-Hello. I'm your host, Brian Callanan.
The Seattle City Council has its largest influx of new members
in more than a century.
How are they settling into the job
after a political battle
to select another new member for the vacant position eight,
and what priorities are they bringing to their new roles
as leaders of the Council's committees?
I'm with Councilmembers Saka, Hollingsworth, and Rivera
next on "Council Edition."
-We have a huge public safety problem in Seattle,
across the board.
-We're really heavily focused
on the Constituent Services piece, as well.
-24% of communities in Seattle don't have --
residents don't have a sidewalk in their neighborhood.
We need to change that.
-All that and more, coming up next
on "City Inside Out: Council Edition."
♪♪
And here they are. We have them with us.
Councilmember Rob Saka from District 1.
Thank you very much for being here.
-Thank you. Honored to be here. -Alright.
And we also have with us Joy Hollingsworth,
the councilmember from District 3.
Good to see you two. -Likewise. Thank you.
-And finally, Councilmember Maritza Rivera
from District 4. I appreciate you coming, too.
-Thank you for having me.
-Your first ever "Council Edition" show.
This is exciting stuff here.
I want to ask off the top if you could just give people an idea
of what it's been like behind the scenes
on the second floor of City Hall,
because there were certain things you could not do
before you were sworn in on January 2nd.
Like hiring staff, getting things set.
I just want to give people an idea
of what the pace of this job has been like
since you started the beginning of January, here.
Can you give people an idea about that?
Councilmember Saka, let me start with you.
-Yeah. Thank you, Brian.
So, at a very, very high level --
well, I'll say this --
the pace has been fairly frantic right now.
We're just constantly -- -Drinking from the firehose.
-Constantly going, boom, boom, boom.
We are on high speed at all times.
But it's been a -- I'll say from my perspective --
it's been a very collaborative process,
getting to work side by side with some very talented people,
working towards the same goal
of pursuing the city's best interests
and, you know, through the lens of our own district.
But for me, just hiring my staff,
getting that set up, going through a lot of really,
really important but foundational trainings
from our various experts and central staff,
you know, understanding various office infrastructure challenges
and opportunities,
working on committee assignments.
So, those are the type of things that we've been doing,
like, kind of behind the scenes to make sure, foundationally,
that, you know, we are able to start January 1
and kind of hit the ground running.
-Alright, well, thank you for that.
Councilmember Hollingsworth,
let's talk about some of the challenges
that you've been facing settling into this job.
And I'm not trying to bust you out here,
but I went into your office a couple of weeks ago.
And, like, office furniture -- there's a chair,
and there's a plant, and that was about it.
I just wanted to try to talk about what it's been like
settling in and figuring out what this job is all about.
-Yeah, absolutely. That's all I need.
A chair and a plant and a desk. -That's right. Yeah.
-Super big on functionality
and not so focused on aesthetics.
But I think the biggest thing for us
that we've learned so far --
everything that Councilmember Saka talked about,
we've experienced the same thing.
I think we all have.
But what, most importantly for us, for District 3,
has been literally the backlog of the e-mails
that we've gotten from Constituent Services,
which is huge. So, we're really heavily focused
on the Constituent Services piece, as well.
I know we all are, but we've had a backlog of that.
-Okay. Got it. Councilmember Rivera,
I just wanted to put this in perspective
because we have so many new members
on the city council this year -- six of them --
more than the city has ever had since 1911,
more than a century. I know it's a new group.
It's a lot of energy in this group,
but it's a group that kind of gets to know --
got to get to know each other, feel each other out.
Let me know what it's like been moving into this job, please.
-You know, Brian, because we're all new,
we actually met on the campaign trail,
and we had the opportunity to establish relationships,
which I feel really fortunate coming into a job
where you've had the opportunity for a year
to establish working relationships with the people
that you hope were going to win
and you were going to be able to work with.
So, it's been, to Councilmember Saka's point,
very collaborative.
I'm very just joyful, even, to be working
with Councilmember Saka and Councilmember Hollingsworth
and the other new councilmembers,
and with the two councilmembers that also won in their races
but are incumbents. -Right.
-And, so, really it's been very collaborative.
One thing that I've been really, um, excited about
is the fact that we're all in person.
All of us are in person, and our staffs are in person,
and that has given us the opportunity to further
work on establishing those relationships
and just go into each other's offices
and have a quick minute conversation.
That is all super important at the beginning to really have --
if you can establish those working relationships early on,
it is really beneficial when you start to do
the difficult work of the job.
-Thank you. And I wanted to talk about
a very big job the council has been through
over the past couple of weeks -- finding a replacement
for outgoing Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda,
who was elected to the King County Council.
