By Erica C. Barnett
Former City Councilmember Cathy Moore, who quit the council, effective July 7, after serving just a year and a half of her four-year term, continued to lobby her former colleagues, and even work on legislation, after she stepped down, emails PubliCola obtained through a records request reveal.
PubliCola and other outlets have reported on the infamous email Moore sent to Councilmember Mark Solomon, who took over Moore’s leadership of the council’s housing and human services committee after she left, pressuring him not to seat members of the city’s Renters Commission whose appointments Moore had refused to consider during her time as head of the committee.
In that email, she told Solomon that she thought he was on board with her plan to dismantle the renters’ commission and replace it with one dominated by landlords, blaming “[t]he current disastrous situation so many non-profit and small for-profit housing providers find themselves in” on “the advocacy of the commission for rental laws uninformed by the knowledge and experience of the housing providers implementing those laws.”
The additional, newly obtained records reveal that Moore continued to exert her influence with other council members, particularly Northeast Seattle rep Maritza Rivera, and weigh in on legislation after she left office. The documents show that Moore edited two controversial Rivera amendments to the comprehensive plan designed to place more restrictions on developers’ ability to remove trees. Moore also wrote =the questions Rivera asked candidates during the selection process for Moore’s replacement on the council.
The city’s post-employment rules prohibit former city employees from participating in matters they worked on as part of their prior employment for two years after leaving the city. Examples of prohibited behavior include advising or working on legislation.
However, Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission Director Wayne Barnett said he doesn’t think those prohibitions would apply in Moore’s situation “because she is assisting the City, not anyone else, such as a private company or lobbying firm.
“Former employees are routinely tapped for their expertise after they retire,” Barnett continued. “If we were to decide that this back and forth between CM Rivera and former CM Moore was a violation of the Ethics Code, or that former CM Moore cannot write her former colleagues about the fate of the renter’s commission, it would have dramatic repercussions for every former City employee, the latter especially. I would need to train that communicating with the City on issues where you have expertise after you leave is illegal.”
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Moore’s attempts to influence the council immediately after quitting the council are unusual, and fly in the face of her frequent statements that as the elected representative for District 5, she served as her constituents’ voice on the council. Debora Juarez now occupies Moore’s former seat, and generally voted in favor of amendments to the city’s comprehensive plan that supported more density, the opposite of how Moore generally voted. She also voted against one of the amendments by Maritza Rivera that Moore worked on after she left, amendment 93. Which raises the question: By working at cross purposes to her successor, is Moore undercutting her former constituents’ new voice on the council?
When she was still on the council, Moore was a vocal advocate against aspects of the comprehensive plan that would allow more density in residential neighborhoods, arguing that allowing small apartment buildings in Maple Leaf, for example, was tantamount to “sacrificing” the North Seattle neighborhood. She also sided with Rivera on tree protections, fighting for restrictions on tree removal that would result directly in less housing in Seattle’s traditional single-family neighborhoods.
Moore’s work on comp plan amendments affecting density and trees began shortly after she left office in July.
For example, on August 1, 2025, Rivera’s chief of staff Wendy Sykes sent Moore a copy of a tree-related amendment Rivera planned to introduce as part of legislation to implement the city’s comprehensive plan. Moore sent the amendment on to Sandy Shettler, an activist who has lobbied the council for protecting trees, typically at the expense of housing. That proposed change eventually surfaced as Amendment 93, one of two controversial Rivera amendments to limit the amount of housing that can be built when a tree is present on a lot.
Moore sent herself a copy of another set of tree-related amendments at 4:30 in the afternoon of her final day in office, forwarding two amendments proposed by arborist and tree activist Andrea Starbird to her personal address. Moore forwarded the amendments to Rivera on July 21, writing:
Hi Maritza,
Attached is the tree amendment proposal I was working from when I left. I spoke with [central staffer Ketil Freeman] and HB about potentially drafting three separate amendments from this proposal. This is in addition to a mandatory “treed area” for preservation/planting with flexible setbacks and height or [floor-area ration] incentives. I’m still looking for anything in writing regarding those ideas, but we did have a good conversation about those ideas and I think they were comfortable proceeding with drafting some language.
