By Erica C. Barnett
The directors of 20 Seattle departments have donated money to Mayor Bruce Harrell’s campaign effort—about half the city’s department directors, almost all of whom were appointed by Harrell. Most have given between $500 and $650, which is the maximum amount the campaign can accept under city campaign finance law. Deputy directors, mayoral staff, and the directors of various ad hoc initiatives, including Harrell’s One Seattle Graffiti Plan and FIFA World Cup planning, have also pitched in to help their boss’ election chances.
It’s likely that not all the contributions represent a spontaneous outpouring of support for the incumbent. According to multiple City Hall sources with direct knowledge of the situation, Harrell has not-no-subtly encouraged his appointees to back his campaign, leaving some with the impression they’ll have more job security in a second Harrell term if they help him defeat his challenger, Katie Wilson. As head of the city’s executive branch, the mayor has the authority to hire and fire department heads at will. He also negotiates pay and working conditions with the unions that represent city employees.
Because Harrell is the first mayor to both run for reelection and make it out of the primary since Greg Nickels, there is no precisely comparable data showing campaign contributions from city department heads for a mayor seeking reelection. The closest recent comparison is former mayor Jenny Durkan, the establishment choice against lefty activist Cary Moon in 2017. Durkan received a single contribution from one city department director, and pulled in $8,750 from all city employees.
The city of Seattle department heads who have given at least $500 to Harrell include: City Budget Office director Dan Eder; Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs Director Hamdi Mohamed; Human Services Department Director Tanya Kim; Seattle Parks Director A.P. Diaz; Office of Police Accountability Director Bonnie Glenn; Office for Civil Rights Director Derrick Wheeler-Smith; Seattle Department of Transportation Director Adiam Emery; Seattle Office of Planning and Development Director Rico Quirindongo; and Information Technology Director Rob Lloyd.
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Staffers for the mayor himself—including communications director Jamie Housen, chief of staff Andrew Myerberg, deputy chief of staff Dan Nolte, and deputy mayors Greg Wong and Tim Burgess (who also contributed $2,500 to the Bruce Harrell for Seattle’s Future PAC and is one of its leaders)— have also contributed thousands of dollars, collectively, to their boss’ campaign. Paul Jackson, Harrell’s Graffiti Policy and Initiatives director, has also maxed out to Harrell.
As we reported Monday, Seattle Office of Economic Development director Markham McIntyre—one of the directors who maxed out to Harrell—used the city’s official Teams platform to ask department directors for their contact information on behalf of the Harrell campaign, whose campaign manager a solicitation to help Harrell get reelected to every department director on the list. This week, the city council will discuss OED’s 2026 budget, which Harrell proposed increasing next year by a startling 30 percent—a larger increase, on a percentage basis, than any other department.
City council staff highlighted this discrepancy in a budget memo, noting that almost all of the new business programs Harrell is proposing are billed as “one-time additions,” despite being the kinds of programs that are likely to “create expectations in community for ongoing support beyond 2026.” Like many other “one-time” adds in Harrell’s budget, this new spending provides a burst of funding for key constituencies (small businesses, retail stores, and business groups in specific neighborhoods, like Lake City and Little Saigon) while creating a fiscal cliff that the next mayor and city council will have to address next year.
Wilson, who was endorsed by a union that represents thousands of city workers, PROTEC17, has received a little over $5,000 in contributions from city employees—about a quarter of the $20,000 city employees have given to their current boss.
erica@publicola.com
Campaign finance disclosure is good. Jolene Unsoeld was a saint. This is not surprising.
Considering that Hizzoner’s appointees are mostly a gruesome, parasitic, careerist lot, is anyone terribly surprised?
They are truly desperate. Of course they are trying to buy a stairway to Heaven.
These are the kind of people who ask for the manager when they get to the Pearly Gates.
They are not going up when they die, not a single politician on this planet.
It’s about votes and energy to man phone banks and knock on doors, and the 11,000 person Seattle employees’ union has A LOT more of that for Katie than half (12) of the department heads supporting Bruce who only cut a check and that’s it. You aren’t going to see many department heads going out there in the cold and rain knocking on doors for Bruce.