Seattle Council Candidates Spar at Mobility and Housing Forum

Early this month, Seattle municipal candidates faced off at a mobility and housing forum co-sponsored by a slate of organizations including The Urbanist. Candidates had sharp differences on the topic of taxing the rich to make investments in social infrastructure, but broadly agreed on boosting Mayor Bruce Harrell’s proposed One Seattle Comprehensive Plan to add additional housing capacity.

In a nod to growing urbanist consensus — at least in rhetoric, if not follow through — candidates unanimously said they support expanding bus lanes, bike lanes, and sidewalks throughout the city.

Across the three council races and the mayor’s race, 18 candidates shared the stage at the Centilia Cultural Center at the El Centro de la Raza in Beacon Hill. Political consultant and Hacks and Wonks podcast host Crystal Fincher moderated the forum and The Urbanist was among a long list of cohosts. (Fincher also serves on The Urbanist’s board of directors). The hosts split the forum into three rounds. D2 contenders went first, both citywide city council races second, and the mayoral candidates went last.

Check out our mayoral forum recap for key takeaways in that high-profile race. The Council races are heating up, with challengers buoyed by recent polling showing incumbent Seattle councilmembers are increasingly unpopular. That could indicate Seattle Council President Sara Nelson is in for a tough race, while in contrast Alexis Mercedes Rinck remains one of the most popular city electeds after taking office earlier this year.

South Seattle’s District 2 is also up this year (two years ahead of schedule) due to the resignation of Councilmember Tammy Morales in January.

Here were all the candidates who participated:

Seattle City Council District 2

• Jeanie Chunn [Check out Urbanist interview]
• Adonis Ducksworth [Check out Urbanist interview]
• Eddie Lin [Check out Urbanist interview]
• Jamie Fackler [Check out Urbanist interview]

Seattle City Council Citywide Position 8

• Alexis Mercedes Rinck (incumbent) [Check out 2024 Urbanist interview]
• Ray A. Rogers
• Rachael Savage

Seattle City Council Citywide Position 9

• Dionne Foster [Check out recent Urbanist interview]
• Mia Jacobson
• Connor Nash
• Sara Nelson (incumbent)

Candidates differ on social housing measure

One significant point of distinction in this election is stances on social housing, and particularly the recent Proposition 1A ballot measure to fund it with an excess compensation tax, which went to voters in February and scored a 26-point victory.

In the District 2 race, union steward Jamie Fackler and Jeanie Chunn, who is an advocate for small businesses and workers’ rights, both said they voted for Proposition 1A and staunchly support social housing. Adonis Ducksworth, who is a transportation advisor to Mayor Bruce Harrell, told forum-goers he backed Prop 1A, but records indicate he did not vote in the special election. Seattle Office of Housing attorney Eddie Lin voted, but for the competing Proposition 1B. 

Lin and Ducksworth have said they would respect the will of the voters, support the Seattle Social Housing Developer, and defend its funding source now that it’s been secured. That’s in line with other social housing skeptics, including Harrell himself, who seem to be getting on board after landslide victories at the polls.

The citywide candidates also contrasted on the issue of social housing funding. In the Position 8 race, incumbent Alexis Mercedes Rinck voted for Prop 1A and was strongly in favor of funding and scaling up social housing. Rachael Savage and Ray Rogers declined to say how they voted.

For Position 9, Council President Sara Nelson led the charge to put Prop 1B on the ballot in an effort to block Prop 1A and curry favor with the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, which drafted and pushed the proposal. Meanwhile, the frontrunner challenger Dionne Foster voted for Prop 1A and has a track record of advocating for progressive tax reform as a nonprofit leader, most recently as executive director of the Progress Alliance of Washington. Connor Nash also voted for Prop 1A, but Mia Jacobson declined to say how she voted.

Consensus around bus and bike lanes

A remarkable consensus emerged around dedicated lanes for bus and safe bike routes and increasing funding for sidewalk expansion. All participating Council candidates expressed support for bus lanes and bike lanes. With his experience working at the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT), Ducksworth had the clearest grasp of the nitty gritty of getting multimodal projects done. Even if each candidate’s expertise varied, the values alignment was impressive to see. No matter the outcome of the election, D2 should expect to have a champion for safe streets and green mobility.