Best
Cathy
On August 1, Moore sent an email to Rivera’s private email address with the subject line “Proposed tree ordinance amendments,” along with this note:
Dear Maritza,
As a former colleague who was deeply engaged in the work of improving the tree ordinance, thank you for extending me the professional courtesy of an opportunity to provide my feedback on your draft proposal. After conferring with subject matter experts and others concerned about tree canopy, I have attached my suggested edits to the proposal. Please let me know if you have any questions about the suggestions or if I can be of any assistance. Thank you!
Best,
Cathy
The records provided by the city’s legislative department didn’t include the amendment itself (we’ve requested it), but the email alone makes clear that Moore was directly editing city legislation after she left office. Moore also sent her proposed changes, titled “Amendment 4 – Tree Protections CMMR 7-31 edits.docx,” to Shettler.
Another document, a draft of a Rivera amendment, 102, that would have given the director of the city’s Department of Construction and Inspections (SDCI) the ability to force developers to come up with “alternate site plans” that preserve trees at any point in the development process, includes two comments and apparent amendments by Moore, identified as “CM” in the margins.
One, allowing the SDCI director to require a secondary tree protection review by an arborist before a development can move forward, made it into the final version of the comp plan legislation.
Neither Moore nor Rivera responded to PubliCola’s emailed questions.
Moore didn’t just continue weighing in on and editing legislation after she resigned from the council. She also sent six questions for Rivera to ask the applicants for appointment to her council seat, focusing on trees, sex workers on Aurora, neighborhood centers in the comprehensive plan, and crime. During a council question-and-answer session with the candidates on July 22, which started shortly after Moore sent her questions to Rivera, Rivera read five of Moore’s questions virtually verbatim, giving the departed council member a voice at the table when the council was choosing her successor.
Moore also emailed Mayor Bruce Harrell, police chief Shon Barnes, several council members, and other city officials shortly before midnight on the night after her final day in office, urging him to take a series of actions on the Aurora corridor.
“Dear Bruce,” the email begins. “Please immediately close the streets from 95th through 107th. Please immediately implement the SDOT reader board messages notifying drivers/buyers that they are in a SOAP area. Please implement the Prostitution Prevention and Awareness campaign designed by VICE, [the city attorney’s office], and [public safety] Director [Natalie] Walton-Anderson. Please add loitering for the purposes of prostitution to the nuisance ordinance.”
Had Moore chosen to stay in office, she could have worked on all those things through the legislative process rather than lobbying the mayor after she left.
Slow news day, Erica?
For the record, Cathy Moore represented her constituents, showed up to discuss community concerns, and worked hard to address them. She won the D5 seat with 64% of the vote, and D5 voters were grateful for her work and dedication.
Does anyone really believe our city would be better off if departing city hall denizens just left and disappeared with all their knowledge and experience? Does anyone believe that’s what’s been going on all these years?
We were lucky to have Moore as long as we did. Now we’re back to silence we had before.
Seems like a very misplaced attack here on a former Councilmember, who has every right as citizen of Seattle to contact any City Councilmember and the Mayor regarding pending legislation or other suggestions for current Councilmembers on issues before them. She was contacting them as an unpaid citizen, not lobbying as an paid employee of any business or other entity that is required to register as a paid lobbyist .
The two amendments CM Rivera included Amendment 93 to provide minimal planting space for trees lost on a 4:4 tie vote with Councilmember Solomon “excused” He was excused for the two days of voting on the amendments.
The other “controversial”amendment, Amendment 102, was actually passed by a 4:3 vote with Councilmember Solomon “excused” and Councilmember Nelson not voting. CM Saka, Rivera, Hollingsworth, and Juarez voted Yes. CM Rinck, Kettle and Strauss voted No. CM Rivera listed to concerns about this amendment and removed in the final version voted on the language regarding possible alternative site designs if the SDCI Director determined more trees could be saved and still build the proposed project. What happened is how the process is supposed to work – give and take after listening to the concerns and CM Rivera deserves credit for listening and responding. She removed the provisions on looking at a possible alternative site design as possibly slowing down development for needed housing. The main provision in Amendment 102 remained which was to remove the “basic tree protection area’ loophole requested by the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties two days before amendments were voted on when the City Council updated of Seattle’s Tree Protection Ordinance in 2023. That loophole was contrary to the recommendations of the International Association of Arboriculture in not allowing a tree protection area to be able to be modified. Instead they said it could be modified based on issues like tree species, condition of the tree, soil and what is being built.
