SEATTLE — The City of Seattle will soon be under new leadership, with two-thirds of the Seattle City Council being filled with new members.
Out of the nine city council seats, five will be filled with new members who were elected last month during the November general election. The new council will also appoint one seat in January to fill a vacancy by Teresa Mosqueda, who won a King County Council seat.
According to the city, this is the biggest turnover of Seattle city councilmembers in at least the past 70 years.
On Friday morning, Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell introduced the five new members, four of whom he endorsed. Harrell did not endorse a candidate in the District 7 race, in which Councilmember-elect Bob Kettle beat incumbent Andrew Lewis. The mayor said he has confidence in this new group.
“This group is less concerned about the hard line ideologies and more committed to just simply getting stuff done,” said Mayor Bruce Harrell. “Our administration has been meeting with the incoming council members to help them prepare to take office and hit the ground running”
The new council members-elect said they are preparing and learning.
“We've had a couple of safety meetings in our district, connecting with business owners, connecting with community nonprofit groups, meeting with elected officials,” said Joy Hollingsworth, who won the District 3 seat.
The newly elected council members campaigned with public safety as a top priority.
“We need to hire more officers. The current incentive structure hasn't worked. We need to figure out a path to make sure we have appropriate staffing levels,” said Rob Saka, who will be representing District 1 on the council.
Voters expect to see dividends on the campaign promises and expect to see big issues dealt with, like the city's massive budget deficit expected to grow over the next few years.
“I did say on the campaign trail that I would be open to exploring new revenue,” said Maritza Rivera, who won the District 4 seat. “But in addition to that, I said we really do need to look at the current budget and make sure that the things that we're investing in are having the outcomes that we intended.”
An immediate task for this council will be appointing someone to fill the citywide seat left open by Teresa Mosqueda, which will make six new members on the council.
“We are going to need to have discussions about what the criteria is and what are the characteristics, experience and sort of philosophy that we're looking for,” said Cathy Moore, the council member-elect for District 5.
In fewer than three weeks these five people will help lead the City of Seattle.
“We're setting up an opportunity to have a great amount of collaboration among, not just the cohort of us coming in, but the whole new council,” said Bob Kettle, who won the District 7 race.
The new Seattle City Council will be sworn in on January 2, which is also when a council president will be selected and the committee chairs will be announced. From that day, the council will have 20 days to select someone to fill the citywide seat left open by Mosqueda.