(WSB photo, January 2, City Hall)

Since covering her inauguration at City Hall on January 2nd, we’ve reported on five appearances by Mayor Katie Wilson in and near West Seattle. Today marks her first 100 days in office, according to her team’s summary of what she’s done in that time – including two West Seattle references:

On January 2nd, an overflow crowd packed City Hall to celebrate Mayor Katie B. Wilson’s inauguration and mark a new era of city government. In the 100 days since taking office, the mayor and her team have gotten to work and quickly started making progress on some of the city’s biggest challenges.

“We’re just getting started,” said Mayor Wilson. “There’s a lot of work ahead, and there will be lots to celebrate too.”

The Mayor promised a coalition-building approach to the office, and she’s delivered. The members of her transition team carried out a uniquely robust body of work that included reaching out to hundreds of community members about their priorities for her term in office. And thousands of people have reconnected with their city government through events, forums, and digital media because the mayor is rooting her work in shared values, articulating a powerful vision for change, and bringing people together to make those changes real.

First 100 days on expanding shelter
In her first weeks in office, Mayor Wilson announced an executive order to dramatically accelerate the process to build new shelter and housing. She assembled an Interdepartmental Team which rapidly reviewed a number of potential sites for new shelter and emergency housing and managed to cut development timelines in half. She also advanced a package of legislation which would further accelerate the process of opening new shelter with wraparound services, allow existing successful shelters to serve more people, and identified underused city funds to make it happen.

Earlier this week, the mayor gathered hundreds of community members at City Hall to provide an update on progress toward the goal of opening 1,000 new units of shelter and emergency housing with wraparound services this year. She announced that an initial go-first shelter will be moving forward on West Armory in Interbay, and that two sites already under development (Glassyard Commons and Brighton Village) are being accelerated through the permitting process. These are just the very first sites, with many more ahead as we finally treat this citywide issue with the citywide focus it deserves.

First 100 days on affordability
Almost 9,000 people completed the Mayoral Renters Survey to share their experiences trying to find an affordable place to live in the city and speak to their biggest challenges as renters. This survey will inform the development of policy this year to address some of the pressures facing Seattle renters.

In order to help address our shortage of housing that people can afford, the mayor also signed legislation that will speed up development by eliminating unnecessary and time-consuming SEPA review, and announced a plan to build “taller, denser, and faster” by accelerating, combining, and expanding the next two phases of the city’s comprehensive plan.

The mayor also announced that the expanded Seattle Preschool Program is now open for all 3- and 4-year olds to apply, and that she’s enrolling her daughter in the program.

First 100 days on public safety
The mayor announced specific steps to respond to any potential surge in federal immigration enforcement activity, and announced a decision to pause the expansion of the city’s Real-Time Crime Center until an audit of data governance and privacy protections can be completed.

Her team is focused on building out new neighborhood based framework to address hotspots, and developing a multipronged approach building on national best practices to reduce gun violence.

First 100 days on transportation
Mayor Wilson is committed to delivering on a vision of a world-class transportation system that works for everyone — whether or not they own a car. And she’s moving quickly to make that a reality for more people across the city. Just weeks into office, she issued an executive order directing the Seattle Department of Transportation to develop a plan to open a new bus lane on Denny Way to speed up the Metro #8, one of the city’s most-used and slowest-traveling bus routes.

A new Sound Transit Board Member, the Mayor got to celebrate the opening of the Crosslake Connection linking Seattle light rail riders to the Eastside. She is working to advance the promised extension to West Seattle with shovels in the ground this year, and to go on to deliver the Ballard line voters were promised. She also helped mark the newly open Yesler bike lane, which safely connects waterfront riders right up to City Hall.

First 100 days of civic pride
Since the mayor took office, Seattle has leveled up into one of the best sports cities in the country. The Seahawks won the Super Bowl, the Rainier Beach High School boys basketball team won the state championship, we’re getting ready to host the FIFA World Cup, and we took a huge step to welcoming back our Sonics.