There were 72 candidates who applied
for this citywide position eight job.
The list was narrowed down to eight people.
Eventually, the council picked Tanya Woo,
who narrowly lost to Councilmember Morales
in a bid for the District 2 seat in November.
As expected, this turn into a big political battle
behind the scenes.
Several media outlets reporting about this,
business, labor groups trying to push for a candidate
matching their interests.
Councilmember Rivera, let me talk to you about this to start.
What were the factors that went into your decision
supporting Councilmember Woo for this job?
-Thank you, Brian. Well, first, I'll say
that my staff and I reviewed all 72 candidates.
I felt very strongly that out of respect --
it is really hard to put yourself out there,
and out of respect for all 72 candidates,
or applicants, I should say,
we reviewed all the resumes.
And then I was looking for someone that, you know,
would work well with us to do the hard work.
We have a budget deficit.
Someone who understands finance, has experience on budgeting.
Someone that understands the importance
of Constituent Services,
because we are here to represent our respective districts
and then the city, as a whole.
So, someone who understands that --
that's what I was looking for, that type of experience.
And someone who has shown that they're doing the work
in community, similar to the work
that they'll be doing on this job.
-Okay. Thank you. Councilmember Hollingsworth,
I know you chose Linh Thai for this job.
You were outvoted during the process.
Tanya Woo, of course, won the seat.
I just wanted to ask, what's it going to be like
working with a candidate you did not choose?
What's that like?
-Look, Tanya and I, we go way back.
We learned about each other,
connected with each other on the campaign trail.
I think she's a phenomenal asset to the nine --
to the other eight members on the council.
I've gotten to know her and her community very, very well.
We also, both growing up in Seattle there,
you know, you're only a couple degrees of separation
from knowing, like, the same type of -- same people.
And so, I'm looking forward to working with her.
I think she's phenomenal. She represents a community
that has been significantly underserved in our city,
but represent 18% of the population in our city.
And, you know, she's always talked about,
you know, just getting to work and being able to grind
and really serve our community, so I'm looking forward to that.
-Yeah, an important connection for the CID, that's for sure.
Councilmember Saka,
I know we heard from Councilmember Morales,
from the dais, speak to some of her concerns
about selecting a new councilmember.
Here's a brief clip of that.
-I am disappointed in how this process turned out.
This appointment process should have been set up
to give all candidates a fair shake.
It should have been about identifying someone
who can hit the ground running,
someone who can deliver for the entire city.
But instead it did become about big business
telling donors that they earned the right
to tell this council who to choose.
And that is deeply problematic, and it is anti-democratic.
-What was your reaction to what she said?
Talk to us about your decision
when it came to selecting Tanya Woo.
-Yeah, so, I can talk about my decision
into selecting Councilmember Woo.
I also had the privilege of getting to know Tanya
during the campaign trail. We all did.
And just for what it's worth,
I think that opportunity to start to earn and build trust
a year before we even were sworn in
and, you know, took office --
I can't speak enough, like, the value
and importance of that
because I think it allows all of us to collectively build
and develop long-lasting, profound relationships.
We're going to have more impact as a result.
But I got a chance to know Councilmember Woo
on the campaign trail, originally.
For me, I was looking for someone
who had a strong record of service and civic-wise
and in the community, as well.
I was looking for someone with a strong, also,
ability to collaborate across differences.
I guess collaboration is our buzzword for this council,
but it's really, really important.
It's not just a trite thing, box we're trying to check.
And so I was really impressed,
particularly, with Tanya's record of collaboration.
She has a strong CID background,
but now she represents the entire city.
-That's right.
-And I think she is very well positioned
to serve well in that role. -Yeah.
-And look, yeah, someone who understands
the importance of public safety, as well,
and who's ready, willing, and able to truly prioritize
and immediately prioritize public safety.
And I -- for me, she checked all those boxes.
-I guess that background noise -- just to get back to it.
I mean, business and labor fighting for a candidate
or whatever else, was that part of it?
Was that in the back of your mind at all?
That's what I wanted to ask about this.
-I was aware of you know, everything going on,
just like everyone else.
And everyone is entitled to view --
you know, develop their own views on things.
And I understand that, but I will say by law,
we had some very strict requirements in terms of timing,
how the process is set up to be governed.
We had some flexibility around the edges
in terms of implementation,
but we had some very, very strict processes.
And so, I think under the legal and charter constraints
that we had, we executed a fairly good,
very transparent and very open process.
And for those reasons,
I feel good about. -Great. Thank you.
And that forum that we had
on Seattle Channel, thanks to City Club,
that turned out really well.