Where the D2 candidates had some disagreement

	Chunn	Ducksworth	Fackler	Lin
Social housing funding: Prop 1A or the scaled back Prop 1B	Prop 1A	Said 1A, didn’t actually vote	Prop 1A	Prop 1B
Support completing the First Avenue Streetcar	Waffled	No	No	Yes
Primary mode of transport	Bus/train	Skateboard	Motorcycle	Car
Did you vote for Bruce Harrell or Lorena González in 2021?	González	Harrell	González	González
Should Seattle explore other uses for Jackson Park Golf Course?	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Should builders be required to include a certain % of affordable housing units in development?	Yes	Yes	Yes	No

Where the D2 candidates agreed

	Chunn	Ducksworth	Fackler	Lin
Should Seattle add more apartment zoning than proposed in the comprehensive plan?	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Are there too many neighborhood growth centers in the comp plan?	No	No	No	No
Should Seattle strengthen tenant protections?	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Build more protected bike lanes to complete a safe D2 network?	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Should Seattle invest more in building new sidewalks than currently allotted?	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
City-level capital gains tax	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Increase the corporate payroll tax	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Democracy Voucher participant?	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

Top housing policy: change the One Seattle Plan

While all D2 candidates wanted to go beyond Mayor Harrell’s One Seattle proposal in adding housing capacity, each emphasized slight different tweaks they’d make to the plan.

• Fackler: “Well, I’d like to see neighborhood centers expanded throughout the rest of the city. I’d like to see density around our great public investments, which are parks, transit hubs, light rail stations, fixed transit hubs and schools. Those are our areas of our most significant public investment. And we look to the great cities of the world, and there’s density around those areas.”
• Lin: “I would agree that we need to expand neighborhood centers… But the neighborhood residential zones [are] the largest area of the city where we can add gentle density, and we should be doing everything we can to have walkup apartments, stacked flats. Right now, our zoning really encourages townhomes, and those aren’t accessible.”
• Chunn: “We made up these laws and like, why can’t we just require every developer to have one affordable unit in every single building that is built from this day forward? Let’s look at that. Let’s be bold. Let’s be innovative.”
• Ducksworth: “So thinking about District 2, what we need down here along our high transit corridors, rather than going 800 feet to include the density, it would be great if we could go two to three blocks off of the higher high transit corridors to increase density. I think we’ve got a really good opportunity next year, once we get into the lines of the comp plan, to really look at how we can impact that zoning so we can build higher and more within those areas.”

Looking ahead to a Seattle Transit Measure renewal

One other area where D2 candidates diverged somewhat was on the Seattle Transit Measure (STM), which is due for renewal in 2026. The measure raises about $50 million per year to boost transit service, but the reliance on sales tax as a funding mechanism drew criticism from Fackler and Chunn. The state legislature authorizes cities to use two types of funding for transportation benefit districts like the STM: sales tax and car tab fees.

“Is this the one that’s funded by sales tax?” Fackler said. “So that’s the one thing that I would change. We need progressive revenue. This should not be funded by working families. This should be funded by the wealthiest corporations in our city.”

Meanwhile, Ducksworth and Lin focused on priorities for the transit investment, with both agreeing that augmenting bus service levels should be priority number one.

“Service and reliability — more buses, more reliable,” Ducksworth said. “And we need to give our kids and our workers more access to transit, and so expanding the free ORCA card program through the STM, and then also just making the stops better.”

Sharp contrast between Nelson and Foster for Seat 9

The citywide council candidate forum revealed stark differences between Council President Sara Nelson and her leading challenger Dionne Foster. Nelson was the most resistant candidate to raising new taxes on the wealthy in the name of progressive tax reform, whereas Foster was stridently in favor.

Nelson questioned the affordable housing requirements that undergird Seattle’s Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA) program, saying developers shouldn’t be required to set aside housing units. Foster disagreed. Nelson was also the only candidate to share hesitancy to strengthen tenant protections.

	Nelson	Foster	Jacobson	Nash
Social housing funding: Prop 1A or the scaled back Prop 1B	Prop 1B	Prop 1A	Abstained	Prop 1A
Support completing the First Avenue Streetcar	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Primary mode of transport	Car	Car	Car	Walking
Did you vote for Bruce Harrell or Lorena González in 2021?	Harrell	González	Abstained	Neither
Should builders be required to include a certain % of affordable housing units in development?	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Road congestion pricing	Yes	Waffled	No	Yes

Areas of apparent agreement also emerged with all Position 9 candidates saying Seattle should add more apartment zoning than proposed in the comprehensive plan. And even though Nelson, Jacobson, and Nash are not participating in Seattle’s Democracy Voucher program, all said they would vote for the ballot measure to renew the program.

