More department-head changes for Mayor Katie Wilson, including Parks and Neighborhoods

| Neighborhoods | West Seattle news | West Seattle parks

In the early weeks of Mayor Katie Wilson‘s administration, she’s rolled out announcements of multiple department-head changes, as usually happens when a new mayor takes over. The latest group, announced today, include leadership changes for both Parks and Recreation and Neighborhoods. For the. Parks change, the announcement is brief:

AP Diaz will be leaving as director, and Michele Finnegan will serve as Interim Director.

Former Mayor Bruce Harrell hired Diaz from Los Angeles in fall 2022. Finnegan was promoted last year to senior deputy superintendent.

As for Neighborhoods, that part of the announcement has more details:

The Department of Neighborhoods is dedicated to help neighbors connect, build strong communities, improve their quality of live, and engage with city government. Jenifer Chao will be leaving the Department of Neighborhoods, and Sam Read will fill her role until Quynh Pham becomes Acting Director.

Quyhn is currently the Executive Director of Friends of Little Saigon (FLS), a community development organization dedicated to preserving and enhancing Little Saigon’s cultural, economic, and historical vitality. Her 14 years of nonprofit development experience have shaped local policy, advanced opportunities for Southeast Asian artists and cultural practitioners, and increased investments in BIPOC initiatives around equitable development and small business resiliency. She is also the mother of two toddlers, who continue to fuel her drive to ensure they grow up in a culturally rich, accessible, and diverse community.

Other new department leaders announced include Andréa Akita at the Office of Housing, Amy Nguyen at the Office of Arts and Culture, Beto Yarce at the Office of Economic Development, and Lylianna Allala at the Office of Sustainability and the Environment. For full details on today’s announcements, here’s the official news release.

Jake January 21, 2026 (12:27 pm)

Katie is a baller. Loving these moves, no more free vacations on tax dollar money for Diaz with so little to show for it.

EVGuy January 21, 2026 (12:45 pm)

Now I can see why taxes are so high – how many departments does the city need, with $200k+ salaried directors and all their staff?

Charles Burlingame January 21, 2026 (4:23 pm)

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This mentality is how we end up contracting out half of the services the city provides for twice as much money.
- M January 21, 2026 (4:48 pm)
  
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  Spot on, Charles
- EVGuy January 21, 2026 (5:52 pm)
  
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  What are you talking about? Are we outsourcing any of these departments? More importantly, WHY do we need these departments? “The Department of Neighborhoods is dedicated to help neighbors connect, build strong communities, improve their quality of live, and engage with city government”I don’t need some government bureaucrat getting paid > $200k with a staff of “51-200” according to their linkedin page to CONNECT WITH MY NEIGHBORS. I can do that myself for free, and having never once seen any positive benefit from this department in my 25 years of living in Seattle, think it’s fine if we can it. We don’t need to contract, we need to cut, and this attitude of “it’s not my money” is why we ended up with more departments at the CITY level then we have at the FEDERAL level, high property taxes, and a city budget deficit that’s going to end up cutting out things that DO matter, like education, so that we can have a “jobs program” for politically connected idiots.

Joan January 21, 2026 (2:23 pm)

Good. I hope we get a better parks manager who cares about more than human-centric facilities.

k January 21, 2026 (2:34 pm)

All the changes, and yet she’s keeping dead weight Shon Barnes. The guy who will just invent six-figure positions when someone he likes needs a job, who has the most bloated executive support staff of any SPD director ever (by a good margin), who takes weeks off, with pay, at some of the busiest times of the year. Not to mention his statements about the LGBT community. The city has such a huge deficit already, let’s get someone in that job who understands what a budget is, and who understands that they are being paid to actually work.