Council Appoints Juarez to Serve Out Cathy Moore's Term, Accusations Fly Over Democracy Voucher Collection

Today's Afternoon Fizz.

1. In a vote that was as much of a foregone conclusion as their decision to appoint unsuccessful former candidate Tanya Woo to fill Teresa Mosqueda's old seat in 2024, the Seattle City Council chose former District 5 councilmember Debora Juarez to take over for Cathy Moore, who stepped down this month after just 18 months in office. Juarez decided not to run again in 2023, clearing the way for Moore; she said she decided to return to public office after seeing footage of federal agents taking down US Sen. Alex Padilla for asking a question about immigration.

The decision, which could have theoretically taken multiple rounds of voting as council members nominated other candidates among the six so-called finalists, took just one vote. Seven council members voted for Juarez; only one, Alexis Mercedes Rinck, chose another candidate—former Cathy Moore opponent Nilu Jenks.

Explaining her support for Juarez, Council President Sara Nelson (who's up for election this year), said she understood the need to pay attention to drug use and related issues in the North Seattle district.

"There are a lot of services for low-income and homelessness advocacy organization up there and what I hear from District 5 constituents, and businesses, but constituents, is... we’ve been calling it a homelessness emergency for years and years and years, etc., and it seems to be getting worse and what is the city going to do about that?" Nelson said. Juarez is "somebody who’s fully aware of that issue and is willing to look at what we’re doing right now and if it's not working to do something different."

Of the five other candidates who made it to the final round, at least three—Jenks, Julie Kang, and Robert Wilson—have said they plan to run for the seat next year. Because Moore dropped out right after the filing deadline for this year's elections, Juarez will get to serve about as long as Moore was in office, without being selected by the voters. She'll join fellow council appointee Mark Solomon, who replaced Tammy Morales after she stepped down at the end of last year; Rinck defeated appointee Tanya Woo handily last year.

2. Winpower Strategies, the consulting firm for District 2 council candidate Jamie Fackler, filed a complaint with the city's Ethics and Elections Commission alleging that another D2 candidate, Jeanie Chunn, hired multiple canvassers to collect democracy vouchers for her campaign, in violation of legal limits on the number of people campaigns are allowed to hire for this purpose.

"Jeanie has verbally told Eddie Lin and Jamie Fackler (two of her opponents) that several individuals, beyond the number allowed by the program, are being paid to collect Democracy Vouchers for her campaign," the complaint, filed by a staffer at Winpower, reads. "It is unclear through financial filings how many individuals are being paid to collect."

Chunn denied the allegations and said her campaign hired "one person for the sole purchase of collecting vouchers until the middle of July." She did hire "folks from Community Passageways to canvas for me and drop literature" on July 16, she said. "As I’m sure you know, we are only allowed to have two paid folks to collect democracy vouchers."

Chunn's campaign reported raising more than $37,o00 in democracy vouchers from more than 400 people on July 11.

Democracy vouchers are a form of public campaign finance in which every Seattle voter gets $100 in vouchers to spend on the candidates of their choice. In 2023, the ethics commission placed limits on campaigns' ability to collect these vouchers, after then-mayoral candidate Andrew Grant Houston paid canvassers to collect democracy vouchers from people on the street; these paid contractors purportedly used misleading tactics to collect the vouchers, bringing in nearly half a million dollars for a race in which he received fewer than 5,500 votes.

In her financial disclosure statement, Chunn reported earning between $60,000 and $99,000 in consulting fees from Noisy Creek, the parent company of the Stranger. We're told Chunn's work was related to Everout, the Stranger's listings page, and a potential collaboration between the company and restaurants and arts organizations, not the paper's news or editorial content.

Still, it's standard practice for publications to disclose anything that might give the appearance of a conflict of interest. The Stranger didn't disclose the financial relationship between Chunn and Noisy Creek in its endorsements, coverage of the District 2 race, or at its annual candidate forum.