The mayor also introduced a new library levy, helped open a ton of new buildings and projects, address the public through dozens of media appearances, met another Katie Wilson who already worked at the City, visited the top of the Space Needle, got a haircut, took a port crane for a test drive, enjoyed a snow day, and even welcomed a 7-foot tall urbanist sasquatch to the waterfront.

And there’s about 265 more days ahead this year alone.

Did you catch the two references? (West Seattle light rail and the forthcoming Glassyard Commons RV/tiny-house site.)

Story and photos by Torin Record-Sand
Reporting for West Seattle Blog

This month’s meeting of the 34th District Democrats offered a preview of what lies ahead in August 4’s rapidly approaching primary for state and county elections, and the subsequent November 3 general. Many topics were in the spotlight Wednesday, but most of the candidates who spoke set their sights on two things: More progressive reforms for existing institutions, and opposition to the federal overreach of the past year and a half. Candidates came seeking the 34th’s endorsement for positions on the Washington State Supreme Court, the Seattle Municipal Court, the King County Council, King County Prosecutor, and King County Assessor. Around 50 people were in attendance in person at The Hall at Fauntleroy, but given the stakes, it seemed almost half of them were candidates.

Ian Birk and Sean O’Donnell were there running for the fourth position on the Washington State Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is drawing more attention than usual this year, as five of the nine seats on the court are up for election. Both candidates touted long-running service in the legal system: Birk had 20 years as a private lawyer before being appointed to the Washington State Court of Appeals in 2022, and O’Donnell worked as a prosecutor for 12 years prior to becoming a King County Superior Court judge in 2013.

The core of Birk’s pitch was that he would bring a voice to the Supreme Court to defend the little guy, something he said he learned a lot about in his years as a private lawyer. He told a story about defending and winning a case for a retired public -school teacher who had been defrauded by their district’s group life insurance policy. “You would think you could resolve that by writing a sternly worded letter but that’s not the society we live in – that’s the kind of fight that I have, and it’s the kind of voice I think we need in public court.” said Birk.

O’Donnell, on the other hand, focused more on the results of his career as a prosecutor and judge as signs of his aptitude for higher office. He highlighted a long and consistent career he described as giving voice to women’s rights, working on cases including sexual violence and human trafficking, and even time spent on the Green River Killer task force. He also pointed toward recent work to make courthouses safer and more equitable, such as working to expand funding for court interpreters and better security in smaller courts. He said he hopes to bring that systems forward-thinking with him to higher office.

Katharine Edwards appeared, asking for the 34th’s endorsement for a position as judge on Seattle’s Municipal Court. Even though she is currently unopposed, she said the 34th’s endorsement would mean a lot to her: “I would be over the moon if you all would endorse me.” (She also said she is a resident of the 34th, living in West Seattle, with her son even going to school right where the meeting was held – at Fauntleroy Children’s Center at the other end of the historic schoolhouse.) She highlighted her career of 15 years as a public defender, saying she took each case with a lens of social justice. “Real accountability is that the court does its part too: that it offers programs that address root causes of behavior, services that actually redirect people away from the legal system, holding people to clear expectations and giving them a genuine path to meet them, tracking outcomes using real data, and being honest about what works and does not.” If elected, she hopes to bring that same lens to her work as a judge.

Teresa Mosqueda and Leesa Manion both came to pitch their re-election campaigns. Mosqueda is looking for re-election to the King County Council as the representative for the 8th District, which she has been since 2024, and Manion is running for re-election as King County Prosecutor, which she has been since 2023.

Mosqueda said she will continue to work on her same social-services-oriented agenda: “With your support, I will continue to focus on health, housing, and human services.”

Manion listed results of her efforts on gun violence, sex trafficking, and making sure there were equitable salaries by gender in the prosecutor’s office. She also emphasized that she will remain a staunch opponent of federal overreach: “I will absolutely keep fighting the Trump administration, through every legal means, against the unlawful and illegal overreach it presents.”

Chris Roberts and Rob Foxcurran spoke of their campaigns for King County Assessor. The assessor’s office deals mainly with property taxes, relief for those taxes, and property value appraisal.

