SEATTLE — The primary election in Washington is coming up on Tuesday, Aug. 1 and people in Seattle will be voting on who they want to represent their district on Seattle City Council.
Out of the seven seats up for election, four of them are left open by council members who are not seeking re-election. One of those open seats is in District 3, where nine people are running to replace Kshama Sawant.
District 3 includes areas such as Capitol Hill, the Central District, Eastlake, and First Hill. There are eight primary candidates and one write-in candidate in this race.
The nine people running for the District 3 seat are:
- Shobhit Agarwal
- Ry Armstrong
- Andrew Ashiofu
- Alex Cooley
- Robert Goodwin
- Joy Hollingsworth
- Efrain Hudnell
- Alex Hudson
- Asukaa Jaxx (write-in)
KING 5 spoke with the three candidates who have received the most fundraising support. Those candidates are Joy Hollingsworth, Alex Hudson, and Alex Cooley, who goes by Cooley.
Joy Hollingsworth has lived in the district her whole life and has worked with nonprofits focused on food insecurity. She also has a family cannabis business, in which she focuses on hemp distribution. Hollingsworth said her top two priorities are public safety and affordable housing.
“It's our police staffing, ensuring that we have a fully staffed police department, our fire, our EMT, and also ensuring that we have the right response to the right situation with our health care workers, our social workers, our mental health providers, and gun violence prevention,” said Hollingsworth.
Cooley has lived in Washington for nearly 30 years and in the district for nine years. He has worked in the cannabis industry for 20 years, helping write city and state laws regarding cannabis. He said the top three issues in Seattle are homelessness, public safety, and housing. He wants to build tiny house villages for the homeless and create a public safety academy to help train people in a variety of roles.
“We have to put for 500 to 600 unarmed civilian representatives in public safety, and that's crisis care and prevention, it’s mental health professionals,” said Cooley.
Alex Hudson has lived in King County her whole life and has lived in District 3 for 14 years. She has worked for different nonprofits, most recently focused on public transit. She said affordable housing and safety are the biggest challenges facing the city. She wants more mental health counselors and addiction specialists involved in public safety and wants adjusted housing codes to help with housing options and affordability.
“I want to make it faster, easier and cheaper for people to build housing so that we can address our growth and start bending the curve cost on how much it costs to build housing,” said Hudson.
When it comes to public drug use, a current issue being discussed in Seattle City Council, Joy Hollingsworth said she would be in favor of aligning city law with state law, to allow the Seattle city prosecutor to prosecute public drug use cases.
“It's very cruel and inhumane for us to be watching that happen, and the poisons that are happening right here in front of our eyes, we have to do something. We can't let this go any further,” said Hollingsworth.
Alex Hudson said she does not believe they have enough information to allow the city prosecutor to prosecute public drug use at this point.
“We have no information at the city about how much it would cost us to incorporate that, or how we would even do that, or what the equity or other impacts of that are going to be,” said Hudson.
Cooley said he would not be in favor of allowing the city prosecutor to prosecute public drug use cases. He said public drug use is a problem but said safe consumption spaces are a better option.
“We have to, as many people have agreed to do in this city, stand up safe consumption sites, first and foremost, because it will save thousands of lives,” said Cooley.