Trees help create healthy communities where people live and work in a city. The state and the city are moving forward on increasing needed housing across the state. We can both increase housing and also keep nature in our cities where we live. Trees help to reduce air pollution, reduce stormwater runoff with its pollution into our surrounding waters, reduce heat island impacts that can harm health and be deadly, provide habitat for birds and other animals, and have shown by numerous studies to be important for both mental and physical health for people living in cities. It’s time to stop the either/or approach and work together to build our needed housing and protect our environment and urban forests at the same time.
I disagree with many of Cathy Moore’s political priorities, but I don’t see that she did anything either wrong or unethical in the actions described.
Um… huh? The City of Seattle rules cited in this post cover former City employees who are engaging *on behalf of a new employer*. Cathy Moore wasn’t engaging on behalf of a new employer. Her actions were ethical and legal. Former employees commonly help/advise their former City teams, including at the council. Mischaracterizing a former City employee, their work, their ethics, or City rules because one disagrees with them isn’t journalism. So – what’s this post actually about? Also, what’s with trying to infantilize Maritza Rivera?? I haven’t worked with or even met either Moore or Rivera, for the record. But I’m troubled by what seems like an odd use of this platform. To neighbors around town reading this, I really encourage you to read the rules in their entirety, ask your councilmember for explanation, check w/ someone in a supervisor role at the City, etc. I’m grateful to former City employees who help out, across departments and the council – whether or not I agree with them.
This is a truly baffling hatchet job on one of the finest council members we’ve ever had here in the north end. It’s important to remember that Cathy Moore was elected by her constituents. Ms. Juarez was not elected. She was appointed. Juarez was one of the least popular council members ever to serve in the north end, notorious for her lack of response to constituents. This pattern of contempt continues. Constituent emails and phone calls and attempts to have meetings have been met with absolute silence. Cathy Moore on the other hand, had an open door policy and met with people on a regular basis. Throughout the years of increasing violence in Lake City and along Highway 99 Deborah Juarez never once responded to constituents concerns. Cathy Moore held multiple public safety meetings, understanding just how terrifying it was for neighbors to have bullets flying through their windows in the nightly shootouts between 190th off of Highway 99.
I am surprised, Erica, that you are going on the attack when the city’s own ethics department says that Moores advocacy after leaving office is neither illegal or unethical. Moore is also a citizen of the city directly affected by the policies she wrote about— should she be mute about the issues that drew her to public office in the first place for the rest of her life? Unlike other council members, Cathy Moore did deep research and listened. She is not an ideologue, she is someone who wants to solve problems.
This is particularly evident in her approach to affordable housing. In the last 20 years we added 30% of all our new housing. Yet since 2005 our housing costs have tripled. Density is not working to bring down the cost of housing. Neither is the Council’s landlord tenant legislation, so skewed in favor of renters that landlords risk losing their properties. Due to this irresponsible legislation, countless small landlords have taken their rentals off the market or sold to private equity — and every sale means higher prices and less affordable and family-sized rentals. There has been massive consolidation of the rental market and more and more of it is owned by out of state large operators and distant and impersonal management companies that will now be raising the rent to the maximum allowed each year, thanks to Seattle city Council legislation.
Personal attacks on Cathy Moore are uncalled for. These kinds of attacks exist in the peculiar and warped climate of leftist Seattle in which the “left“ and the “liberal“ voting factions take no prisoners in the exact same style as MAGA.
