Elections, Mayor Wilson, Taxes, Transit

Wilson Proposes Doubling Transit Sales Tax to Fund Local Bus Service Expansion

By Erica C. Barnett

Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson has proposed doubling a sales tax that funds transit service in Seattle, known as the Seattle Transit Measure, to 0.3 percent, up from the 0.15 percent tax that expires this year. The proposal would raise around $138 million over the next ten years to pay for bus service, service on the city’s two streetcars, and transit passes for low-income riders, among other programs.

The Seattle Transit Measure, originally known as the Seattle Transportation Benefit District, supplements bus service provided by King County Metro by adding service hours in Seattle. The transit measure came out of a failed attempt   2014; in 2020, a proposal to increase the tax from 0.1 percent to 0.15 percent passed with more than 80 percent of the vote.

The extra money would fund 280,000 bus service hours a year on top of Metro’s regular service, Seattle Department of Transportation director Angela Brady said during a press conference on Tuesday. According to SDOT’s most recent annual report on the measure, the tax paid for 143,000 bus hours in 2024. The new funding would also pay for service on the existing streetcars that run between downtown and South Lake Union and Capitol Hill, and would provide free annual transit passes to everyone living in Seattle Housing Authority buildings, a new expansion of the ORCA Lift program for people making up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level.

PubliCola is supported entirely by readers like you.
CLICK BELOW to become a one-time or monthly contributor.

Support PubliCola

Demonstrating how  much costs have increased, the original, 0.1-percent 2014 transit measure expanded transit access by about 350,000 hours a year.

At Tuesday’s press conference, Wilson pitched her plan to expand transit hours as an urgent matter of affordability.

“When transit is frequent, reliable, and affordable, it does more than move people from one place to another—it gives people freedom,” Wilson said. “Transportation is one of the biggest costs in a household budget, and most of that cost comes from owning a car. Gas, insurance, repairs, parking, monthly payments, and maintenance all add up fast. So when we make our transit system better, we make it possible for more households to live car-free or car-light, and that could put hundreds or thousands of dollars back into a family’s budget. That is real affordability.”

If voters approve Wilson’s proposal, it will bring Seattle residents’ total sales tax burden close to 11 percent. Sales tax is the most regressive form of tax voters regularly pay, meaning that the poorer you are, the greater the percentage of your income you spend on the tax.

Asked about the seeming contradiction between her affordability pitch and the increasingly unaffordable sales tax burden, Wilson said it’s “unfortunate that we don’t have more progressive options for funding our transit system.” But, she said, “when we’re investing in public transit and making it possible for people to live car free or car light, when we’re investing in affordable fares, those are really direct supports that are creating affordability for the people in our communities that need it most.”

Under the state law that authorized the transportation benefit district, the city could also propose a vehicle license fee of up to $60—a tax on drivers that would directly fund the city’s primary alternative to driving. Asked why she didn’t do so, Wilson said she believed a license fee increase might prove too “controversial” to pass.

“I think we’ve seen car tab measures rouse more organized opposition, and I think we wanted to stick with something that we were really confident Seattle voters were going to be able to enthusiastically get on board with.”

A countywide measure to fund transit service with a 0.1 percent sales tax increase and a $60 vehicle license fee failed 55 to 45 percent. Since then, the city has relied on sales taxes alone to pay for additional transit service.

Wilson will have to move her proposal through the city council, starting with Rob Saka’s transportation committee. That committee will get an initial briefing on the proposal on Thursday. So far, Wilson has announced most big-ticket legislation without lining up council support or identifying council sponsors in advance. Saka, who was not present at Wilson’s press conference, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the proposal, but we’ll update this post if we hear back.

City Council, Courts

Aide to Councilmember Saka Sought Restraining Order Against Constituent

Photo of Councilmember Rob Saka in council chambers

Saka called Police Chief Shon Barnes to ask what to do about a resident who contacted his office repeatedly about a potential park in his backyard.

By Erica C. Barnett

A former chief of staff for City Councilmember Rob Saka, Elaine Ko, attempted to get a restraining order against Saka constituent Bruce Steinberg, after Steinberg called and emailed Ko and others at Saka’s office relentlessly over a conservation easement in his neighborhood.

