SEATTLE — This Thursday will mark 100 days since the new Seattle City Council has been on the job.
It was a historic turnover this past election season, when new faces filled six of the nine council seats.
During the council’s first 20 days after being sworn-in in early January, they were tasked with filling the vacant citywide council seat, in which they appointed Tanya Woo to join them on council. Since then they said they've been getting back to the basics and focusing on the fundamentals of the city.
“I think that this council is very in line with what the people want, they understand public safety and they understand housing affordability,” said Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell.
Harrell endorsed several of the new members and said there is a new energy on council. He said he is glad the council has focused on public safety. The council has had multiple discussions in the first 100 days about police retention and recruitment.
“We really have a sense of urgency on trying to clean up our streets and help people clean up their own lives,” said Harrell. “They also realize that we have to make lawful arrests and support our police officers in doing a constitutional job of policing.”
In addition to a new contract expected to increase pay for officers, the Mayor's office recently sent legislation to the city council that increased wages for more than 11,000 city employees due to union agreements. The council unanimously approved the increases
The higher payroll also increased the city's projected budget shortfall to $240 million by next year.
“It is a challenge, but we meet our challenges,” said Harrell. “And so right now, as we speak, my executive team is working very intelligently on the budget shortfall and we will present a package to the council during the budget that will be balanced.”
Council President Sara Nelson was elected to council in 2021 and said the budget deficit is top of mind.
“We do need to start digging into what our options are and making some choices now that will inform our budget deliberations in the fall,” said Nelson.
She said despite budget problems, increasing police salaries is imperative for public safety and downtown recovery.
“Part of it is being competitive with neighboring jurisdictions as we're recruiting new officers,” said Nelson. “So, there's no silver bullet, but we have to do everything we possibly can to bring the staffing levels back up from shockingly, historically low levels.”
She said this is a "back to basics" council, and that the six new council members got right to work. One of those new council members is District 3's Joy Hollingsworth.
“We have our comprehensive plan, we have our Move Seattle Levy, the Seattle Transportation Plan, we have our police contract,” said Hollingsworth, who was sworn-in to office in January.
Councilmember Hollingsworth said not only are they looking into what resources are needed in the city, she said they are looking to improve at least one law passed by the last council, which is the gig worker legislation. The law increased pay for gig workers, but may have had unintended consequences of apps raising rates for consumers.
“What ways can we make it to where that demand is equating with ensuring that people are getting paid minimum wage and also that restaurants are having the business that they had, because their margins are thin,” said Hollingsworth.
She said these past 100 days have been about connecting the community and seeing how she can best serve the community in the next 100 days and beyond.
“We've had four public safety meetings, we've had over 30 community engagement pieces. So, we have been listening to what people want,” said Hollingsworth
The mayor said they expect to hear from the Seattle Police Officer's Guild about the proposed contract in the next few days.
Another item the council will soon take on is the mayor’s proposed $1.35 billion Move Seattle levy, which is a transportation levy voters will decide on later this year. Council President Nelson said the council will start discussing that levy next month.