So, right here we go once more; Seattle has elected one other new mayor following a sequence of single-term mayors who didn’t have sufficient time to realize all they promised. Will Katie Wilson be different, or will she be one more city chief executive taking only a brief ride on the civic merry-go-round?
Like her predecessor, Bruce Harrell, Wilson looks as if a honest, respectable one that needs to do the suitable factor. Not like her predecessor, she has scant expertise in metropolis authorities. That have labored towards Harrell within the mayoral election as a result of he was branded — pretty or not — because the institution bum who wanted tossing out. In 4 years, will Wilson seem like the starry-eyed novice whose socialist-lite schemes had been too dreamy and impractical to work?
Wilson isn’t the primary mayor to come back from outdoors the standard political paths. Again within the late Nineteen Seventies, Seattle picked a tv information reporter, Charles Royer, to run the town and he turned out to be an awesome success — however that success got here in Royer’s second and third phrases after hits and misses and numerous studying on the job throughout his preliminary 4 years. Within the final decade-and-a-half, no mayor has gained a second time period.
Harrell, the son of a Japanese mom and a Black father who pushed his means up from humble beginnings in Seattle’s Central Space, narrowly missed profitable one other shot in an election that was almost a tie. Wilson, an East Coast baby of privilege who arrived in Seattle after dropping out of Oxford, must be sensible sufficient to know her victory was no mandate. Wilson must develop past her life as a progressive activist; she must be what she has promised she can be: a mayor for everybody on this metropolis.
Wilson will attempt to discover a simpler option to serve the numerous unhoused folks in our metropolis, however, as she makes an attempt this, she should not ignore the considerations of residents and store homeowners who really feel the adverse impacts of encampments, drug use and legal exercise.
Wilson will assist novel alternate options to jailing and prosecuting petty criminals, those that are hooked on medication and folks with threatening psychological disabilities, however she shall be seen as a failure if she forgets the victims — largely folks in already deprived communities — that suffer by the hands of anti-social and violent perpetrators.
Wilson will act on her largest situation, the excessive value of residing on this wealthy metropolis, significantly for renters, however she can be smart to not overlook that vibrant neighborhoods are what make Seattle an unusually livable metropolis, and that every one the great works she hopes to realize depend on tax income from a powerful enterprise sector that can’t be merely vilified as an enemy camp.
As mayor, there are many sharp needles Katie Wilson should thread and I want her luck. Oh, and on the way in which to doing massive issues, I hope she’ll repair a number of potholes.
See extra of David Horsey’s cartoons at: st.news/davidhorsey
View different syndicated cartoonists at: st.news/cartoons
Editor’s be aware: Seattle Instances Opinion not appends remark threads on David Horsey’s cartoons. Too many feedback violated our community policies and reviewing the handfuls that had been flagged as inappropriate required an excessive amount of of our restricted employees time. You’ll be able to remark through a Letter to the Editor. Please electronic mail us at letters@seattletimes.com and embody your full title, handle and phone quantity for verification solely. Letters are restricted to 200 phrases.
