By Josh Feit
First of all, a quick followup to an item from a couple of weeks ago, when I wrote: “Trump’s Case Against US Olympian David Hearn for Vandalizing the Reflecting Pool (since abandoned by Trump’s own DOJ) > North Seattle Couple’s Case for Recalling Katie Wilson.”
Yup. Last week, King County Superior Court Judge Patrick Oishi dismissed the request for a recall. At a confusing hearing last Thursday, August 27, Oishi told the petitioners their case was “befuddling.” For starters, they missed a filing deadline and then withdrew their request. Seems like the Trump analogy was spot on. And in what seemed even more similar to Trump’s endless mishegas, the couple then claimed they had more info. Oh brother.
Barack Obama > Jimmy Carter
Speaking of Wilson and analogies to presidents, let me alert you to this one: With her econo-travel aesthetic, earnest policy brain, lefty-populist comfort zone, socially-awkward-bookworm personality, and (from what we hear about her behind-the-scenes leadership style) prickly isolation on the 7th floor—Wilson is Seattle’s own Jimmy Carter. If this analogy isn’t tracking for Gen Zers and Millennials, ask the internet about solar panels, sweaters, and thermostats. Carter, an outsider who was a elected during America’s post-Watergate call for goodie-goodie governance, eventually started to tank in the polls during his presidency. I initially thought Wilson’s high-wattage smile and unbridled joy in civics would confound the naysayers, critics, and bitter media. But—recall effort or not—recent polling indicates this mayor is in trouble.
Thanks to Wilson’s socialist label and sudden, surprise rise, the analogy that used to come to mind was more encouraging: Wilson was Seattle’s own Zohran Mamdani. But Mamdani veers toward a presidential analogy of his own. And it’s the opposite of a one-termer like Carter who got mired in “malaise.” Mamdani’s soaring popularity, confident charm, and big-ideas agenda make him like Barack Obama, an incorrigibly popular two-term president.
As Mamdani continues to wow the public and generate hope with his own gleeful project of sweeping governance (sweltering subway stations as pools of sustainable energy being the latest Mamdani lightning bolt) a pal in New York asked me why Wilson was having so much trouble in Seattle. I don’t think this fully explains it, but the fact that he’s a he and she’s a she has evidently allowed the media to normalize an unbridled condescension, giving their anti-Wilson bias free rein.
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50 > 0
Protesting density, liberal Boomers and Xers often quote Joni Mitchell’s famous line, “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.” Unwittingly, their knee-jerk “Development=Bad” mantra prioritizes car-dependent lifestyles. By stalling new housing development, they are locking pervasive car culture in place, thwarting the density needed to create walkable neighborhoods and expanded transit service. I derisively call it Joni Mitchell Politics.
So, as summer comes to a close, let’s applaud the Seattle Office of Housing and City Councilmember Dionne Foster’s pro-housing politics. Thanks to legislation they passed earlier this summer, OH used $6 million to acquire the site of a former gas station, mini-mart, and parking lot on East Montlake Place E. in the upscale Montlake neighborhood to build 50 below-market-rate condos. There’s currently zero affordable housing in the pricey area.
Under Seattle’s Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda, adopted in 2015, high-income communities like Montlake that lack affordable housing are known as “high opportunity” neighborhoods.
In her summer wrap-up newsletter, Foster noted the housing win: “Through acquiring property in a high opportunity neighborhood in Montlake we are locking in a future for affordable homeownership in a neighborhood that currently does not have affordable homeownership.”
Josh@publicola.com
Being mayor (of any city) is mostly about how you handle the police department. Forcing out the police chief may have been the right thing to do but it wasn’t good politically. As your colleague explained very well, the public can’t know the whole truth since that would violate the contract agreement. If she explained why the old chief wasn’t doing a good job the city would get sued. It looks like she is hiding something because she most definitely is. She has to. The Seattle Times front page article about the firing was huge. Much of the city now thinks she fired a good police chief that was popular with the African American community. Of course it is more complicated than that, but for a white mayor this isn’t a good luck.
It will quite likely blow over. She will hire a new police chief. There will be great fan fare as the new chief will say all the right things. Then folks will shift focus to other aspects of the city (parks, roads, water, sewer, electricity, transit) and how she is managing those. So far she appears to be doing a pretty good job.
I didn’t vote for Wilson and I don’t see much change in Seattle either positive or negative.
I’m still willing to give her the benefit of the doubt since I think she’s smart enough to realize that people don’t really want “socialism”…. whatever the hell “socialism” actually means for even people who support “socialism”…. basically these days socialism means… What does it mean? The “workers, peasants and intellectuals” take over Boeing and start building airplanes without management? or maybe it means the kind of social medicine which was started by the Kaiser in the 1870s? or maybe it means something as middle-of-the-road Republican as the IRS should be fully funded to actually collect the taxes which are authorized?
Glad Dionne Foster helped get a few subsidized condos built. However I am less enthusiastic about her. Word is she was in part responsible for the collapse of the effort to temporarily lower MHA fees to unlock a lot more housing than her few condos. If she is just in favor of subsidized housing, we are in trouble. We don’t have anywhere near the amount of money it would take to build the amount of housing we need relying on just subsidized housing. We need the private sector to build at scale and she seems less than enthusiastic private building. We need all kinds of housing to get the job done.
Thank you for spelling “free rein” correctly.
If downtown feels alive it is because the waterfront park is completed (all decisions made under former Mayors). That has entirely changed our downtown. But the recent Bite of Seattle shooting illustrates a backslide on gun crime. Public safety on transit and downtown needs to continue to be adequately funded to keep downtown and Seattle and Seattle Transit systems, safe and usable.
Based on her personality, Katie needs a much more ‘visible’ press secretary who is out there 24/7 countering the right-wing narratives from the local media that seem mostly motivated by the ‘socialist’ label and wanting to “defeat socialism” as the enemy of business. Showcasing support for the “right kind of business” with local examples will put the local press on the defensive and highlight GREED as the real enemy in Seattle and across the country, not those standing up for affordability and working families. Shifting to offense is the right strategy at this point because if you keep racking up wins, it throws your opponents off balance.
The Montlake affordable housing project is great case in point, but we didn’t hear enough about it in the local press. Katie should be walking the beautiful tree-lined streets of Montlake with a mic and camera like Lurie does in San Francisco (he is always walking around SF neighborhoods video-highlighting the good), and asking the simple question of whether a teacher or sanitation worker should be able to afford to live in Seattle’s beautiful neighborhoods?
More bitter media?
Using “a pal in New York asked me why Wilson was having so much trouble in Seattle” to establish that Wilson is in trouble is pretty weak. I did not investigate the poll, and I doubt Seattle has the market to support high-quality polling on something like this. But maybe I’m wrong.
In 30 years, I have never seen a Seattle mayor have this much success. The World Cup was great. I see the improved bus routes, traffic safety measures, and drinking fountains every day. Downtown feels alive since Wilson took over.
I supported Wilson in the election, and she has far exceeded my expectations so far.