I thought that was a good, really good back and forth
between those different people who were running there.
I wanted to talk about some of the committee activity
that's been going on here.
Just getting started for the council.
It sounds like it'll be during the first full week
of February, Council President Nelson told me.
That's what it's looking like here.
Councilmember Saka, you're the transportation committee chair.
Councilmember Hollingsworth, vice chair here.
I know we've been talking a lot
about transportation on the campaign trail,
and, uh, apparently you're the pothole king.
I heard that during the swearing in,
when you were sworn in.
I know you want to look at a lot of different things.
Transit, bikes, and all these things, too.
I guess, can you tell us about the priorities
you're emphasizing in taking this
transportation committee chair role?
Yeah, it's a great question.
So, transportation is very critically important
to my district.
I represent West Seattle, South Park,
SoDo, Pioneer Square, and Georgetown.
Part of my goal and vision [Chuckles]
in terms of implementation for the city
is that let no other community in Seattle experience
what we experienced in West Seattle
with the protracted two-and-a-half-year closure
of the West Seattle Bridge.
So, it's a really, really on the surface, simple,
but really important and potentially costly investments
that we might need to make from a transportation perspective
to get there. We have...
So, it's not just there's over 300 bridges
in the city of Seattle,
but, you know, under the 2021 audit, as you may know,
we learned that there are a significant amount of them
that are in a bad state of disrepair.
So, we need help.
So, doing things like that from my district
not only benefits my district, but the people across the city.
And I think we all sort of, you know, ran on this aspect
of focusing on the fundamentals and basics.
And so, for me, that's bridge maintenance,
road repairs.
Potholes is a synonym for bridge maintenance,
road repairs, and sidewalks. -Fair, okay.
-Sidewalks, Brian. -I know.
I know we've been talking a lot about sidewalks,
and we will talk some more about that.
Thank you for that. Councilmember Hollingsworth,
if you want to talk about transportation, please do.
But I really would love for you
to lay out some ideas for the committee you're leading,
which is Parks, Public Utilities, Technologies.
I know Councilmember Rivera is on that committee, too.
What are your top priorities with that?
-Yeah, I'm lucky because all of the committees that --
some of the committees I serve on --
the one that I chair and the one that I vice chair --
are all around infrastructure.
And that's what we talked a lot about on the campaign trail.
And in terms of transportation, 50% of the people
in District 3 rely either on transportation,
public transportation, light rail, buses.
They walk, right? We have a very dense neighborhood.
So, we're going to be looking at, you know, sidewalks,
crosswalks, and ensuring
that we have a lot of pedestrian safety as well,
in addition to ensuring that we know
that when we are planning out transportation routes
and it's A to B, that that line signifies a neighborhood.
And so, we want to also ensure
that transportation is interwoven in the neighborhood,
which I think is really important.
In terms of parks,
Seattle Public Utilities, and also info-- technology,
we're going to do some really cool,
creative things with parks.
My dad worked for the Parks Department 35 years.
So, I know the Parks department very well.
I get to sit on this side of it, working with AP Diaz
and all the phenomenal city workers with Parks.
It's very important to us that we protect them,
that we encourage our tree canopy and open spaces
and keep them clean and safe.
-Yeah. I wanted to ask specifically about park rangers
because that got a lot of headlines into last year.
That program is expanding,
and I know we're just starting here with this,
Councilmember Hollingsworth,
but can you tell me what that program is going to look like,
what you hope it achieves in terms
of having more of these park rangers
in our parks around the city?
-Yeah, absolutely. I know that it's one thing
that Councilmember Lewis, you know, championed.
And so, it's going to be something that
we're going to look into and understanding
how the program is working, what the public --
how their reaction to it is, as well.
Is it creating the type of impact
that it's supposed to, as well?
So, that's one thing that I know that on February 14th,
our first meeting with Parks coming up as chair,
that we'll be looking into a lot of the overview of the programs,
one of those being the park rangers,
to find out the impact of that program.
-Okay, there's a Valentine's Day date to look forward to.
Looking forward to that one.
Councilmember Rivera,
you're head of the Libraries, Education,
and Neighborhoods Committee. Has a lot going on.
Councilmember Hollingsworth, a member of that committee, too.
I just saw one example here, Seattle Public Libraries
coming out with a new strategic plan
in the first quarter of this year.
And that's just the start.
If you want to talk about that, please do.
I just wanted to talk about your approach
to this committee role, please.
-Well, my approach has been I've already met
with all the three of the department heads
for each of those departments to find out from them
what their concerns are, what they're working on.
I've also scheduled more in-depth briefings
with all three of those departments to learn more.
