Seven of Seattle’s nine city council members are up for reelection on November 7, less than two weeks away. Garfield is located in City Council District three, which covers the Central District and Capitol Hill. The current District three council member, Kshama Sawant, is not running for reelection, leaving her seat open to new contenders. In the primary round of the election, on August 1, residents of District three voted between nine candidates. Alex Hudson and Joy Hollingsworth received the most votes during the preliminary round and will move on to the general election in two weeks.
Both candidates align themselves with liberal policies, with similar goals to reunite the community, provide accessible and reliable public services and tackle the city’s economic disparity. Hollingsworth, born and raised in the Central District, comes from a long line of influential community members, teachers and city employees. She is a small business owner, an advocate for community reinvestment policies and employed with a non profit afterschool youth organization. Hudson has lived on First Hill for over 14 years, and is a strong supporter of supplying reliable public transit, affordable housing and creating a cleaner, healthier Seattle. As a parent to an SPS Student, she aims to better the Seattle Public School system and advocate for the safety of Seattle youth.
On October 17, The Messenger sat in on a public forum where the two candidates further explored their plans to improve Seattle.
A community member asked how the candidates would take action to protect public safety, referencing a shooting that had happened earlier that day outside of a daycare a few blocks south of Garfield. “When we’re talking about why things are happening in our community, why violence is happening in our community, why gun violence is happening to the community, it’s an economic disparity that’s going on as well… What commitment you have from me is that I’m going to address that because that’s been like that for 10 years,” Hollingsworth responded. Hudson took a more personal approach when voicing her opinion, “I will say it’s horrible. My kid goes to [Seattle Public Schools]. Like last week, there was a shooting outside her school. I couldn’t get a hold of her… It’s terrifying. It’s like I don’t know how to have a conversation with my kid, when she’s telling me that she’s afraid to go to school.” Hudson went on to cite a story from an SPS counselor, “He had to grant an experiment with a student to see how easy it was for him to get a gun. And on Snapchat, this kid in high school was able to get a gun within half an hour.”
The candidates were split on how the City Council should handle policing. Hudson emphasized that Seattle is not investing enough in alternative emergency responders, “We can no longer continue to live in a society where our primary and only ability to create community safety and well-being is through armed police officers.” Hudson said. She added, “Somewhere between 20 to 40 percent of the calls that come in at 911 are because someone is having a medical health emergency. So right away we know that sending police to these kinds of events, it doesn’t actually help a lot of times. It creates a lot more potential for there to be harm.”
Joy Hollingsworth took a more measured approach, “We also have social workers that are saying, hey, I need an officer as the second responder behind me… We’re also talking to our fire department, that’s saying we need an officer to accompany us if we’re going in certain situations because we don’t feel a certain type of safety,” Hollingsworth said. “Of course I believe in police accountability and transparency. I also know on the flip side of that that there are communities that are asking for a certain type of relationship with police officers. The daycare that was just shot up today, that owner sent me a text back in September asking if there was anything we could do about extra patrols around her neighborhood because of the activity that they were seeing.”
One of the biggest issues the City Council will be tackling is Seattle’s 221 million dollar budget deficit that is projected for 2025. Both candidates expressed interest in raising tax revenue to make up the shortfall. “What we need to pass here in the city of Seattle is a municipal capital gains tax… a very reasonable tax on the wealthiest people in our city, people who are profiting over a quarter… of a million dollars from the sales of stocks and bonds.” Hudson proposed. However, she added that until Washington has an income tax, “everything else is kind of like fiddling around on top of a broken system.” The candidates also opposed placing the burden on lower-income residents, “I don’t want to get in the habit where if we have a budget gap… the first thing we do is tax working class people.” Hollingsworth said.
