Council Forum Skips Past Land Use to Focus On Seward Park Drivers, Beat Cops, and "the Threat of Sound Transit"

The applicants spent 15 minutes talking about how much they support cars on Lake Washington Blvd. and how annoying it is when people park in front of your house.

By Erica C. Barnett

The six men selected by the Seattle City Council as finalists for the District 2 city council seat vacated by Tammy Morales last year—Hong Chhuor, Adonis Ducksworth, Thaddaeus Gregory, Edward Lin, Chukundi Salisbury, and Mark Solomon— sat down with last night for a CityClub-sponsored forum to answer questions about their qualifications and priorities if they're appointed to the position, for a term that ends in November.

The current council includes six brand-new members, many of whom have faced a steep learning curve over the past year. The person they appoint will also be a rookie, which makes it especially urgent that whoever's appointed has a solid understanding of what the council does, what it can't do, and the separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches.

The council will hold a special meeting with the candidates on Thursday at 1pm, but this was the only opportunity for the public to ask them questions directly.

Unfortunately for the general public , the forum, hosted by Seattle CityClub, focused almost entirely on leading questions about issues that are unlikely to come up at the council in the next nine months, including a perennial debate over cars on Lake Washington Blvd., gripes about people parking in front of other people's houses, SPD's approach to neighborhood policing, and "the threat of Sound Transit" in the Chinatown-International District.

The shot selection seems even odder (and niche) when you look at the questions submitted by community members during the event, which included substantive questions about the tensions between displacement and growth, the unaddressed issue of deadly collisions on Rainier Ave. S., Seattle's status as a sanctuary city for immigrants and refugees, and much more.

Although the new council member will chair the land use committee, there were no questions at all about land use or the city's Comprehensive Plan, which will take up much of the council's time during the appointee's nine-month term.

Instead, the forum included multiple questions, spanning 15 minutes, focused on residents of Seward Park and drivers who use Lake Washington Boulevard.

"Pedestrianization of Lake Washington Boulevard has been a long running debate, given that South Seattle has less access to park space than the north end. Do you think the street should be closed to cars for visitors to enjoy?" one question began. "Making Lake Washington Boulevard only accessible to pedestrians and bikes is not something many in D2 desire. Bike lanes were installed in D2 without widespread community input or warning. Will you commit to keeping Lake Washington Boulevard open to vehicles?" (All said yes.)

And a followup, which moderator Tony Benton, of Rainier Avenue Radio, said he was asking on behalf of "me and my fellow community members who live near Lake Washington": "When Lake Washington is shut down for cars, and it's just walking, that's cool, except all those cars park in our neighborhood and take up our parking spaces and sometimes don't respect the property because they're just coming to visit. And I know this is a complicated issue, but I'm just sharing with you the experience [of] some of us have who live very near the lake. When ... folks park wherever they want to ... what do you think about that?"

The city council does not control the Seattle Department of Transportation—the mayor does, and he has shown no interest in removing cars from Lake Washington Blvd. Parking enforcement is a function of the Seattle Police Department, which also answers to the mayor, not the council. SPD could decide to shift resources to foot patrols, but has not done so.

The city did consider making Lake Washington Blvd. car-free after a pilot closure during the pandemic, part of a citywide program to give people places to congregate safely outdoors. But SDOT ultimately rejected the idea of making the closure permanent, and instead has added spot improvements to slow drivers down, such as speed humps. The department has continued to hold its popular summer-only Bicycle Weekends, when a portion of the street becomes car-free for eight hours a day on Saturdays and Sundays.

Another question presented light rail as an existential danger: "What is your position on the threat of Sound Transit to businesses, residents and community members of the Chinatown International District?" Views are sharply divided in the neighborhood about whether a new light rail station should serve the area or skip it; many see the new rail line as a benefit whose construction impacts can be mitigated, not a threat that needs to be moved outside the neighborhood. The new council member will not serve on the council's transportation committee or the 18-member Sound Transit board, where the Seattle City Council gets just one seat, currently held by Dan Strauss.

One question was about the fate of small businesses like those in Columbia City, several of which, Benton said, recently claimed they were at risk of closing because of crime, lack of police response, and Seattle's minimum wage. In response, several of the applicants said they'd push to bring police foot patrols back to the neighborhood—a decision that is up to SPD, and which, like ground-level parking enforcement decisions and Sound Transit's station locations, the city council has no power to control.

Unlike those who submitted "live" questions online, members of the public who showed up to the Columbia City Theater in person did get a few minutes to ask questions, but they had a strict 10-second limit, which made for a strangely clipped and confrontational close to the event. "If you start talking about the circumstance, I'm going to say, 'take the mic' and we're going to give it to the next person," Benton instructed. Each applicant had just 30 seconds to answer each audience question, with a verbal interruption at 15 seconds—not the best format for responding to questions like "what do you understand the role of a City Councilmember to be?" and "how will you prioritize environmental justice in this district?"

If you're curious how the six finalists answered all these questions, you can watch the forum for yourself on the Seattle Channel. Or you can read the candidates' applications and watch tomorrow's special 1:00 meeting—the second and final opportunity to hear from the applicants before the council chooses a finalist at next Monday's council meeting.