And, you know, for instance, libraries --
I know public safety is a big issue in the libraries.
Libraries are a big community hub for people.
It's a place where our young people
and our seniors go,
as there's a social component.
So, it's not just about the books,
though the books are great.
And so, talking to, you know, Tom Fay
about the public safety issues
that they're experiencing in the library,
because it's become also a public hub,
apart from the community centers
that we also have, which are parks.
-Right.
-And then, you know, the education, for instance,
we have a levy next year, a renewal to look at.
And so, digging into the current levy
and the items that that has funded
and the outcomes for those,
as we're thinking about the next levy.
And then, Department of Neighborhoods --
for our district, the Department of Neighborhoods,
the neighborhood matching fund is a really a popular program.
It really has allowed our district
to be able to put on activations which,
during this post-pandemic recovery period,
have been really important
to bring people together in the district
and people from outside of the district
coming to the district for those activations.
So, all of this is what, you know, we'll be looking at
and talking to departments more in depth about.
-Looking forward to some more of that.
Thank you very much.
I received so many different e-mails and messages
with questions for our new councilmembers here.
I wanted to try to get in as many as I can.
Councilmember Saka, here's a transportation question
from Eric who writes this.
Eric sounds like he's concerned that Seattle
is spending more on transit than on bikes and pedestrians.
What do you tell him?
-So, I will commit to,
if Eric or anyone else has any specific,
you know, concrete proposal from a policy perspective,
I'm committed to considering it as we move forward
and figure out what transportation
is going to look like in Seattle on a going-forward basis.
We have a unique opportunity coming up this year
for a new move levy.
So, looking forward to working with others
to figure out what the contours of that
and set what, like -- this Vision Zero thing,
I'll say the Vision Zero death, uh, goal
that we have in the city
we're not at all living up to that,
and we're far from where we should be.
And a huge chunk of that is the cycling
and especially pedestrian deaths.
So, that's why, um, you know,
adding new sidewalk infrastructure...
24% of communities in Seattle don't have --
residents don't have a sidewalk in their neighborhood.
We need to change that. We need to fix that.
We need to add more crosswalks, more crosswalks.
There's other investments that we can do
to better live up to our Vision Zero goals.
So, I'm committed to listening and learning
as we go through this process.
And yeah, making some real change.
-Okay. Thank you for addressing that.
And I know everybody here is committed to public safety.
Councilmember Saka, you're the vice chair of that committee.
But if I could, let me start this one
with Councilmember Rivera just mixed up a little bit.
So, Pat writes this.
That's the question from Pat.
Thank you very much for sending that in.
Councilmember Rivera, what do you think?
-I think we have a huge -- and everyone knows,
and we all ran on this.
We have a huge public safety problem
in Seattle across the board.
And I think that when we say
property crimes have decreased, I agree.
I think people have stopped reporting
because they're not getting responses back,
because we just don't have the staffing levels
to be able to address when people report.
And then also because of the staffing issues at SPD,
they're only able to really prioritize 9-1-1 calls.
And so, some of these other types of crimes,
you know, they're not able to address it,
which is why I supported the mayor's,
and I continue to support the mayor's plan
to hire 1,400 officers.
We know that is proving difficult,
but we do need to prioritize it and keep at it.
And then we also need to look at
exploring alternatives to policing
to fill the gap between being able to find
those those more, you know, more officers
and what to do between now and then.
And I'll say, you know, public safety in our district
is really huge.
Just in the last couple weeks,
we've had businesses on 35th --
there's a car that drove into a small business.
And so, small businesses are struggling
because there's a lot of theft and crimes of this nature.
And so, we really need to put focus to that
and see what we can do to fill that void, if you will,
between now and when we're able to hire more officers.
But it's a very real thing. -Okay. Thank you.
Councilmember Hollingsworth, you're up here.
A few headlines about this in the past couple of weeks.
Eric actually wrote this one, too.
He had a couple good e-mails. Thank you. Eric.
What do you think? Shut it down?
Put this new connector project in motion
that's more than $400 million?
There's a lot been talked about this.
-Yeah, I know, and I know that was a hot-button topic,
understanding the streetcar and the South Lake Union
and trying to figure out should we spend our money on that.
I talked about it during the campaign trail,
that I think we have other priorities in our city,
transportation wise, that I think are very important,
from our sidewalks to our crosswalks to ensuring that,
you know, our roads are repaired, potholes,
like, just the basic functionality of our city.
And so, that's something I couldn't
put my weight behind right now
and advocating for other things in our city to be prioritized.
-Okay. Thank you. Councilmember Saka,
another transportation question coming in.
Robin is excited about the transportation levy, I think.
