1. City Council candidate Ron Davis, who frequently touts his urbanist cred (The Urbanist called him an “urbanist supervolunteer“) signed a pledge written by the U District Community Council attesting that he will never vote to upzone University Way NE, AKA The Ave, during his council tenure. Davis is running to represent District 4, which includes the University District, against Maritza Rivera, who declined to sign the pledge.

The pledge, which takes the form of a letter to Mayor Bruce Harrell and the city council, says in part:

Preserving the unique quality that small independent businesses bring to the city and maintaining a pedestrian- friendly experience on this narrow street are critical to the sustainable development of this urban center.

You will recall that both candidates for our position on the council in the previous election cycle endorsed a similar letter in support. We will follow their lead and agree to not upzone The Ave during our tenure on the council.

The Ave is a special and historic place. Preserving it provides a serious public good, directly experienced by hundreds of thousands of people every year.

Former District 4 city councilmember Rob Johnson agreed to a plan to remove the Ave from a 2017 upzone that was part of the city’s Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda, or HALA; the upzones increased the amount of density allowed along arterial streets, where apartments were already legal, and modestly increased housing capacity in some former single-family-only areas. Neighborhood activists and small businesses rallied against upzoning the Ave, arguing that taller buildings (and more housing) in the U District’s commercial core would destroy the neighborhood’s character.

“As you know, I’m not a fan of using historic preservation style actions to create private benefits,” Davis told PubliCola. “But I’ve always thought that where preservation creates significant public benefit (in this case, preserving one of our few human scale, walkable, downtown style gathering places in Seattle) and it is open to the public, it makes sense to consider preservation if the benefits outweigh the costs.” Davis added that the rest of the city needs to be upzoned, not just commercial areas, and said downtown Ballard and Pike Place Market were similar areas that “don’t need high rises.”

Asked why she didn’t sign, Rivera told PubliCola, “I’m not comfortable signing a blanket pledge about this—or any other—complicated policy issue where the policy proposal’s details are unknown. As I told the UDCC, if I’m elected in November, I am committed to bringing a thoughtful approach to reviewing any proposal that is put before me.”

Earlier this week, Davis sent out a fundraising email lambasting “the giant corporate developers (Master Builders Association) that have done so much to make Seattle expensive” for “dumping upwards of $100K on behalf of Rivera.” The Master Builders, Davis’ email continued, were the same “people who rewrote our tree legislation so it would be easier to cut down trees like Luma the Cedar in Wedgwood.”

The claim puts Davis’ position squarely in line with Alex Pedersen, the District 4 incumbent who has been the most vocal opponent of new housing on the council. Pedersen was out on the fringes of the council on this issue; Davis’ mailer echoes the misleading claims Pedersen made back in May when trying to scuttle a tree protection proposal that a supermajority of the council supported.

“Luma,” the name advocates gave to a large cedar tree that a developer planned to (legally) remove to build townhouses, became a rallying point for neighborhood activists who have long opposed new housing in historically single-family areas like Wedgwood—which, as Josh pointed out last month, was originally a dense forest that was razed by white colonizers who wanted to build a new whites-only neighborhood in the area. Pedersen’s attempt to derail the long-negotiated legislation failed 6-1.

2. The King County Democrats issued a statement on Thursday condemning District 7 council candidate Bob Kettle for an ad (which PubliCola covered last week) that includes images of encampments and features Position 8 City Councilmember Sara Nelson, who blames District 7 incumbent Andrew Lewis for causing deaths due to drug overdoses by failing to pass her original version of a bill empowering the city attorney to prosecute people for having or using drugs in public.

In the video, Nelson says, “Andrew Lewis’ decision to block my drug bill cost the lives of too many people from fentanyl overdose. I trust Bob Kettle to do the right thing.”

The Democrats compared the ads to similar “Republican scare tactics” used by Sen. Patty Murray’s unsuccessful challenger Tiffany Smiley last year; Smiley’s ads included images of encampments and a boarded-up Starbucks on Capitol Hill.

“Most distressing of all is the use of individuals experiencing homelessness in Bob Kettle’s ad, likely without their consent. It is imperative that we treat all individuals with dignity, especially those experiencing homelessness who already face immense challenges. Using their struggles for political gain is not only ethically wrong but also demonstrates a shocking lack of empathy and understanding,” the Democrats said in their statement. 

The Democrats called Nelson’s claim about people dying because Lewis did not initially vote for the bill “unintentionally misleading at best, deliberately lying at worst.”

3.  The King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office announced Thursday that it has hired an outside collision reconstruction firm, ACES, Inc., to analyze in-car and body-worn video and other materials submitted by the Seattle Police Department for the prosecutor’s felony traffic investigation into Kevin Dave, the SPD officer who struck and killed 23-year-old student Jaahnavi Kandula as he was speeding to respond to a call nearby.

According to KCPAO spokesman Casey McNerthney, the prosecutor’s office will decide whether to file charges against Dave at some point after they review the video—and, potentially, reconstruct the collision scene itself. McNerthney said the prosecutor’s office will have another update—which could, but won’t necessarily, include a charging decision—in November.

As we’ve reported, the police and fire departments initially claimed Dave was responding “as an EMT” to an overdose nearby when he struck and killed Kandula in a crosswalk, elaborating later that police need to be on scene when the fire department is reviving people who have overdosed because they can be violent. PubliCola’s reporting later revealed that the caller had not overdosed, but was lucid and waiting outside his South Lake Union apartment building when he made the 911 call. As PubliCola reported, Dave was driving 74 miles an hour and did not have his siren on when he struck Kandula on Dexter Ave., which has a 25 mph speed limit.