It’s lastly right here! The Metropolis Clerk has launched an inventory of 20 “certified candidates,” one in all whom will fill the vacant seat left by former District 2 Council Member Tammy Morales. To this point, it is unclear which, if any, of the candidates embody the c progressive spirit that voters endorsed with Morales on the finish of 2023. Even when there was an acceptable successor within the pool, it’s unlikely that the conservative majority would appoint somebody who aligned with the member they allegedly bullied off the dais. As a substitute, they’re extra possible to decide on somebody who aligns with their very own pursuits and the company donors who propped them up.
Current historical past means that town council tends to favor candidates they know over newcomers. Candidates who most likely haven’t crossed paths with a council member on their espresso break at Metropolis Corridor or who haven’t slapped their identify on a marketing campaign signal embrace:
Some Metropolis insiders additionally need the job, together with The Mayor’s Workplace’s Senior Transportation Coverage and Operations Supervisor Adonis Ducksworth, former head of the Seattle Workplace of Arts and Tradition Randy Engstrom, and Assistant Metropolis Lawyer Edward Lin.
In names you might acknowledge, just a few former political candidates threw their hat within the ring. Amongst them is Seattle Police Division crime prevention coordinator Mark Solomon, who misplaced by a whopping 21 proportion factors to Morales in 2021 and did not safe the citywide emptiness appointment final 12 months, however desires in on the opening. Political guide Nimco Bulale who got here in third place within the 2022 main for a home seat within the thirty seventh legislative district additionally utilized.
And maybe most notably, Seattle Parks and Recreation sustainability and environmental supervisor and failed thirty seventh LD candidate Chukundi Salisbury has additionally utilized for the emptiness. If I’m studying the room appropriately, Salisbury might have an early edge. Nearly instantly following Morales’s resignation, rumors flurried about Mayor Bruce Harrell supporting Salisbury, much like rumors that Harrell scouted him to problem Morales in 2023, which didn’t come to fruition.
It is nonetheless too early to find out if any of those candidates genuinely signify the identical values voters selected when electing Morales. Nonetheless, it’d be robust to spin Salisbury as a Morales 2.0 given the truth that he ran to the fitting of former State Home Rep. Kirsten Harris-Talley in 2020, who shares a progressive ideology akin to Morales’s. There’s additionally one thing to say about his distinct lack of mandate. The thirty seventh LD considerably overlaps with D2 and Salisbury decisively misplaced by greater than 20 proportion factors to Harris-Talley.
In some methods, appointing Salisbury may mirror their appointment of former Council Member Tanya Woo final 12 months. Woo ran on a pseudo conservative slate in opposition to Morales for D2 in 2023. Whereas her business-backed buddies landed victories that 12 months, Woo misplaced by a few hundred votes.
In January 2024, then-Council Member Teresa Mosqueda resigned from the citywide place 8 seat to imagine her new job at King County Council. Woo, recent off her defeat, utilized for the emptiness. With the backing of the donors who helped safe the council majority, Woo was appointed to the place. Some argued that the transfer undermined the desire of the voters who had simply rejected her in D2 and voted so overwhelmingly for a progressive, not massive enterprise’s decide, for that citywide seat.
Hopefully, the council has realized its lesson — Woo ran to retain the citywide appointment final 12 months and misplaced spectacularly to newcomer Council Member Alexis Mercedes Rinck. The council will whittle down the checklist of 20 in a gathering this Friday. A neighborhood group will host a public discussion board “on or round” January 21 the place hopefully the general public will study extra about who would take up Morales’s struggle for density and progressive income, the destiny of which depends upon this appointment. The council will vote for a brand new colleague on January 27.