Within the race for King County Metropolitan Council in District 8, a political newcomer is difficult a veteran politician.
Nick Duda, a tech and enterprise advisor who spent 10 months as a legislative aide to a Seattle Metropolis Council member, is trying to unseat County Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda, who has held the seat since January 2024. Earlier than that she served on the Seattle Metropolis Council for seven years. Though Mosqueda has years of public coverage expertise, Duda would carry a contemporary strategy to fixing a few of King County’s most urgent and longstanding issues.
As a legislative aide to Seattle Councilmember Maritza Rivera, Duda helped shepherd the laws that created the proposed $480 million Seattle Public Library Levy that shall be on the August poll. He additionally performed inside analyses of the town’s public security and human companies initiatives.
Duda would carry to King County experience in funds evaluation, one thing the county sorely wants because it grapples with a huge biennial budget shortfall, a necessity for larger monetary oversight of the beleaguered King County Regional Homelessness Authority and of its personal Division of Group and Well being Providers.
“I believe we’ve suffered from an absence of accountability,” Duda mentioned. “We haven’t held organizations and companies accountable, regardless of mismanagement fraud.”
He referred to as the open air drug use at twelfth Avenue South and South Jackson Avenue in Seattle and intercourse trafficking on Aurora Avenue North examples of public coverage failures.
“Our tolerance for letting this go on for so long as it has is sort of galling,” he mentioned.
Duda mentioned he can be in favor of utilizing accessible housing house on the Patricia H. Clark Kids and Household Justice Heart as a secure haven for younger ladies who’re being trafficked.
He additionally favors extra aggressive regulation enforcement in terms of public drug use, similar to a “three strikes” strategy that will ultimately result in obligatory drug therapy.
When requested concerning the intercourse trafficking and crime which have festered on Aurora Avenue North, Mosqueda mentioned she’s inquisitive about connecting trafficked victims to social companies. However she additionally cited as a part of the issue obstacles to entry to therapeutic massage parlor licenses, similar to excessive prices and licensing data not accessible in numerous languages. We discovered the final a part of that reply to be nonresponsive to the sex-trafficking challenges victims and the neighborhood are experiencing.
In the case of revelations from a current audit and Seattle Times investigation of the Division of Group and Human Providers, Duda mentioned the shortage of measurable expectations can result in fraud and abuse.
“I’m a agency believer that if we’re increasing social packages, increasing our income by way of elevated taxes, that we should always maintain these packages to the best requirements about how we’re doing that and what measurable outcomes we’re searching for.”
A 3rd candidate, longshoreman Mia Jacobson, can also be on the poll. She provided positions that centered on the necessity to hear immediately from constituents in terms of decision-making.
When it comes addressing the county’s wants with an progressive and pragmatic strategy, Duda is voters’ better option.