Here's what she said.
A very important levy.
Your committee's working on this, this year.
30% of the city's transportation budget comes from it,
as I know you know.
Robin wants to know how you're going to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions.
-Yeah, so thank you, Robin, for the question.
Excellent one.
So, as transportation chair, one of my personal priorities
is to make sure we have effective multimodal,
you know, transportation.
So, that means transit.
We need to get as many people out of single-occupancy vehicles
as possible and into rapid transit.
And that means we need to have better transit options.
I also think that, you know,
when we talk about expanding transit service, for example,
we can't have, like, focus on that
without having a parallel conversation
about how we're going to improve the public safety experience.
I've talked to many constituents now
and, you know, voters during the campaign that said,
"Hey, I would ride public transit more or again,
but the problem is, I don't feel safe."
So, uh, we're going to have
some difficult conversations coming up,
but I'm committed to, you know, doing the right thing
and making sure that we expand transit,
preserve freight and cargo.
That's really important, too, by the way.
That's kind of an unsung hero.
That's the backbone of our economy.
You know, reducing
and better living up to our Vision Zero goals and targets,
improving cycling infrastructure,
pedestrian infrastructure, all of it.
It's a comprehensive approach. -Yeah.
And I think public safety and public health
are definitely intertwined with this issue, for sure.
I'm going to start wrapping up here.
A deep thoughts e-mail coming in here from Jimmy.
Always sends good ones here.
I'm going to go down the line, Councilmember Rivera,
and we'll head on down here.
Jimmy asks this.
Jimmy, thank you for the question.
Asking about open-mindedness when it comes to how you lead.
Councilmember Rivera, how do you look at that?
-I love this question because on the campaign trail,
I talked a lot about the fact
that I may not have all the answers --
in fact, not that I may not. I do not have all the answers.
And, you know, I am clear that I'm here
representing the constituents of the district,
and I care very much to dialog with the constituents
so that I can represent their interests well.
And as Councilmember Saka said just a few minutes ago,
really working together with folks
to bring solutions forward is important.
And so, my door will always be open.
And, you know, I look forward to collaborating
so that we can come up with some creative solutions
to these huge challenges
that we're going to -- we're facing.
-Yeah, a lot of them at once. Councilmember Hollingsworth,
some ideas about open-mindedness and leadership, please.
-Yeah, absolutely.
I think it's important for someone
who's in a leadership role
to be open to be able to change,
to be open to actually having dialog.
I think we all know that we are servants of the community.
We are here to serve.
We are a bridge from our community to City Council.
Oftentimes, we're the front porch of city government.
And the beautiful thing about that
is you're going to have a collection of different voices
and people that are going to come to you
with their own perspective,
so you can be able to craft the best legislation,
the best policy that will have the most meaningful impact.
I know one thing that I will -- our office will be,
you know, really important is that we have been
so focused of passing policy at the city level
that we have not really identified,
has it had the meaningful impact?
So, there are some things that maybe
they don't need new policy.
We just need to adjust them a little bit better
so they can have the most meaningful impact.
-Interesting. Thank you for that.
Councilmember Saka, I'll let you wrap this up,
this idea about self-reflection here, being open-minded,
being a leader, with some differing viewpoints
that might come your way. -Love that.
And I love everything my colleagues have said, as well.
And I'll emphasize plus one to both of that,
and also say I also have a growth mindset.
And, you know, like Councilmember Rivera,
I don't purport to have all the answers every single time.
But what I am -- what I will commit to every single time is
doing my research, doing the homework,
listening to impacted communities,
understanding their point of view,
and making sure that whatever decision I do make
is one that is 100% informed by all communities,
because I represent a variety of interests,
and I'm looking for opportunities
to make sure all those interests overlap and align
as much as possible in District 1.
And people who know me from previous experiences,
professionally and in the community,
know I have a strong growth mindset.
I'm always willing to listen and learn and get better.
And the one caveat there I'll say is,
um, yeah, you know, with the exception of --
with the exception of principles,
there are certain principles that, you know,
like, we all hold true and near and dear.
How that might show up
is on the issue of public safety.
I will listen to people who hold abolitionist views
all day on public safety,
but that is a view and a principle I do not hold
and is not going to show up in my own personal policy-making.
I believe we --
there is a strong role for policing enforcement.
That's not to say there's not also a role for police reform
and police accountability or crime prevention,
gun violence prevention, and intervention.
All those things are important, too.
But I -- on public safety, I believe in a holistic,
comprehensive approach. -Alright.
We've had a lot of good conversation here.
I appreciate it to all of you.
And we will see you next time on "Council Edition."
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