The race to make it through the top-two August primary to represent the city’s eastern core on the Seattle City Council stopped through the Central District with a forum that questioned the candidates on mental health services, drug laws, street safety, displacement, design review, and community involvement.
It is probably not surprising that support for the city’s old neighborhood district council system went over big at Tuesday’s night candidates forum hosted by the Central Area Neighborhood District Council — especially when one of the council’s leaders is one of those candidates.
District 3 candidate Alex Cooley was on his home turf at Tuesday’s forum and said he would back rebuilding the old neighborhood council system in “a new way with new technology” seven years after the city ended its formal support for the councils over concerns about equity and representation for underserved communities.
The pledge was part of a night of well-received points from the Judkins Park and cannabis community leader in front of a familiar audience as he tries to make up ground in the crowded eight-candidate race including the most strongly funded campaigns from Joy Hollingsworth and Alex Hudson.
ELECTION 2023 — CHS COVERAGE
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- RY ARMSTRONG: The race for District 3 had to have a Democracy Voucher candidate — Ry Armstrong just might be it
- ANDREW ASHIOFU: As D3 candidate field crowds, Ashiofu hopes unique perspectives on housing, health, and transit will change the race
- ALEX COOLEY: ‘Like, the beauty of democracy’ — Judkins Park and cannabis community leader joins ‘conversation’ for District 3 seat on the Seattle City Council
- BOBBY GOODWIN: Bobby Goodwin, a public defender who wants cops to work harder and the streets of Seattle to be safer, wants your District 3 vote
- JOY HOLLINGSWORTH: With ‘cannabis justice,’ hunger advocacy, and three generations in the Central District, Hollingsworth enters race for District 3 — UPDATE
- EFRAIN HUDNELL: This District 3 candidate wants to use affordable housing to help save Seattle from a ‘death spiral that we’ve seen in cities that have gone boom to bust in a way that only American cities do’
- ALEX HUDSON: With her heart on First Hill, Hudson joins race for District 3 with a neighborhood approach to urbanist policy
- More…
Hollingsworth’s home turf is also the CD and the candidate drew the most consistent applause on the night with straightforward answers and solutions. How will her office be more responsive to constituents? “I’m going to pick up the phone.” How can we help youth through issues around mental health? “Get kids off Instagram.” How do we make streets safer? She talked about putting up a camera near her home at 23rd and John.
Hollingsworth also expressed her support for a capital gains tax and voiced support for the JumpStart tax while saying the city has to be careful of pricing people out of their neighborhoods. Meanwhile, Hollingsworth said support for Black businesses and programs to assist home ownership and downpayment assistance are keys to keeping Black and Brown families in the Central District.
First Hill’s Hudson, who is nipping at Hollingsworth’s heels as far as financial contributions go, spent her time solidifying her position as a wonk with first-hand experience shaping legislation and the political process around it. Her answers tended to champion established progressive policy and initiatives like the upcoming Move Seattle levy renewal and housing reforms to address affordability, equity, and displacement like community priority, affirmative marketing, and equitable development initiatives. Hudson said she led the way in the race in supporting a capital gains tax to invest in crisis mental health care and housing as well as reining in spending at the city.
Hudson seemed to have her strongest moment in a question about the city’s design review process. The former First Hill neighborhood advocate said she has attended dozens of reviews over the years and said her experience showed that the reviews can produce community-driven results — but only for communities who can afford to organize and bring in professional help. Better neighborhood design standards should be in place “from the jump,” Hudson said and said she will advocate for a “housing template” model used in cities like Paris… and South Bend.
Pierce County public defender and Capitol Hill resident Bobby Goodwin, meanwhile, continued to hone is position as the race’s iconoclast, repeating his promise that he would have voted for the tougher stance on drug laws in the city without waiting for more work to be done on diversion and treatment, saying Seattle is becoming “a Mecca for those who are struggling.”
“It’s not because I like to see people in jail,” Goodwin said. “Sometimes there is a need for intervention. In a more perfect world we would have the beds and a long-term treatment commitment.” But Goodwin said those “systemic issues” are too big to solve right now.
Hollingsworth countered that she would not have supported the initial legislation in one of her few comments on the night that drew only tepid applause. “I don’t know how to solve fentanyl but we need to get people inside as quickly as possible,” Hollingsworth said, saying she believed shelter and treatment were better avenues to solving the public safety issue.
Hudson concurred that a new “war on drugs” doesn’t work and said she believed the council needed to better understand the costs of various solutions before making a vote. “Taking a pause” to study and document those costs is the “primary responsibility” for the council, she said.
Cooley, meanwhile, also may have disappointed some in his home audience when he said he, too, would have voted against the bill. “I’m an expert on drugs,” the cannabis industry and policy veteran quipped. Cooley acknowledged that public drug use is “eroding the fabric” of the city but said criminalization doesn’t end the problem. He championed a market approach — that would require the creation of radical new industry regulations in Seattle — to legalize and tax the drug market.