King County Superior Court Judge Lisa Paglisotti denied Ko’s request last November, saying she believed Steinberg did not know he was calling Ko’s personal number and that his emails and calls about the easement may have been annoying but did not constitute personal harassment.

During her testimony, Ko revealed that Saka called Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes directly on her behalf. According to Ko, Barnes told Saka that “yes, that was over the line when you start getting phone calls on the personal line” and said Ko should contact Southwest Precinct commander Krista Bair, who advised her to call 911 and file a police report about Steinberg’s calls and emails.

Saka, along with a representative of the City Attorney’s Office, was present in court during the hearing in November. He responded to our questions with a statement that did not address our questions about his call to Barnes.

Saka’s predecessor, Lisa Herbold, had to pay a $500 fine after she texted then-police chief Carmen Best with concerns about a trailer that someone had parked near her house in 2020, at the height of protests outside councilmembers’ homes. (Herbold, who believed the trailer was placed there as a stunt, acknowledged violating a rule against using her public position for private benefit). No complaint has been filed about Saka’s phone call, according to Ethics and Elections director Wayne Barnett.

Steinberg told PubliCola he was just trying to get Saka to pay attention to a project located in a wetland in his neighborhood, which straddles the line between Seattle and unincorporated King County. A local church sold King County a conservation easement for about five acres it owns adjacent to Seola Pond, a wetland and county wastewater facility in Roxbury Heights, which the county plans to develop into a neighborhood greenspace.  Steinberg and some of his neighbors worry the project will cause flooding and traffic problems and result in more homeless people living near his house and, he said, eating area ducks.  (I asked him if he was serious about the ducks and he said yes.)

The land is not on City property; emails show that King County’s Department of Natural Resources and Parks sent Steinberg a detailed explanation of the work that has been happening on the property.

In addition to the emails he sent to Saka’s office, Ko noted in court that Steinberg called her 66 times after she hung up on him and blocked his number. (Ko said she confirmed the additional calls by requesting records from her phone company).  “I was quite upset. I felt harassed. I felt bothered by it all, and I did hang up. There was no point in continuing that call,” she said, according to a recording of the hearing.

In his response, Steinberg presented evidence that showed Ko initially called him from her personal number to set up a walking tour of the area in September, which is how he said he got her number. Ko acknowledged that she may have called Steinberg from her number and agreed that he didn’t threaten or attack her directly. But, she argued, he was so rude and insistent that his behavior constituted harassment. “[The emails] were very harassing, negative, rude, disrespectful emails, and that is the truth,” Ko said in court.

In his statement, Saka said the calls to Ko’s phone and the emails to his office “went far beyond the robust engagement we typically receive from some passionate constituents. This was a unique situation involving targeted harassment, bullying, and intimidation that crossed onto personal devices and deeply impacted an employee’s sense of personal safety and mental health.”

Steinberg he believed all along that he was calling Ko’s work cell phone. “If [she] had come back and said, ‘Bruce, this is my personal line,’ I would have stopped immediately,” Steinberg told PubliCola in an interview. “I’m crazy, but I’m not rude in that way.”

PubliCola reviewed dozens of the emails we received in response to a records request. None are threatening or obscene, although several insult Ko and two men who used to work for Saka by calling them bad at their jobs.  And many are pushy, bordering on manic.

In an email last August, for instance, Steinberg wrote, “I have started calling EVERY phone member of the council members incessantly and will continue to until we get the meeting we are requesting. I work from home and have ALLLL day to call and leave messages and fill up your inbox. This is not a threat or hate or anything else you guys want to spin but I will bury your voice mails on EVERY single phone line I can find until Rob puts his boy pants on and reaches out to the people who pay his salary.”

Steinberg acknowledged calling and emailing city officials and staff, including Ko, incessantly about the easement. (In one of the emails PubliCola obtained, he claimed to have contacted Saka’s office “no less than 1,000 times.”)

“I understand where people might not like my style,” Steinberg said, but he’s spent years bugging elected officials and city and county staffers about flooding and other issues in his neighborhood and hasn’t been satisfied with the results. “Sometimes, to get attention, you have to act like a four-year-old.”

He also copped to openly mocking Ko during the walking tour, “sort of mimicking her and pushing her buttons,” which led to a confrontation between the two and ultimately Ko’s departure from the tour, which itself became another point of contention. But he said he never harassed, stalked, or threatened her personally or spoke to her about anything other than city business—something Ko acknowledged in court.

