By Erica C. Barnett
The dreaded presidential election is finally upon us, and to distract ourselves, we spent most of this week’s podcast talking about the most interesting local election—the race between appointed city council incumbent Tanya Woo and her challenger, Alexis Mercedes Rinck. Woo, appointed to her citywide seat after losing to Tammy Morales in District 2, has never won an election, and Rinck shellacked her in the low-turnout August primary, winning by a nearly 12-point margin.
Still, Sandeep says we shouldn’t count Woo out, arguing that in Seattle, the electorate skews more conservative than in primary elections. In high-turnout elections like this one, he argued, a lot of voters are “blank slates” with no real awareness of local issues. Fair enough, but I don’t see how this will directly benefit Woo over Rinck (despite her 10 months on the council, she’s little-known, and it’s not like the ballot says which candidate is the incumbent). In any case, we’ll know soon enough whether Sandeep’s preferred candidate pulled an upset, or if Rinck will continue her winning streak.
We also discussed the latest twist in the ongoing saga of ex-police chief Adrian Diaz, who, despite being the former chief, remains on SPD’s payroll at a salary of almost $340,000 a year. Last week, interim Police Chief Sue Rahr put Diaz on leave, along with his former chief of staff, Jamie Tompkins, accusing both of lying during an investigation.
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The Office of Police Accountability launched an investigation into Diaz after several people filed complaints alleging that he and Tompkins had a romantic relationship and that he hired the former FOX 13 reporter into a high-level position without disclosing that relationship. Overall, there more than 50 complaints have been filed against Diaz, including allegations of sexual harassment and discrimination. Mayor Bruce Harrell removed Diaz from his position in May.
Diaz has denied all the allegations and filed a $10 million tort claim against the city immediately after his suspension, alleging discrimination. Shortly after Harrell removed him, he went on a conservative talk show to announce that he is gay and suggest that this was a defense against the allegations against him, including sexual harassment and the allegations of an inappropriate relationship with Tompkins. Diaz is married to a woman.
Finally, we took a minute to talk about Councilmember Rob Saka’s dogged efforts to dismantle a traffic safety barrier that prevented him from making a left turn into the parking lot of his kids’ preschool, which has has framed as a matter of racial justice and public safety for people in the Delridge neighborhood.