Two forums co-hosted by The Urbanist on September 5 and 6 will include candidates in all seven districts.
With the primary behind us, 14 candidates remain for the seven Seattle City Council seats that are up for election this year. A set of forums next week seeks to illuminate where candidates stand on housing growth and zoning policy and how they might vote on the Seattle’s Comprehensive Plan next year when a once-a-decade “Major Update” is due.
Both forum events will be held at the First Baptist Church on Capitol Hill at 1111 Harvard Avenue from 6:00pm to 7:30pm. Cliff Cawthon from Habitat for Humanity of Seattle-King & Kittitas’ Counties and Tiffani McCoy from Real Change will moderate the forums. The hosts will provide refreshments and childcare. Register at the links below to reserve or watch the videos of the forum to be released after the event.
The first forum will be Tuesday, September 5 and includes candidates from Districts 2, 6, and 7, South Seattle, Downtown, Queen Anne, Magnolia, and Ballard.
The second forum will be Wednesday, September 6 and includes candidates from District 1, 3, 4, and 5, covering West Seattle, Capitol Hill, the Central District, U District, Wallingford, and North Seattle.
The forums are being thrown by the Complete Communities Coalition (CCC), of which The Urbanist is a member. Other members include Real Change, Habitat for Humanity of Seattle-King & Kittitas’ Counties, Futurewise, Housing Development Consortium, Tech 4 Housing, Chief Seattle Club, and the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle.
“The Complete Communities Coalition (CCC) invites you to join a Candidate Forum on Zoning, Growth, and the Comprehensive Plan. This forum will give the public insight into the approaches City Council candidates plan to take towards fundamental issues facing the city of Seattle – how and where the city will add the homes needed to address our housing affordability and climate challenges,” the coalition said in a release.
The CCC came together to advocate for a good Comprehensive Plan that promotes pro-housing, pro-affordability policies.
“The comprehensive plan will shape how Seattle grows over the next 20 years,” the CCC said in a statement. “The CCC is a broad coalition of organizations, dedicated to fostering an affordable, equitable, and sustainable city through transformative land use policies and inclusive growth strategies with this Comprehensive Plan Update. We believe the approach taken by the next city council will be critical to this vision being fulfilled.”
Register to attend here:
- Forum 1 on September 5: tinyurl.com/CCCNight1
- Forum 2 on September 6: tinyurl.com/CCCNight2
Six of the seven Seattle Council candidates that The Urbanist Elections Committee endorsed in the primary advanced to the general election. The exception was Nilu Jenks who came up six points short of advancing in District 5. The Urbanist Elections Committee (on which I serve) has since endorsed ChrisTiana ObeySumner in the race. The matchups are listed below with The Urbanist’s primary endorsements indicated in bold and their respective share of the primary vote after their name.
- D1 – Maren Costa 33% versus Rob Saka 24%.
- D2 – Tammy Morales (incumbent) 52% versus Tanya Woo 43%.
- D3 – Joy Hollingsworth 37% versus Alex Hudson 37%.
- D4 – Ron Davis 45% versus Maritza Rivera 32%.
- D5 – Cathy Moore 31% versus ChrisTiana ObeySumner 24%.
- D6 – Dan Strauss (incumbent) 52% versus Pete Hanning 29%.
- D7 – Andrew Lewis (incumbent) 43% versus Bob Kettle 32%.
Doug Trumm is publisher of The Urbanist. An Urbanist writer since 2015, he dreams of pedestrianizing streets, blanketing the city in bus lanes, and unleashing a mass timber building spree to end the affordable housing shortage and avert our coming climate catastrophe. He graduated from the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Washington in 2019. He lives in East Fremont and loves to explore the city on his bike.