Saka told PubliCola that Ko’s case was “ultimately dismissed purely on a technicality, not based on the sheer volume and scope of the harassing messages at issue.”

In fact, Judge Paglisotti said Steinberg’s actions were exactly the kind of behavior public servants should expect when their job involves responding to constituents. “It is reasonable to expect that this type of pestering, if you will, or persistence, comes with the territory,” Paglisotti said. “The persistence and the advocacy that the respondent was engaged in was not just to you specifically. It was to the whole [Saka] office.”

Ko, who is in her 70s, retired earlier this year. Saka suggested her decision was related to Steinberg’s pestering. After the hearing, he told us in his statement, “my employee made the difficult decision to retire after many decades of selfless service to our city and community.” In an email to staff published by the West Seattle Blog in February, Ko did not connect the two events, saying her plan had always been to work for Saka’s office for two years andretire. When contacted by phone, Ko declined to comment for this story.

Mayor Wilson, podcasts, Transit

Seattle Nice: How Badly Did Sound Transit Screw Seattle Over?

By Erica C. Barnett

On this week’s episode of the Seattle Nice podcast, we did a deep dive on the Sound Transit board’s decision last week to indefinitely defer the voter-approved light rail extension to Ballard, a stretch that boasts by far the highest projected ridership of any line in the Sound Transit 3 package voters approved ten years ago.

Seattle City Councilmember Dan Strauss, who represents Ballard, has been beating the drum on this issue for months, arguing it would be irresponsible to renege on such a significant commitment to Seattle voters. The new plan preserves the “spine” to Everett and Tacoma, along with a second light rail tunnel through downtown Seattle, leaving Ballard in limbo unless Sound Transit can come up with cost savings and unless someone, most likely Seattle voters, can provide the funds to build the expansion.

The board adopted a couple of amendments last week that will move planning for a potential Ballard line forward and that commit to looking for ways to make the plan more affordable. But they rejected a proposal from Strauss that would have switched up ST3’s sequencing to build a “starter” line between Westlake and Ballard before adding a second transit tunnel.

Suburban Sound Transit board members said last week that prioritizing Ballard would doom the rest of the system. As a result, Sandeep noted, the suburbs got everything they asked for,  leaving Seattle without any leverage to get additional funds for its projects in the future. Indeed, several board members made that explicit, saying Seattle would need to find its own money if it wants to build to Ballard and complete the West Seattle line in the future; there will be no regional Sound Transit 4, they said.

PubliCola is supported entirely by readers like you.
CLICK BELOW to become a one-time or monthly contributor.

Support PubliCola

One suburban Sound Transit board member and longtime light rail proponent who voted (along with Strauss) against the entire proposal, King County Councilmember Claudia Balducci, told me last week she thought it was time to take a serious look at Sound Transit’s governance. Currently, the agency is run by an 18-member board of elected officials who represent every “subarea” of the region—an ever-changing cast of characters with no specific transit expertise. This structure, Balducci suggested, has made it difficult to anticipate and forestall cost overruns like the $34.5 billion hole Sound Transit is currently attempting to fill.

David, Sandeep, and I also discussed some of the potential reasons for Sound Transit’s persistent overruns—excessive process, changes in response to neighborhood complaints, and engineering decisions that add millions to even relatively simple projects, like the long-deferred Graham Street Station, which the latest plan at least moves into the “funded” column.

Finally, we had to spend a few minutes on the latest shakeup in Mayor Katie Wilson’s office—the departure of housing and homelessness advisor Jon Grant, who was at the center of the mayor’s plan to add thousands of new tiny house-style shelters around the city. Grant, along with Wilson’s former chief of staff Kate Kreuzer, reportedly clashed with council members and staff while the council was working to pass emergency legislation to expedite Wilson’s shelter proposal.

City Council, Mayor Wilson, Police, Transportation

This Week on PubliCola: May 30, 2026

Sound Transit stiffs Ballard, Councilmembers Push Police Cameras, Top Wilson Aid Resigns, and More

By Erica C. Barnett

Monday, May 25

KCRHA Lays Out Plan to Address Audit Findings, But Says Many Issues Need “Joint Correction” With City and County

In a “corrective action plan” ordered by Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson and King County Executive Girmay Zahilay earlier this month, the region’s homelessness authority laid out a plan to address the findings of a damning forensic audit into the agency’s finances. But the KCRHA cast some of the blame on its funders and warned about the risks of winding down the agency, a path local leaders are seriously considering.