The Seattle City Council primary election takes place August 1st. Ballots should begin appearing in mailboxes after July 12th. Visit King County Elections to learn about registering and more.
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Hollingsworth and Cooley sound like they will be disappointing. Doesn’t sound like they want to clean up our streets. The only one with common sense seems to be Bobby Goodwin.
Agree
I agree too. But Goodwin is way behind in fundraising. And I fear that he is probably too centrist for lefty D3. He’s got my vote!
It is amazing that there is only one candidate in the bunch that can acknowledge that District 3 is filled with hundreds of fentanyl addicts that have migrated here, the current policy of no enforcement for anything these people do is worsening the crisis, and that the current situation is unacceptable. Please send your Democracy Vouchers to Bobby Goodwin. D3 and downtown Seattle will never recover their lost vibrancy if we continue to send unqualified leftist activists to City Council that want to continue the failed social experiment.
Hollingsworth or bust. Goodwin is a non-starter. He didn’t even table at Pride. Does not care about community and a grifter.
Hmmmmm. Was considering Hollingsworth, but here Derek is supporting her. Disturbing.
Joy Hollingsworth Here! I just wanted to clarify some things in the article… The Safety question that was highlighted was specifically for pedestrians, cars and Bike Safety for roads.
For public and community safety, our message has been clear from the jump. More on http://Www.joyforseattle.com and more than happy to connect with anyone one on one for coffee/tea or a beer to chat about our public safety platform.
Below is from our website…
We must invest in the appropriate staffing and responses to emergency situations; ensuring that our first responders are equipped with relevant resources and training to respond to our community’s most pressing public safety concerns.
Ensure that our Police, Fire and Emergency Medic Technicians have the resources to reduce response time and address staffing vacancies + shortages.
Focusing on clean streets, better lighting, artwork, safe parks and open spaces.
Reduce property and violent crimes;
Provide mental health and substance use services;
Reduce gun violence with youth violence prevention menthods
Food Access Points for families
Address the open air substance use thats happening in our street by getting people off the street and inside as quickly as possible (shelter) and connect them to treatment now.
Its not one or the other. Its all of us working together to create safe environments and that includes a baseline level of safety with our first responders.
[email protected] if you have any questions. Thank you!
Must say, while I’m still in the “undecided” category I appreciate the fact that you took time to respond. Already more communicative and focused on D3 issues than our current rep has been.
“Address the open air substance use thats happening in our street by getting people off the street and inside as quickly as possible (shelter) and connect them to treatment now.”
OK, sounds good, but how about some specifics? Would you have voted for the recent legislation that failed? If not, why not? I think that arrests for public drug use should be made, as a means to access treatment via existing programs like LEAD and Drug Court.
Yes, As with Zach, the only candidate I feel I can support at the moment is Goodwin. Convince me otherwise.
It has become clear that simply connecting, which seems synonymous with merely offering people with treatment (for substance abuse and mental health issues) and allowing them to make the final decision to follow through is not enough..
Can you be counted on to support policy that will ensure that people will actually receive treatment, not simply have the offer made? This city and all of it’s citizens really need something that is less than prison but more than neglect if we ever expect to get people off and keep them off of the streets.
I walked to Bakery Nouveau today at 11:00 am. There was a line of people in the bakery so I had to stand outside the door. An addict was smoking fentanyl under a blanket within 5 feet of the door! I left. One block down two women were sitting on the sidewalk by Aviv blocking the entire sidewalk while smoking fentanyl. This is not acceptable. If you don’t support a drug law that pushes back on this insanity, then I cannot support your candidacy.
All the candidates had something interesting to say. I liked that Hollingsworth mentioned something about youth and family activities and engagement opportunities as a part of what she hope the mayor’s new initiative on youth mental health would support. Then there is day to day life to remind us that there arewhat appears easy fixes and it is not clear why they aren’t. After bumping down 23rd/24th on the 48 and later bumping on Seneca on the 2, I am reminded that in 1978 I wrote a poem with a line that included “bouncing down 23rd on the 48.” Well in those 45 years SDOT has not talen care of the potholes on 23rd except on the redesigned area. And most of us are not going to climb off a bus to take a picture for “Find it; fix it.” The are bad enough, I swear that they will hurt people on the bus. One person remarked that when the bus hits the potholes his neck hurts and and another said they give her a headache. Many of the candidates did say interesting things, and this is not a statement of support for any candidate, but today I was thinking about Bobby’s reference to how a bad pot hole can mean damage to a car and death to a bicyclist. I have been noticing pot holes even as a pedestrian. They can be treacherous and need fixing, no matter who becomes the D3 represented.
Please take a minute to report potholes in “find it, fix it.” You don’t need to take a photo, just need an address. The response by the city is usually within a few days.
These are some pretty long stretches of raod. Recently, I found what you say to be true when it is was one with an exact location. Just this moment, I submitted a report for between Boylston and 9th Avenue on Seneca. Of course, I had to point to one specific location on the map and am not sure that is an exact location of a pot hole. We will see how that report is handled.