	Nelson	Foster	Jacobson	Nash
Should Seattle add more apartment zoning than proposed in the comprehensive plan?	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Are there too many neighborhood growth centers in the comp plan?	No	No	No	No
Should Seattle strengthen tenant protections?	Waffled	Yes	Yes	Yes
Build more protected bike lanes to complete a safe D2 network?	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Should Seattle invest more in building new sidewalks than currently allotted?	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
City-level capital gains tax	Waffled	Yes	Yes	Yes
Increase the corporate payroll tax	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
CEO pay ratio tax	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Estate tax	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Participating in democracy voucher program?	No	Yes	No	No

Jacobson brought up the topic of democracy reform, but from a novel angle. She appeared to propose a form of direct democracy based on online data mining and harnessing conversations among “social media groups.”

“I’m running for council to bring attention to the fact that our society has dramatically changed in the last 20 years,” Jacobson said. “The rate of technology has fundamentally changed the way we use information, the way we talk to people. We can coordinate online in huge groups. We can use data scrapes, with data analytics to figure out exactly what the people think and what our issues are. And we can have a more participatory process. As it stands, our local policymaking process is completely unaccessible by the citizenry. So that means that you have an issue, if you have a solution, and you’re not on council or on the committee or invited specifically to speak on that issue, your information is never part of it, and I think that we’ve evolved out of that process.”

During the forum, Jacobson appeared the most skeptical of adding housing density in areas formerly zoned only for single family homes, despite repeated polling showing that policy is popular.

Rinck’s progressive contrast in Position 8 race

Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck has two challengers, and they shared some views that are markedly different from the incumbent. Rachael Savage is a Trump Republican skeptical of taxing the rich, unlike Rinck. Ray Rogers was not as far-right, but more in the Harrell centrist lane, with more hesitancy to tax the wealthy.

	Rinck	Rogers	Savage
Social housing funding: Prop 1A or the scaled back Prop 1B	Prop 1A	Abstained	Abstained
Support completing the First Avenue Streetcar	Yes	Yes	Yes
Primary mode of transport	Transit & Walking	Car	Transit & Walking
Did you vote for Bruce Harrell or Lorena González in 2021?	González	Harrell	Harrell
Should builders be required to include a certain % of affordable housing units in development?	Yes	No	Yes
Road congestion pricing	Yes	Yes	Yes
Did you vote for Kamala Harris or Trump?	Harris	Harris	Trump

	Rinck	Rogers	Savage
Should Seattle add more apartment zoning than proposed in the comprehensive plan?	Yes	Yes	Yes
Are there too many neighborhood growth centers in the comp plan?	No	No	No
Should Seattle strengthen tenant protections?	Yes	Yes	Yes
Build more protected bike lanes to complete a safe D2 network?	Yes	Yes	Yes
Should Seattle invest more in building new sidewalks than currently allotted?	Yes	Yes	Yes
City-level capital gains tax	Yes	Yes	No
Increase the corporate payroll tax	Yes	Yes	No
CEO pay ratio tax	Yes	No	No
Estate tax	Yes	No	No
Democracy Voucher participant?	Yes	No	Yes
	Rinck	Rogers	Savage

The three-week voting period will start on July 18 for the August 5 primary. Watch for The Urbanist Election Committee to drop its endorsement in mid-July.

The Urbanist co-hosted the forum along with a host of other transportation and housing groups. Those sponsoring organizations include Ampersand Bicycle Club, Beacon Hill Safe Streets, Be:Seattle, Bike Works, Cascade Bicycle Club, Disability Rights Washington, Feet First, Friends of Little Saigon, Futurewise, House Our Neighbors, Jackson Park 4 All, Lid I-5, People for Climate Action Seattle, Rainier Valley Greenways-Safe Streets, Real Change, Seattle Neighborhood Greenways, Seattle Subway, Soapbox Project, Transit Equity for All, Transit Riders Union, Transportation Choices Coalition, The Urbanist, Washington Bikes.

Thanks to all the co-hosts who made the event a success.

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