Tuesday, May 26

“There’s a Quick Fix”: Councilmembers Pressure Mayor to Activate Police Cameras for World Cup

The pressure is building on Mayor Wilson to activate the police surveillance cameras that she already approved installing in the stadium district, with two councilmembers claiming this week that the cameras could save lives in a major attack or other incident during next month’sWorld Cup games. Seattle’s transportation department already has cameras in the area.

Wednesday, May 27

Another Shakeup on Team Wilson as Mayor’s Homelessness Advisor, Jon Grant, Steps Down

PubliCola broke the news that Wilson’s chief homelessness policy advisor, Jon Grant, resigned after being asked to step down, effective this coming Monday. Grant is one of two Wilson staffers who have clashed with city council members and staff and reportedly contributed to frayed relations between the two branches of government; the other, Kate Kreuzer, was removed as chief of staff earlier this month but remains on Wilson’s City Hall team.

Thursday, May 28

How We Can Save Ballard Light Rail

In a guest op/ed the day before Sound Transit voted to effectively kill a voter-approved light rail line to Ballard by deferring it indefinitely, Seattle Councilmember Dan Strauss made the case for his alternative proposal—a “starter” light rail line from Westlake Station to Ballard that would defer the second downtown rail tunnel.

Friday, May 29

Sound Transit Sacrifices Light Rail to Ballard, Moves Long-Deferred Graham Station Forward, in Latest “Realignment” Plan

As anticipated, the Sound Transit board decided to scrap the voter-approved plan to build light rail to Ballard in order to complete the lower-ridership “spine” between Everett and Tacoma, fulfilling a longstanding commitment to give Pierce and Snohomish County some rail for their tax dollars and building a second tunnel through downtown Seattle. A surface-level station at Graham Street in the Rainier Valley that has been deferred for decades was moved into the “funded” column, making it much more likely that it will finally be built.

Transit

Sound Transit Sacrifices Light Rail to Ballard, Moves Long-Deferred Graham Station Forward, in Latest “Realignment” Plan

By Erica C. Barnett

The Sound Transit board voted to approve a new “affordable” light rail plan on Thursday afternoon that indefinitely defers construction of light rail to Ballard, builds rail to West Seattle without a planned station on SW Avalon Way, and adds the long-deferred Graham Street Station back to the list of “fully funded” projects.

The cuts, or “realignment,” are Sound Transit’s response to a projected $34.5 billion budget shortfall over the next two decades. In order to restore Ballard and other projects that voters approved in the 2016 Sound Transit 3 plan, the agency will have to come up with between $9 billion and $11 billion in new revenues or cost savings.

The Ballard extension, which would include stops at Seattle Center and NW Market St. would have had the highest ridership in the entire system, with around 150,000 daily boardings—a point City Councilmember Dan Strauss, who represents the neighborhood, has made repeatedly in his effort to get Ballard back on the map. Under the new plan, the “Ballard extension” will terminate at Seattle Center, miles from Ballard, prompting Strauss to urge the board to “, change the name of the alignment—not the Ballard Link Extension, but the Downtown Tunnel.”

Since voters approved the Sound Transit 3 plan in 2016, Ballard has been upzoned by the city three times and grown in population, making it perhaps the most obvious contender in the region for a light rail stop. ”

The board rejected an amendment from Strauss that would have prioritized building the extension to Ballard over building a second light rail tunnel through downtown Seattle. Instead, they adopted two amendments that essentially direct Sound Transit to look for cost savings and new revenue and ask staff to come back with a date for opening the Ballard line.

Those amendments—from King County Executive Girmay Zahilay and Strauss, respectively—are essentially nonbinding and, unlike Strauss’ amendment to add Ballard to Sound Transit’s “funded projects” list, do not commit Sound Transit to actually build light rail to Ballard.

In rejecting Strauss’ amendment, board members said they were actually saving the rest of the light rail system, including the “spine” between Everett and Tacoma and light rail to Issaquah and Kirkland. Everett Mayor Cassie Franklin, who proposed an unsuccessful amendment to table Strauss’ proposal instead of voting on it, said the Ballard proposal “puts the entire system at risk, and for me that is an absolute deal breaker. We cannot risk the entirety of the system for this exploration, and we have to protect the delivery of light rail to all communities.”

Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson, who appeared to be leaning toward a “no” vote on Strauss’ proposal on Wednesday, cast one of just four votes in its favor on Thursday (the others were Strauss, Renton Councilmember Ed Prince, and King County Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda).

There was positive news for Seattle light rail supporters on the other end of the line, as the board approved a change that moved the long-deferred Graham Street infill station to the “funded” project list. Advocates have been pushing the board to restore the station, which will fill a two-mile gap between the Columbia City and Othello stations, for decades, ever since Sound Transit “deferred” the voter-approved station for cost savings in the early 2000s.

The Graham amendment, sponsored by Wilson and Zahilay, commits the city to spend up to $30 million on the street-level station; combined with $25 million from an existing federal grant, that would leave a gap of about $130 million, ST’s deputy executive director for enterprise planning, said. The county has not formally committed any funds to the station.

At a rally at the Filipino Community Center Wednesday afternoon, Wilson, Zahilay, and City Councilmembers Dionne Foster and Alexis Mercedes Rinck supported a vote in favor of the station, which was originally proposed as part of the voter-approve Sound Move plan that first funded light and commuter rail in 1996. Without the amendment, the Graham Street Station would have remained among the projects Sound Transit plans to advance to 100 percent design.

“Just a few weeks ago, I had the privilege of being here with so many community members, some of whom I’m looking at right now, at a fantastic rally,” Foster said Wednesday. “And at that rally I looked around and I said, ‘Did we organize for 100% design, or did we organize for trains we can ride?’ And today we have our answer: We organized for trains that we can ride!”

PubliCola is supported entirely by readers like you.
CLICK BELOW to become a one-time or monthly contributor.

Support PubliCola

 

The Graham Street saga may be coming to a close, 30 years after voters approved the station in the 1996 Sound Move measure. (The station still has a $130 million budget gap, so construction is still far from a done deal). But the length of time it took just to get Graham—a street-level infill station that won’t require new track, much less a water crossing—back on the “funded” list is warning sign for anyone who believed that when they voted to fund light rail to Ballard, they were actually funding light rail to Ballard.

As Councilmember Rinck put it during public comment before the vote, light rail to Ballard “is not a ‘nice to have.’ This is essential infrastructure for the largest city in Washington state.”

The cuts the board made yesterday are the fourth, and by far the largest, “realignment” in Sound Transit’s history, and their magnitude appeared to surprise many board members when the agency announced the $34.5 billion shortfall last year.

The repeated realignments have led some advocates to urge changes to the way the agency is governed. Currently, the board that oversees and makes policy decisions for Sound Transit is made up of an ever-changing roster of elected officials from around the region. This setup was designed to ensure accountability—elected officials, unlike staff, can theoretically be booted for decisions voters don’t like—but it also means the board has no technical experts and little institutional knowledge, since most elected positions turn over frequently.

One of the longest-serving Sound Transit board members, King County Councilmember Claudia Balducci, told PubliCola after Wednesday’s meeting that she thinks it’s time to reconsider how Sound Transit is governed. (As Balducci noted during the meeting, “I have gone gray in the service of expanding transit in this region.” More than 15 years ago, I covered her battle against fellow Bellevue City Councilmember Kevin Wallace to build light rail on the Eastside.)

“I really do think it’s time to start talking about governance,” Balducci said. “If we’re in this constant cycle of crisis, recovery, crisis, recovery, crisis, recovery, maybe a board full of people who are expert at transit running a transit agency and delivering transit projects would be more attuned.”

“I’m an experienced amateur, but an amateur,” Balducci continued. “None of us are experts. How did we not see $35 billion creeping up on us? A hole that big opened up before we took this on. …  Maybe it’s time to evolve.”

Balducci cast one of just two votes, along with Strauss, against the final “realignment” package. (She was one of just three votes, along with Walker and Wilson, against an amendment that moved $100 million away from the Issaquah light rail extension to fund a parking garage in Renton). “I hope to vote yes in the fall,” when staff have a more detailed financial plan, Balducci said before her vote. “But to get from here to there, I want to see more progress on transparency, around the dates that we are delivering projects,” and a “path for Ballard better than we have today.”

