Anybody who follows Seattle Metropolis Corridor is aware of Councilmember Sara Nelson has sturdy convictions and a thick pores and skin.
An efficient lawmaker, Nelson challenges typical Seattle pondering and champions underdogs — from struggling small enterprise homeowners to these involved about police responding to emergency calls of their neighborhoods.
The editorial board endorses Nelson’s reelection for Place 9, considered one of two citywide representatives on Metropolis Council.
You will need to perceive the place Seattle stood when Nelson first was elected 4 years in the past. Popping out of the pandemic, town labored to discover a workable homelessness coverage whereas combating a hangover from the fizzled motion to defund police.
Appropriately, Nelson put restoring police staffing as her prime precedence. In 2023, after the election of 5 new council members, Nelson lastly had a workable majority of like-minded leaders. She grew to become council president in January 2024.
In its first 12 months, the brand new Metropolis Council adopted 14 pieces of public safety-related laws, a report quantity since 2015. These embody measures to extend police recruitment and retention, in addition to tackling road racing, prostitution and drug-related dysfunction.
Police stats present general crime dropped from 2022 to 2024.
“This council has modified the course and the tenor of town and we’re delivering measurable outcomes,” Nelson advised the board. “I imagine the very best resistance to what’s popping out of D.C. is a well-run metropolis.”
Nelson helps Mayor Bruce Harrell’s strategy to cleansing up homeless encampments after providing individuals some place else to go. She additionally advocates for restoration providers, tucking $300,000 within the metropolis price range to supply treatment-on-demand. Nelson importantly pushes the coverage dialog on Seattle’s funding of substance use dysfunction responses, which regularly focus too closely on decreasing hurt as a substitute of adjusting behaviors.
Seattle faces price range challenges the place overspending ends in ever-higher taxes. Nelson needs to see outcomes when stewarding public {dollars}.
“We’ve to interrupt that tendency to search for extra income as a substitute of trying at first at whether or not or not our current bills are producing the outcomes that we wish,” mentioned Nelson.
Challengers to Nelson embody Mia Jacobson, Connor Nash and Dionne Foster, former govt director of the Progress Alliance of Washington, which focuses on the “well being of the state’s progressive motion throughout a number of problem areas.”
Foster is a robust candidate. Nonetheless, the editorial board was pissed off by her evasiveness answering questions on homelessness and public security coverage. Foster too simply matches the mould of a Seattle council member circa 2020 — a return to an period voters should need to keep away from.
Sara Nelson has confirmed fortitude and stable priorities. She is the appropriate chief for this second and deserves reelection to Place 9.
