Harris-Talley

Seattle has a new new mayor. And now it has a brand new City Council member — for about 50 days.

The council Friday selected Kirsten Harris-Talley, program director of the Progress Alliance of Washington, to fill the seat left vacant by the ascendancy of Tim Burgess to the mayor’s office in the wake of the Ed Murray resignation.

Harris-Talley was one of 16 applicants for the seat including former council member Nick Licata. Her selection Friday required a majority of votes from the nine other members of the council. She emerged with five including the backing of District 3 representative Kshama Sawant.

Harris-Talley’s selection marks a victory for the Seattle Peoples Party, the organization formed during activist Nikkita Oliver’s unsuccessful bid for the mayor’s office this summer, which fought for a more inclusive selection process and backed the Progress Alliance organizer.

In her five years at the alliance, Harris-Talley worked with the organization “to bridge gaps in the progressive movement and help build collective capacity for engagement and policy wins.”

Her selections brings the number of women serving on the Seattle City Council to six. Of those, three are women of color.

Harris-Talley will serve through November when, depending on how the vote falls in the citywide Position 8 race, either Jon Grant or Teresa Mosqueda will fill the seat.