Roberts is a veteran of politics, having served the city of Shoreline as both a councilmember and mayor at various points continuously since 2009.

Foxcurran, in his own words, was coming as a relative newcomer – although he currently serves as a City of Seattle Senior Appraiser. Roberts focused more on using the office as a way to lower the pressure of property taxes on families and individuals to prevent escalating the ongoing housing crisis, whereas Foxcurran saw the office as having the opportunity to come down harder on corporations for evading property taxes. Both shared the same concerns about the current system of property taxes reliance being highly inequitable.

After the presentations by the candidates, there was also a special presentation on the state of King County election services by King County Elections Director Julie Wise. She kept a lively tone throughout, recognizing the difficulty elections seemed to be undergoing with ongoing federal threats to change the system. “In times like these, it’s better to laugh than to cry.” she said.

She said that despite the uncertainty, especially regarding the upcoming midterms, she wanted to offer a message of hope. “[King County elections] is a dedicated group of election administrators who are passionate about it like none other.” She began by highlighting the strength King County has in terms of turnout: for this year, they are expecting 45% of registered voters for the August primary, and 75% for the November general election. “We have the highest voter turnout in the nation along with Oregon, Colorado, due to accessibility.” she said.

She moved on to highlighting the security and the accountability that mail-in voting has, despite recent aspersions cast toward it from the federal government. “Vote-by-mail elections are accurate and secure. Period.” she said. She said that King County elections in general has one of the most secure processes in the nation, if not the world, with their elections facility having state-of-the-art physical and cybersecurity. (Dramatically, she added, this had been done in consultation with firms well-versed in creating casino security systems.)

In the Q&A portion of her presentation, many audience questions were about how the office would handle possible election interference, whether from independent actors, or from federal actors such as ICE agents. “We are working with local law enforcement and the prosecuting attorney’s office, to be proactive and be prepared. […] We are doubling down on ordinances about where are federal agents being allowed to be – and working with local law enforcement to do plainclothes and non-plainclothes at the drop boxes to prevent voter intimidation.” She also noted threats about the federal government canceling USPS deliveries of ballots. “He does not have the authority to do a lot of things he does, but he especially does not have the authority to do that.” she said. She said if it did come to that scenario, the office is looking at other potential partners to deliver and pick up ballots. She also said that there is the potential for the elections office to expand in-person voting sites, if need be.

Wise closed her presentation with a reminder that things are not as bleak as they might seem. “Since 2016 there have been threats about voting security, personal threats to me, even. Sometimes, it is a really awful job, but you have to step back and remind yourself: there are really just a very few awful people. That is not the vast majority of people, who are appreciative and thankful of the work we do.”

Other business for the 34th included debate over their current budget (with their fiscal year for 2025 ending as of May), and further amendments to the platform they’ll be taking to the state convention later this year. For the former, concerns arose over the price of meeting in person, though there are no plans to cut the number of remaining in-person meetings for this year. For the latter, the amendments focused on creating a Democratic platform for AI regulation in the arts, environment and energy use, and the government. The amendments seemed to highlight anxieties about the current administration kowtowing to current tech companies at the neglect of civil and environmental rights. Other amendments also focused on a further emphasis on social health care, labor rights, and immigration rights.

The April pre-meeting program was a “civics mini-jam” led by the West Seattle Joiners, with attendees invited to circulate between and learn about the organizations in attendance WS Walking, the West Seattle Timebank, West Seattle Democratic Women, West Seattle Indivisible, representatives from the Defend Democracy sign campaign, and West Seattle Bike Connections. (The Joiners have another Jamboree coming up, too, on May 16 in White Center.)

The meeting closed with reminders of upcoming events for the 34th. They will be holding a pop-up social at Jules Maes Saloon in Georgetown on April 24th between 5:30 PM and 8:30 PM. Their big annual fundraiser, “Your Voice Our Future,” will be held on May 30th, at the newly opened White Center HUB. For more information, you can visit the 34th on their website here.