SEATTLE — Seattle voters will soon decide which two candidates should advance to the November general election in the race for a citywide position.
Position 8 is on the ballot for the Aug. 6 primary and all Seattle voters will have a say in who advances. This is the only city council race in Seattle this election.
Current Position 8 Councilmember Tanya Woo narrowly lost a race for the council District 2 seat last November but was then appointed to the Position 8 seat in January. Now she hopes to win the election in order to serve the rest of the term.
There are four people vying for the spot. The candidates are Woo, Alexis Mercedes Rinck, Saunatina Sanchez, and Tariq Yusuf.
Woo and Rinck have fundraised the most money in this campaign season. Both believe they offer a needed perspective on Seattle City Council.
“I bring the perspective as somebody who is a renter, as somebody who used to wait tables next to the Space Needle, now working on policy at UW Tower,” said Alexis Mercedes Rinck.
“Being a part of south Seattle, being part of the Chinatown International District, growing up in Beacon Hill, and being able to relay voices onto the council for many community members who kind of felt left out previously.”
Rinck moved to Seattle seven years ago to get her master's degree at University of Washington. She has worked for the Sound Cities Association and now works in policy planning for UW.
She said her top priorities are affordability, community safety and addressing the budget deficit. She wants the ultra-wealthy and corporations to pay more in taxes to fund city services.
“The most urgent thing is addressing our budget deficit,” said Rinck. “We need to be able to know how we're going to really do our work, and I think coming from a place of having a balanced budget is how we even start carrying out the work.”
Woo is a Seattle native who started a community safety group in the Chinatown International District during the pandemic and runs a workforce housing complex.
She said her top priorities are public safety, affordability, and addressing homelessness.
“I've done a lot of important work in all of my priorities,” said Woo. “I started community safety teams, de-escalation teams, I have done mutual aid. I've gone to encampments and tried to help our unhoused neighbors. And I haven't just started this work recently, I've been doing this work the last several years.”
When it comes to public safety, both candidates want to see increased police staffing, more crisis intervention workers and more community violence prevention programs.
“Addressing our first responder staffing means we'll be able to have faster response times, and solve more crimes,” said Rinck. “When paired with that, investing in prevention measures to prevent crime in the first place. I'm really excited to see the proposed King County Plan for gun violence prevention.”
“I think we really need to focus on our young people and our children and making sure that we do have that programing available and the resources available to them to be able to go to late night basketball, to have mentorship opportunities, to have economic development opportunities as well,” said Woo.
The top two candidates who get the most votes in the August primary, will advance to the November general election.