(Image: Cooley for Council)

A pot entrepreneur and substitute teacher who has emerged as a community leader in the Judkins Park neighborhood is making a run for the District 3 seat on the Seattle City Council.

But he doesn’t see the coming campaign as a battle or a race.

“I have a different way of doing it. And we’re going to present our ideas of how to do it to our electorate, and we’re gonna let them choose,” Alex Cooley tells CHS, describing his plans for the campaign and what he hopes is an opportunity for voters in D3 to pick a new direction. “And that is truly, like, the beauty of democracy. That’s what it should be. It should not be vicious. It should not be people hating each other. I don’t want anything to do with that.”

Cooley’s proposed policies include a checklist of Seattle progressive causes including building new housing for those living unhoused and stopping sweeps, opening up more of the city to housing development, shifting more public safety funding to mental health and addiction services, and making public transit free but with a mostly middle ground approach that would build on existing efforts like increasing the JumpStart tax on large employers or limiting transition of currently single-family zoned areas to a more limited multifamily approach centered around duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes.

Most of his ideas come off as downright reasonable except for maybe the legalization of drugs — “all drugs” — that he sees as a pathway to realistically addressing issues of public safety and addiction while also creating abundant civic revenue.

With this mostly mellow approach to some radically progressive policies, Cooley is one of nine candidates vying for the seat being left open by incumbent Kshama Sawant who is leaving the council at the end of the year to focus on a new campaign to build a national political party with Socialist Alternative.

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Cooley is a Judkins Park area resident where he has worked as a substitute teacher and is currently busy serving as a de facto general contractor on an over-schedule remodel of the old Central District house he is overhauling for his young family. A member of multiple area community groups and organizations, Cooley says he has also emerged to lead a public safety effort around 23rd and Jackson near where his child attends daycare, a process that has brought together departments from across the city and county — but not the property developer Vulcan — to sort out a safer future for the busy commercial and residential development area after ongoing shootings and street violence.

“Vulcan? I hope they would be there,” Cooley says about the real estate developer’s absence from the process. Nope. They don’t come to the meetings. I’m very frustrated by it.”

Still, Cooley says the work is helping to make the neighborhood safer for the community and his family and has been a valuable experience as he considers his possible role with the council.

Cooley also sees his contributions to shaping cannabis policy in Seattle and across the state as a foundation for his campaign.

“I’ve helped the City of Seattle write every single piece of legislation on cannabis that they’ve written since 2010,” Cooley said. “So I’ve written a law, I’ve passed law. I know the reality of politics being the heart of the possible. I’ve walked the second floor countless times for years getting legislation written to pass in this city. So, in a lot of ways I’ve done it.”

But Cooley also acknowledges the legal pot industry has work to do here. He is hopeful the city’s recently passed cannabis equity legislation will help do more to create true opportunity for communities left behind. Cooley, who says he is working as a mentor in the program, also says it will take more than just a few BIPOC-owned pot shops and that better business opportunities than the stores need to be opened up including legalizing cafes where cannabis can be smoked and consumed.

(Image: Cooley for Council)

“It we get social equity significantly better, I’ll look back at my career and I’ll say, ‘Mission accomplished, job well done,'” Cooley said.

A co-founder of marijuana cultivator Solstice and still working in the industry as a consultant, Cooley is one of two pot entrepreneurs up for consideration in D3 as he will be running along with Joy Hollingsworth, a Black, queer cannabis farming entrepreneur and Central District resident.

What is it like for a white, straight progressive to decide to run against Hollingsworth? For one, Cooley doesn’t see it as “against.” And, more importantly, he says, he likes Joy.

“Joy is a great person and she is a reasonable person,” Cooley said, comparing the two — at an, um, high level — to “the kind of glow of what Kennedy versus Goldwater was.”

“It was supposed to be like this new concept of campaign and this is the conversation,” Cooley explained. “As soon as I heard as she might be running, I called her up and I said, let’s go grab a coffee. And that’s because what this process of the next nine months, in my opinion, should be. It should be a group of people who truly care about the city and are courageous enough to stand up and try and be a service to the city and our district and present their ideas on how to make the city better.”

Cooley like his eight other D3 candidate counterparts is part of the city’s Democracy Voucher program and currently working to qualify for the public funding. Only Hollingsworth and Transportation Choices Coalition leader Alex Hudson have so far qualified for the 2023 cycle. Here is how to put your vouchers to work in this year’s election.

Learn more at cooleyforcouncil.org.

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