Editor’s note: This post originally said the Ballard station would have seen nearly 150,000 daily boardings; in fact, that projection is for the entire Ballard extension. We have corrected the error.

Guest Contributor, Transit

How We Can Save Ballard Light Rail

By Seattle City Councilmember Dan Strauss

Ballard Light Rail is facing its biggest threat yet. Despite the fact the Ballard Link Extension is projected to serve as many as 148,000 people daily, the most riders of any project in Sound Transit history, the agency is considering postponing the project indefinitely to address its long-term budget issues.

That’s unacceptable. As a Sound Transit board member, I am proposing amendments to get the Ballard Link Extension back on track. They raise the question: Are we going to do everything we can to get this project done, or are we going to make this decision without exploring every option?

Since Sound Transit 3 (ST3) passed in 2016 with the promise to bring light rail to Ballard, we have planned the growth of our city around it. In that decade, Ballard has grown from being just one of Seattle’s many neighborhoods to an officially designated regional center, meaning it is zoned for the highest density of job and housing growth.

Now, under Sound Transit’s current proposal, construction of the so-called Ballard Link Extension would only be funded to Seattle Center. That’s nowhere near Ballard.

So, has Ballard Light Rail reached the end of the line? That would be a generational mistake that we can’t afford to make. Here are some of the solutions I will be proposing to the Sound Transit Board.

First, build a Ballard Starter Line.

One of the key ways Sound Transit’s plan falls short is by prioritizing nearly $11 billion in Seattle-area funding to build a second downtown tunnel over building light rail to Ballard. That’s a policy choice, not a necessity.

That second tunnel would run parallel to the current tunnel and serve roughly the same area. To maximize ridership, we should move Seattle’s funding from the second downtown tunnel to where it’s needed most—building a Westlake to Ballard Starter Line and reaching new light rail riders.

PubliCola is supported entirely by readers like you.
CLICK BELOW to become a one-time or monthly contributor.

Support PubliCola

The second tunnel could then be funded through future revenue and cost-saving strategies identified through Sound Transit’s ongoing Enterprise Initiative. The initiative has already delivered on once-delayed promises to Tacoma and Everett to finish the central “spine” of our light rail system. My amendment would not impact those or any other extension projects. It simply moves Seattle area funding within Seattle.

The second downtown tunnel is important. We need to build it. But it can’t come at the cost of building rail to Ballard.

The biggest challenge to my Westlake to Ballard Starter Line proposal is Sound Transit’s ability to answer valid questions about the impacts of the proposal with certainty before the vote. These questions can be answered but require more time. We should take that time and give this critical decision the consideration it deserves.

Second, we can improve the way we finance light rail.

By improving how Sound Transit finances light rail, we can deliver every project faster without raising taxes. Sound Transit currently only uses 30 percent of its legal debt capacity. Making some limited, commonsense adjustments to this policy would make a huge difference.

It’s not just me advocating for this. Issaquah Mayor Mark Mullet has pushed for this strategy to deliver projects sooner, before inflation drives the costs even higher.

We must also make our case with legislators in Olympia to allow Sound Transit to take longer-term bonds. While 75-year bonds may not be smart for most projects, they are a helpful tool financing infrastructure that outlasts the life of the bond—like the second downtown tunnel.

That’s not to mention the efficiencies we must put in place to rein in Sound Transit’s spending. Transit systems across the globe build and operate light rail at a lower cost. We need to use their best practices.

This month, I hosted a town hall. More than 200 community members showed up to support the Ballard Light Rail extension. I was struck by how many older people told me they voted for ST3 for their grandkids, even though they may never see the Ballard Link completed. That made it so much more heartbreaking to hear from many of those grandkids, now in their 20s, wondering whether Ballard would get light rail in their lifetimes.

It’s time for us to keep our promises. It’s time for us to build Ballard light rail.

Sound Transit’s plan and my proposed amendments are on the agenda for the next Board of Directors Meeting on May 28 at 1:30 PM. Community members are encouraged to participate and can find more information on Sound Transit’s .

Seattle City Councilmember Dan Strauss represents District 6, including Magnolia, Ballard, Phinney Ridge, Green Lake, Greenwood, Fremont and many other microneighborhoods. He also serves as a Sound Transit Board Member.