By Erica C. Barnett

Mayor Bruce Harrell hosted an unusual—possibly unprecedented—press conference at City Hall on Friday morning to “welcome” five new City Councilmembers to the city, including four whose campaigns he supported and a fifth, Bob Kettle, whose views largely align with Harrell’s but whom the mayor did not endorse. (Andrew Lewis, the incumbent, ultimately supported legislation backed by Harrell to criminalize drug use in Seattle, but Lewis’ early opposition became a key issue in the campaign.)

He was “very proud,” Harrell said, to “see how [the five] led with integrity, commitment, passion” during the campaign.

“Too often, I think, people want to put politicians in a binary box of progressive or moderate, when in reality, this group is less concerned about the hardline ideologies and more committed to just simply getting stuff done,” Harrell said. “And that’s why I think this is so exciting.”

Harrell, a longtime former council member himself, has spoken often of his “collaborative” approach to dealing with the city council; at a going-away event for three of the departing councilmembers last week, he ticked off a list of council bills he had signed and noted that even socialist Kshama Sawant voted to support all but 22 of the bills he sent down over the last two years. (Harrell, who showed up at the end of the event, shushed outgoing councilmember Lisa Herbold as she chatted away in the back of the room during his speech).

As much as the mayor and council may collaborate on legislation, though, they are two independent branches of government that are supposed to exist in natural tension—which makes the new councilmembers’ decision to line up behind the mayor in his office and thank him for his campaign support, as several did on Friday, all the weirder. For the mayor to hold a photo op with the council majority he just helped sweep into office communicates, in the starkest visual terms, that he sees them as allies, not (potential) adversaries. By participating in the photo op, the new council members sent a message, intentionally or not, that they agree with this interpretation.

The new council is meeting now to discuss who will be in charge of which committee, in preparation for official assignments by incoming council president Sara Nelson first thing next year. (Although the council is subject to the state Open Public Meetings Act, which prohibits a majority of an elected body from meeting to discuss business in private, future council members are not.)

Although no one would talk openly about the new assignments, PubliCola has heard that incumbent Dan Strauss will be budget chair; incumbent Tammy Morales will head up the land use committee; Kettle will be in charge of public safety; and Rob Saka will chair the transportation committee. If those assignments are correct, that leaves Nelson, Joy Hollingsworth, Maritza Rivera, and Cathy Moore to carve up the remaining committee assignments, which currently include utilities, homelessness, renters’ rights, economic development, and governance and Native communities. The council president usually takes on one of the lower-profile committees—like outgoing council president Debora Juarez’ governance, Native communities, and tribal governments committee.

As always, committees’ subject areas will change (and have changed dramatically in the past), depending on council members’ interests. Currently, for example, Morales chairs the Neighborhoods, Education, Civil Rights & Culture committee, while departing Councilmember Kshama Sawant chairs the Sustainability and Renters’ Rights committee. Neither is likely to continue in its current form under the incoming council.