Adonis Ducksworth, Mayor Bruce Harrell’s transportation coverage and operations supervisor, could be the coolest particular person to ever run for the Seattle Metropolis Council District 2 seat. Don’t be swayed by his title, which sounds prefer it belongs to somebody who crawled out of a time machine from Victorian England. Ducksworth, 50, is a Renaissance man of dope hobbies: He’s a skateboarder, a highschool golf champion, and he makes techno beats in his studio after his youngsters fall asleep.
As I write this, I’m listening to his monitor “The Imaginative and prescient.” After this election, we should always all meet beneath a freeway and get right down to “The Imaginative and prescient.” It goes fairly fucking exhausting. However after speaking by means of his plans if he’s elected to characterize D2, I’m not sure Ducksworth’s imaginative and prescient—for Rainier Avenue, for housing density, for transit, policing, and public security—is as totally realized as his sick beats.
Duckworth is the second candidate to announce their run for the D2 seat, following Assistant Metropolis Legal professional Eddie Kim. Metropolis council appointed Mark Solomon to the seat in January after Tammy Morales’s choice to step down, and we’ll select a everlasting alternative this November. Morales’s departure left Alexis Merceds-Rinck as the only real progressive on the council.
Ducksworth’s essential objectives for Seattle are to make it a extra reasonably priced, safer place—particularly for teenagers—and to get the stalled Rainier Seaside skate park challenge constructed. He’s massive on imaginative and prescient, however gentle on specifics. Aside from the skate park. And, after speaking to him, I’m all in on the skate park.
Ducksworth grew up in a triplex on Beacon Hill. His mom labored a number of jobs to make ends meet. All through his adolescence, particularly when his mother and father break up in his early teenagers, Ducksworth skated. He spent most of his 20s skating, snowboarding, and making beats (Let me advocate “Universe” when you learn the remainder of this text).
In his early 30s, he went to Seattle Neighborhood School to complete faculty. There, the mix of an enlightening economics course and Barack Obama’s profitable political marketing campaign impressed Ducksworth to take his training severely. He completed his bachelor’s diploma, then his grasp’s in city planning. His actual begin in transportation got here doing outreach on the Seattle Division of Transportation’s twenty third Avenue overhaul challenge, the place he interfaced with communities impacted by the development within the Central District. At this time, he’s the senior transportation coverage official within the mayor’s workplace and one of many architects of the 2024 transportation levy.
Whereas being on metropolis council was “at all times at the back of my thoughts,” he stated, Ducksworth didn’t severely contemplate it till Councilmember Morales resigned from her seat. Ducksworth utilized for the open place. He grew to become a finalist and got here in second, however finally misplaced out to Mark Solomon.
A part of what impressed Ducksworth to enter politics was his expertise residing in Rainier Seaside for the final decade. His home was damaged into twice, in 2019 and 2020. He says he commonly hears gunshots. At some point, the pictures sounded near his home close to Rainier Avenue. When he hopped on his skateboard to test it out, he says he noticed that somebody had been killed outdoors his daughters’ dance studio.
He says that his and his neighbors’ expertise residing in an space the place crime is extra concentrated motivated him to run on a public security agenda. However what does “public security” imply to Ducksworth? He needs extra police and desires extra range throughout the pressure. Particularly, he needs them to return from D2. In his software letter for Morales’s open seat, he stated he wished to “bolster the pipeline of police recruits that come from the district,” within the hopes that they’ll be extra invested within the those that stay there. He additionally needs police to “stroll beats” within the neighborhood to develop relationships with the group. Ducksworth believes “strolling a beat” may assist soften the sophisticated relationship various communities have with law enforcement officials.
“If this was taking place in another neighborhood, the response can be very completely different,” Ducksworth stated. “There may be a few of that institutionalized bias and racism towards the south finish.”
In response to SPD knowledge from 2024, violent crime decreased citywide, however some neighborhoods nonetheless noticed a rise, together with District 2’s North Beacon Hill (It’s price noting that “perennially secure” Magnolia ended up with the best crime spike of any neighborhood within the metropolis final yr). Duckworth doesn’t imagine that town’s present efforts to ameliorate the violence he sees in his neighborhood are working.
“That is one of many views I can carry to town council, as a result of I am residing in the course of it and it is terrible,” Ducksworth stated.
It’s unclear how Ducksworth would accomplish this. He didn’t specify whether or not he would advocate for elevating the police funds or any methods for growing or diversifying hiring. Whereas he’s already in communication with the Seattle Police Division’s South Precinct, requesting further patrols, it’s not clear how he may affect the police to “stroll a beat” any otherwise as a metropolis council member. (Analysis has discovered that having extra officers on the road could act as a deterrent for violent crime, nevertheless it additionally will increase the variety of arrests for low-level, petty crimes in already over-policed communities.)
