer and special interest-backed candidates.
But we need to seize the moment; we can’t just wait for good candidates to jump in. That means recruiting and actively backing people who are “winnable” and who embrace a progressive and neighborhood-based agenda. By “actively backing,” we mean supporting candidates not only with volunteers but with our dollars.
That’s what the Coalition for an Affordable Livable Seattle is all about: creating a broad grassroots coalition of tenant, housing, neighborhood, senior, progressive labor and small businesspeople, setting an agenda and then holding candidates accountable to that agenda.
Moreover, we need some kind of Political Action Committee (PAC) that can raise at least $100,000, hold candidate forums in the districts, interview and evaluate candidates, then, most importantly, put money into direct mails and materials to get their message out to every voter.
Turning back the city
Seattle is now one of the most expensive cities in the country, with the most rapidly rising rents. Thousands of low-income and working people are being forced from their homes and the city due to runaway unmanaged growth and development. There are 9,000 to 10,000 homeless on any given night.
The unique physical character of our city — our open space, parks, tree canopy, urban streams — is under siege.
To a large degree, we have our current council members to thank for this and a now-defunct at-large election system that kept them in office far too long.
What districts have done is create the potential to return power and resources to the neighborhoods. And, most importantly for us, we now have a real chance to turn back homelessness, poverty and inequality in our city.
But we must get organized and geared up for 2015 to elect people who share these progressive goals. It’s up to us!
JOHN V. FOX and CAROLEE COLTER are coordinators for the Seattle Displacement Coalition (www.zipcon.net). To comment on this column, write to MPTimes@nwlink.com.