By Erica C. Barnett

The 72 applicants for the vacant citywide Seattle City Council Position 8 seat include six recently unsuccessful council candidates, one police officer, and dozens of average residents with no government experience (and no particular reason to think they might win appointment, given the somewhat foregone nature of the appointment process.) Of the half-dozen or so names that insiders say are in serious contention, Tanya Woo—who lost her race against District 2 incumbent Councilmember Tammy Morales in November—is currently said to be at the top of the new council’s list, with the exception of Morales, of course.

On key issues, Woo and Morales could hardly be further apart. Morales has pushed for equitable density and police accountability, and against encampment sweeps, while Woo the campaign against a homeless shelter expansion in SoDo, suggested downzoning as a response to displacement in the Chinatown International District, and made police hiring a focus of her campaign. If the council appoints Woo, they’ll be effectively overturning an election she just lost—and sending a clear signal to Morales about whose perspective they prefer. As a counterfactual, it would be like a progressive-majority council appointing Andrew Lewis to serve alongside Bob Kettle, who defeated him in November.

Speaking to PubliCola earlier this week, Morales said if it were up to her, she’d like to see someone with experience working on some of the big-ticket issues the council will be dealing with this year, including the Seattle Police Officers Guild contract, a revenue shortfall of between $200 million and $250 million, and concerns that headlined this year’s campaigns, like housing, homelessness, and fentanyl addiction.

“The issue with the appointment processes is that we have very clear guidelines on how the process itself should unfold, but we have no guidelines on what selection criteria we should use, so it it is so completely subjective,” Morales said, “which is why I felt like I need to state from the beginning that I will be looking at people who have experience or expertise in at least one of these topic areas we have to deal with.”

Morales is only one vote, though, and the rest of the council—feeling their voter mandate—may have more political criteria in mind. If they choose Woo, she’ll join five new members elected in last year’s council sweep to form an inexperienced centrist supermajority. Whoever wins will have to run again this coming November if they want to keep their seat, and Woo—who got 12,720 votes in her race for District 2 last year—may have trouble gaining traction in a citywide race.

Other names on the list of possible contenders include another former Morales opponent, Mark Solomon; Seattle school board member Vivian Song Maritz; south Seattle activist and Bloodworks NW government affairs director Juan Cotto; West Precinct police captain Steve Strand; and—wild card!—Human Services Department manager Mari Sugiyama, whose father, Alan Sugiyama, was a civil rights leader and the first Asian American elected to the Seattle School Board in 1989. On Tuesday, Sugiyama supporters sent a letter signed by more than 300 people to the council; a petition for Woo reportedly has more than 1,300 names.

Ray Dubicki, a writer for the Urbanist, applied, as did Mac McGregor, an LGBTQ+ diversity trainer and 2017 city council candidate. Perennial council candidate Kate Martin, along with 2023 candidates Preston Anderson, Phil Tavel, Shobhit Agarwal, Ry Armstrong, and Shane McComber also submitted applications.

The council will hold a meeting Friday afternoon at 2pm to take public comment on the candidates, and will have until January 23 to make their choice.