When these factions cannot successfully argue on the substance of the politics, they mob meetings and drown out city council speakers, pound violently on chamber windows, march to council members’ personal homes and attempt intimidation by mob and bullhorn, and spray graffiti on their personal property (as with our departed Police chief.) And then, when council members and public officials leave due to health concerns attributed in part to stress response to this level of vitriol, (see Morales: “I also have a personal responsibility to my family, who deserve to see me show up whole. This role has caused my mental and physical well-being to deteriorate, and this is an unfortunate reality for many women in particular who serve in public office.”) they continue to attack the departed officials when they have left office if they do not follow the policies deemed ideologically correct.
Get a grip. This is no way to run a city or to encourage qualified candidates who actually want to listen to their citizens and serve them.
Former council member Moore was thoughtful, measured and always responsive to her constituents, unlike the current D5 representative who doesn’t even return phone calls.
These comments don’t pass the vibe check. Councilmember Moore stepped back from city council due to health problems. Obviously, she has issues she cares about in Seattle, that’s why she ran for city council in the first place.
The fact that she’s leveraging the connections she made and advocating for those issues in her capacity as a Seattleite just makes sense — the quote in this article from the Seattle ethics commissioner even said what she was doing is routine.
At least Councilmember (ex) is consistent. As a councilmember she had nothing but contempt for the legislative process, for the political give-and-take, and for the public’s role in making policy. As an ex-Councilmember, she attempts to throw her weight around to threaten, cajole, and “influence” current councilmembers, and to do so behind the scenes with no public accountability. Good riddance, Ms. Moore, good riddance.
Do you have nothing better to do than attack someone that happens to like trees. In very few cases will Amendment 102 result in less housing. In so many cases around the city, developers are cutting down big trees not for more housing but for convenience. And it’s certainly not for affordable housing. It’s large SFR with maybe a ADU and DADA. Some developers have admitted publicly that they didn’t need to cut down the trees.
That’s funny. I Happen to like trees and don’t feel “attacked” in any way. I’m not altogether sure Moore was exactly sane, the way she exploded now and again. Accusing former Councilmember Morales of saying she was an “evil, corporate shill,” for instance, announcing she was “losing her temper.” She has come off as a little more unhinged than what is expected of a public servant; I am left with the impression Seattle is better off after such an unbalanced person has stepped away from governance.
We can’t vote out the corruption soon enough. They are all MAGA shills.
What is the corruption. All the information that was exchanged is available through public record requests. The amendments were public. What does it have to do with MAGA?
Unable to function in a role that requires transparency, Moore chose to pursue her agenda in the dark mode, under the veil of helping with the transition. Well, now she’s busted. Seattlites should be grateful she left the kitchen when she couldn’t tolerate the heat.
Cathy Moore operated quite publicly when she was a council member. She advocated to deal with the sex trade that was hurting businesses along Aurora in her district. And for that she got trashed too. Her legislation pushed to punish the pimps and the customers. And she advocated for helping those in the sex trade that wanted out.
Same. She wants the power without the accountability to constituents. She showed herself early when she couldn’t handle public discourse. Now if D5 can vote someone other than Juarez next time, maybe this part of the city will get some attention as part of the city, not just as bunch of car lots and empty/shuttered businesses.
How did she show herself when she could’t handle public discourse.
Now D5 is stuck with a council member who 2 years ago said that she was done with city council. At the end of her term, she rarely attended meetings in public even though she was the council president. Cathy Moore was the only council members that I’m aware of the allowed constituents to schedule a meeting with her via her city website page. She was available to all and not just those her liked her agenda.
Too bad the city ethics department is totally gutless. FORMER Citycouncilmember Moore has no business interfereing with the Council that she quit in a fit of pique because she couldn’t get her way and her constituents (I was one) hate her guts. Moore is disgusting piece of work.
You have no idea why Cathy Moore left office. But you have not trouble trashing someone for what reason. Why do you hate her guts? Pretty strong words.
Moore is missed, and Juarez has returned as IF she was missed. Moore met with her constituents, and kept an open door to lobbyists promoting their personal capital gains, yet Moore did not sell out as half of our current council has. Moore is someone I admire who I believe follows social systems in which personal advancement and success primarily reflect an individual’s capabilities and merits. Cathy Moore stood for the majority in her district and, for that matter, the majority of Seattle’s 700k++ population.