“I simply need these youngsters to be secure. I need to be secure,” he stated. “Whenever you examine within the newspaper when you’re sipping espresso, wanting on the lake [you say], ‘So unhappy, we should always do one thing about that.’ However if you’re in it, it is a completely completely different mindset, a very completely different method.”
In his unique software for Morales’s seat, he did additionally say he felt “mentoring companies and packages” have been vital to assist divert youngsters away from crime, in addition to further (although nonspecific) assets for habit, psychological well being, and homelessness.
One diversion program he may get particular on, although? Opening up that goddamn Rainier Seaside Skate Park.
“Individuals preserve asking me ‘Why do you retain speaking about that skate park?’” Ducksworth stated. “Look, for me, after I was 12 or 13 years previous and my mother and father have been breaking apart and issues have been all terrible in my home, that is what I had. That was a launch I had and I’d go hyperlink up with my pals in my neighborhood.”
By offering a skate park within the neighborhood, Ducksworth says town might be offering youngsters with one thing they will do and a spot they will construct group.
Presently, the closest skateparks to Rainier Seaside are in Judkins Park or Jefferson Park—15 to twenty minutes away by automotive, even longer by bus. It’s a dilemma he faces as a skater himself. He skates at any time when he can: earlier than work, throughout lunch, after work. Skating has modified his perspective on the world; when he appears at an on a regular basis handrail, a bench, a curb, he sees alternative. It’s a unique, artistic mind-set. He needs that for the children in his neighborhood.
“It is a actual concrete factor that may make a distinction,” he stated.
Town secured the funds for the park forward of its deliberate development in 2024. However it’s been stalled, partly, in line with Ducksworth, as a result of the plans didn’t make the park coated. With no cowl, in a metropolis the place it rains 152 days out of the yr, skaters can’t skate.
Except for public security and the skate park, Ducksworth is gentle on specifics.
He referred to as himself an urbanist, and stated he’s “upset” within the present draft of the Seattle Complete Plan as a result of it doesn’t unfold elevated density sufficient all through different neighborhoods, concentrating the expansion in District 2. Nevertheless, he was obscure in his criticism of the plan. However his boss is the man who greenlit the lackluster plan. (I’m, conveniently, listening to his track “Resist” now. Loopy stuff taking place in right here.)
We’d like higher housing options for individuals desirous to get off the streets, households with youngsters, and working-class and low-income individuals all through Seattle– to assist anybody who needs to stay in Seattle discover housing choices that meet their wants,” stated Ducksworth in an announcement asserting his run. “That features South Seattle the place exclusionary and racist zoning practices prior to now created inequities in house possession, predatory improvement, displacement, and inferior infrastructure. I’ll carry a dedication to housing insurance policies knowledgeable by previous harms– however pushed by future alternative– to construct the communities all of us deserve.”
Ducksworth rides his bike commonly on Lake Washington Boulevard, however he doesn’t imagine the road needs to be shut right down to vehicles. He as a substitute would favor town pursue a real multi-modal resolution a la the waterfront redesign.
So far as funding all these amorphous goals and needs, Ducksworth helps progressive tax income. He stated he would again an area capital beneficial properties tax, and can also be open to new taxes and increasing present ones.
On transportation—his specialty—Ducksworth has a smattering of concepts. He want to make Rainier Avenue safer by stopping drivers from utilizing the middle lane to “scoot round different vehicles.” He’d additionally like to extend bus frequency to maneuver extra individuals and make it more durable for individuals to hurry in bus-only lanes. The bus is overseen by the county, not town. He endeavors to make the bus safer, too, through the use of Seattle Transit Measure funds to spice up safety on the bus and design stops with higher lighting. With gentle rail, Ducksworth needs to pursue a research to see what it could take to raise the south finish gentle rail tracks, given the risks of the street-level design.
Within the meantime, he additionally needs to look into practice frequency and headways to cut back the look ahead to individuals making an attempt to cross the road or flip close to the south finish’s gentle rail stations. He believes the lengthy waits for pedestrian crossing and autos encourage impatient individuals to make dangerous selections and improve their probability of being hit by the practice.
Ducksworth looks like an general good man. He’s devoted to his neighborhood and his group, and he’s somebody who invitations the native youngsters over to his home in the summertime to make use of his yard skate ramp. He appears to me to be somebody who’s found out a life that makes him blissful. He additionally makes different individuals blissful—I imply, I didn’t know I favored techno home music and right here I’m bumping “Resonance,” a track deep into his Spotify discography.
A part of spreading that happiness would imply engaging in these objectives he has for District 2. At this stage, although, I’m unsure he’s the politician to do it. Principally, as a result of I’m unsure Ducksworth is a politician. He’s received 9 months to refine these concepts into each an electable stump speech and an actual plan for this metropolis. Let’s see what he can do.
