The Seattle Metropolis Council has skilled numerous churn these days, significantly with members whose final identify begins with the letter M.
Since final 12 months, Teresa Mosqueda, Tammy Morales and Cathy Moore all left workplace earlier than their phrases expired, leaving a emptiness to be briefly crammed by a vote of the council.
Subsequent week, council members will identify somebody to interchange Moore, who introduced her resignation in June. Voters will elect a consultant in November 2026.
Luckily, a number of sturdy candidates stepped ahead to signify Moore’s District 5, which encompasses North Seattle from North Seashore to Wedgwood.
James Bourey, government director of the Seattle Structure Basis, has 37 years of expertise as a metropolis supervisor and planning director across the nation, together with serving because the director of Seattle’s planning workplace within the Nineteen Eighties. That’s good expertise for taking the town’s Complete Plan throughout the legislative end line later this 12 months.
Similar may very well be stated for Katy Haima. She is a supervisor on the metropolis Workplace of Planning & Group Improvement. She additionally co-owns The Maple restaurant on Roosevelt Means Northeast. With a background in panorama structure, she claims she would champion tree preservation, an enormous precedence for a lot of within the district.
Julie Kang served as a instructor, professor and director on the College of Washington and Seattle College. She lists her prime priorities as public security, help for small companies and group engagement.
The six finalists for the place embody Debora Juarez, who held the council seat for 2 phrases, from 2016 to 2024. In explaining why she utilized for the job, she says she was “known as to serve.”
Juarez could be the most secure selection however maybe not the wisest. In 2019, the editorial board did not endorse her reelection bid, citing poor constituent companies and her penchant for siding with the then-council majority on wrongheaded insurance policies.
Oddly, she informed the board she was sick of being a council member. “That is in all probability my final marketing campaign,” she stated through the endorsement course of. “I’m type of bored with it. I wish to get again within the non-public sector.”
A constituent and former Juarez supporter penned a 2018 opinion piece in The Instances saying he was leaving Seattle partly due to a poor interplay along with her over his considerations about homelessness.
In appointing a brand new member, the council can transfer ahead with contemporary faces and new concepts, or slide backward. The board recommends that incumbents observe the sentiment of the voters who elected most of them: Break with the previous and sort out the long run with a wise strategy.
The council is anticipated to vote on the appointment on Monday.
