That muffled sound you hear in the distance is Brier Dudley’s head exploding at the news that Shefali Ranganathan, director of the urbanist transit advocacy group Transportation Choices Coalition, is the co-chair of mayor-elect Jenny Durkan’s transition team. Dudley, who by all accounts ran this year’s Seattle Times endorsement interviews, foamed at the mouth for 3,000 words earlier this year over TCC’s supposed omnipotence over state and local government agencies and officials, but there was no there there—the worst crime Dudley could hang on the supposed IlluminaTCC was being a successful advocacy group. (HT to my pal Josh Feit—a monthly TCC donor!!!—who now works at SDOT. Confidential to Dudley: The conspiracy goes deep.) Durkan’s other co-chairs are Plymouth Housing Group director Paul Lambros and former King County Executive Ron Sims, who served as deputy secretary of the federal Housing and Urban Development department under Obama.
TCC’s political arm, Transportation for Washington, endorsed Durkan over Moon, sparking a mini-feud with a number of urbanist groups who considered Durkan too “establishment.” (One, Seattle Subway, implied without evidence that T4WA had endorsed Durkan for reasons having nothing to do with her qualifications or ability to deliver on her promises, and even insinuated that Durkan was racist. Ranganathan is an Indian-American woman; Subway is run primarily by white men.) Other urbanists who endorsed Moon (including The C Is for Crank) noted Durkan’s support for the Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda and her commitment to a pro-housing approach to addressing Seattle’s affordability crisis.
Ranganathan is a clear-eyed advocate who knows the local political landscape as well as anybody and has no patience for bullshitters or obstructionists. She’s a good person to have on your team.
Durkan will announce the rest of her transition team next Monday, according to a campaign spokeswoman.
What happened to my comment? (Posted this morning, +/- 9 hours ago)
Should be up now – I approved it yesterday! (Per comments policy, all comments made by first-time commenters must be manually approved—and sometimes the system gets confused and makes me approve commenters I’ve approved before). If there’s another comment you made that did not appear, please let me know.
Durkan made an excellent choice in Paul Lambros. He is smart, ethical, business savvy and plays well with others. Seeing this transition team, I am hopeful for our long term social improvements (we’ve been in costly crisis-response mode for too long).