(WSB video – Councilmember Saka’s entire speech/Q&A)

By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

Though the West Seattle Chamber of Commerce promoted City Councilmember Rob Saka‘s Thursday speech as “State of District 1,” Saka opened by saying it wouldn’t be that at all. He promised a “community check-in” instead, while noting that West Seattle – where he lives – is just one of five communities in his district.

He proceeded to ricochet around a multitude of topics in the ensuing 45 minutes of speech plus Q&A, held during the Chamber’s monthly lunch meeting, at the West Seattle Golf Course banquet room. He mentioned two ribboncuttings as among his “great memories,” including May’s opening day of the Delridge Farmers’ Market (which also drew Mayor Bruce Harrell, as shown in our photo):

(WSB photo, May 2024)

As he did during his recent interview with WSB, Councilmember Saka repeatedly touted his email newsletter, saying he’s sent “at least 40” of them, “more than any other councilmember,” adding that he considers it an example of one of his “guiding principles … be communicative and collaborative, biasing on the side of transparency.”

But, he said, “My highest priority has always been and will continue to be improving public safety.” Another priority, “improving transportation infrastructure” and parks. He also listed support for small businesses, working families, affordable housing. “I’m keenly aware there are many challenges going on right now for small businesses … (they are) suffering … some are shutting down … overwhelmingly burdened by policies and rules including city policies and rules … that’s not good for small business community, for customers, for everyone … we’ve seen this play out .. across the whole nation .. everyone is feeling the pain …(inflation) rents (high) homeownership out of reach for many people … we are in some challenging times and the pain is real.”

He did not suggest any solutions for that, but did note that businesses are opening too and asked if anyone at the meeting had opened a business in the past year (one attendee, an aesthetics entrepreneur, stood up).

Also in the supporting-businesses vein, Saka mentioned restoration of funding for the “immensely popular Storefront Repair program.” Some of those repairs, he noted, “were needed because of policy decisions regarding public safety.” As he continued ticking through a list of first-year actions, he also cited support for entrepreneurs, including Black/brown people in business, the West Seattle Junction Association‘s boundary expansion (which required City Council approval), “funding for small-scale safety projects,” “investments for underresourced neighborhoods,” plus what he said was a commitment to Duwamish Tribal Services as part of the participatory-budgeting funding that he said his office helped “preserve,” and “expanded child-care assistance.”

For what he called another guiding principle, “constituents first,” he says his office is now “fully staffed” – they filled the opening for district director with Erik Schmidt, who was in attendance along with chief of staff Elaine Ikoma Ko. (Schmidt fills the vacancy left when Leyla Gheisar moved to another job with the city.) “Every member of my team will put constituents first.” He said he’ll take all the “critical feedback … but please respect my staff,” which totals three positions. (Ikoma Ko has been his chief of staff since he took office a year ago.)

Going back to public safety, Saka said the council has passed “14 sweeping public-safety bills” including “anti-street racing legislation” and SPD officer-hiring streamlining, which he said was being done without sacrificing candidate quality. He enthused about SPD hiring more officers than it lost last year, while acknowledging that the net gain was “just a handful” (to be specific, one, as reported here earlier this week). Saka, who is vice chair of the Public Safety Committee, also noted that last year saw more applications than any year since 2013 — “people are interested in joining the SPD.” Adding that “hiring wait times” have reportedly been halved, he said, “You all are smal business owners – you know the importance of efficiencies.”

Saka said he’s been doing in-person research as well, from attending roll calls at SPD precincts to attending a “live-fire demo” with Public Safety chair Councilmember Bob Kettle at an SPD facility on Wednesday, related to upcoming legislation the council will consider on rules regarding what police can use at protests and other crowd-control situations.

He also lauded SPD for using “digital marketing” to reach more recruits, and for increasing use of crime-prevention technology.

Then he moved to transportation (the committee he chairs), declaring “great wins last year” including adoption of the Seattle Transportation Plan and “shepherd(ing)” the $1.55 billion Transportation Levy, eventually unanimously approved by the council – “nothing ever happens in the City of Seattle 9-0, guys!” he exclaimed – and then approved by voters with a two-thirds yes vote.

D-1 transportation spending he mentioned briefly included the eventual 35th SW repaving (here’s our recent update) and new sidewalks (this district has the second-highest number of “missing” sidewalks, he observed). He did not mention the controversial $2 million Delridge Safety Project, centered on removal of a road divider at Delridge/Holly.

Then it was a quick elaboration on affordable housing, $342 million in the mayor’s budget plan, which Saka said would help prevent homelessness. He aso noted city funding for two new “congregate shelter locations” that might include tiny houses.

For the year ahead, an added public-safety priority – on which he had expounded at this week’s council briefing meeting on Monday – is transit security. “I take the bus almot every single day,” he said, then adding that he sometimes drives too, “unapologetically .. at the end of the day, transportation is a choice.” He said he planned to attend today’s memorial for murdered Metro driver Shawn Yim, adding, “what happened to Shawn is entirely preventable … that affected the driver (but) people have seen their own public safety challenges.” He said the budget already had included more money for “expanding transit safety” as well as “behavioral health on buses” but “tragically the ink on hte mayor’s signature on the budget was still drying” (when the murder happened).

He concluded with mentions of the city’s Comprehensive Plan update, now in the hands of the council for review, and the District 2 vacancy (after Tammy Morales‘s resignation) that the council has to fill.

A short Q&A period followed. First, Saka was asked for more specifics on the public-safety technology he had mentioned. He promised a “list” would be in his newsletter.

Public safety was also on the mind of the next attendee, Claiborne Bell, owner of Distinguished Foods in The Triangle, who reminded everyone that a murder had happened at his business (the September shooting death of Laupule Talaga). He thanked Saka for his personal followup. But he lamented that the police-officer shortage meant it “took a while” for officers to response, and said that delays in responses because of the officer shortage are “ridiculous.”

Saka was next asked when full police staffing will happen and when the CARE Team will expand to West Seattle. For the former, “it’s going to take a while.” For the latter, he had no specific time frame, as he said the city is still working with the police union on who can respond to what.

The final question was about the Comprehensive Plan – “where will the greatest density be in District 1?” Saka did not have an answer for that, instead replying that the plan came from the mayor’s office, the council is now vetting it, “I don’t have a strong view one way or the other … I am committed to listening and learning from community members, including small businesses.” But “listening,” he warned, “doesn’t mean I’m going to 100 percent placate or kowtow to any one perspective.”

You can see the entirety of his speech and the Q/A in our unedited video at the top of this story.