Seattle City Councilmember Debora Juarez is expected to announce she is running for re-election by Friday, making her the first incumbent to publicly declare her intention to retain her seat.
It comes as two challengers have stepped forward with a platform centered around the city’s homelessness and public safety response.
“It's not okay for me to have conversations about substance abuse, people sleeping on streets,” said Ann Davison Sattler, as she kicked off her campaign at the Bitter Lake Community Center on Wednesday.
Davison Sattler is a former Seattle Sonics employee who has been actively involved with her kids, who attend Seattle public schools.
“Why are people living like this? It’s not okay,” Davison Sattler told KING 5 at the campaign kickoff, which was attended by other North Seattleites, and former Sonics James Donaldson and Slick Watts. “We’ve had issues where someone has accosted us walking into a public place.”
Davison Sattler believes the city should be talking more about mental health and substance abuse.
“The biggest issue city wide is homelessness,” said John Lombard, who lives near Beaver Pond in Northgate. “There is an encampment right upstream here.”
Lombard says he’s lived in District 5 for 17 years and believes the encampments have contributed to “wiping out areas that had hundreds of hours of restoration” and that “the city needs to enforce stricter rules about where the homeless are allowed to encamp.”
Both Davison Sattler and Lombard are running in District 5, which encapsulates much of North Seattle and the Northgate area.
City Hall gadfly Alex Tsimerman, who has been banned at times from the premises for disruptive behavior, has been the only other person to file paperwork with the city to raise money for a campaign.
Seven of the nine Seattle City Council seats are up for election this fall.
Councilmembers Bruce Harrell, Rob Johnson, and Sally Bagshaw have all announced they will not seek re-election.
Candidates have until May to formally file paperwork with the city to be on the ballot.