After weeks of reports about the field of 72 applicants and backroom political maneuverings around the favorites, Seattle heard from the the eight finalists for the open citywide Position 8 on the city council for the first time Thursday night.

Juan Cotto, Neha Nariya, Mark Solomon, Vivian Song, Steven Strand, Mari Sugiyama, Linh Thai or Tanya Woo will serve through the year, with the Seattle City Council seat coming up for grabs once again in November.

Questions at the forum included inquiries about candidate experience, budget cuts, affordable housing and upzoning, supporting BIPOC ownership in the city, pedestrian and cyclist safety, voting history and funding for child behavioral health.

Here are 19 things CHS heard at the forum:

• Woo’s experience with large budgets relates to the redevelopment of her family-owned Louisa Hotel, which caught on fire and led her to pursue a $2 million stabilization loan from the bank. The building has since been rebuilt and Woo said she’s “also helped conserve a jazz mural from the prohibition era.”
• Strand leaned on his experience in law enforcement and put his foot down in favor of maintaining the current stream of SPD funding. “For me, public safety is number one, so that is one place I’d like to not see any cuts,” he said. Strand sees a waste in public safety dollars by having cops and fire trucks respond to low acuity calls, like people who are unhoused sleeping in doorways.
• “Part of it just comes down to driver awareness, driver education,” Solomon said on vehicular accidents, who also mentioned pedestrian awareness plays a role. To address this issue he would work with the Department of Transportation to synchronize all traffic signals to create a better flow of traffic.
• When asked about what budget cuts candidates would pursue, Cotto said that he straight up does not know—it’s not something he felt like he could answer in 30 seconds, having taken the first 30 seconds in silent thought. More research and analysis is needed to understand the impact on families, he said.
• Thai has experienced homelessness and he didn’t think about being forced to move or all of his stuff being thrown away, which happens during SPD sweeps, because his first thought was survival.
• Sugiyama acknowledged how many unhoused people feed their pets better than themselves and it’s important for them to maintain a home without losing or having to give up their family members— a current and unaddressed gap.
• “I play nice in the sandbox,” Cotto said of his ability to collaborate with others. He also said his personality feels like a good fit for the current city council.
• When looking at budget deficits, Nariya said she would cut programming that was redundant across departments, while possibly meshing those cross-department programs into one.
• Song said when looking at seriously addressing the housing crisis, House Bill 1110 doesn’t make sense. “I wouldn’t be in favor of adopting this exemption,” she said. HB 1110 would allow the city to preserve limited amounts of single-family residential property. Since upzoning changes wouldn’t take place overnight, Song said it’s crucial to engage community stakeholders to prevent displacement.
• There were lightning round questions and candidates had paddles they flipped to show their support or disapproval of things, like reviewing or fixing issues this year by amending the 2020 Tree Protection Ordinance passed by the city council. The candidates unanimously flipped their ping-pong paddles in favor of expanding the Seattle Community Safety Program, which provides gun violence prevention, to all districts across the city rather than a select few.
• “I love voting. I love fricking voting so much that I joined the service to defend and lay my life down to defend voting,” Thai said. He wants to engage with all groups of people during the voting process and remove language barriers due to the diversity of Seattle.
• “We can all be heroes if you donate blood,” Cotto said, who works as the government affairs director at Bloodworks Northwest.
• “I’ve seen that displacement. I’ve lived that displacement,” Solomon said on BIPOC homeownership. Solomon lives in a home that was passed down to him so he has generational wealth, whereas those he grew up with didn’t have the same experience and lost out on generational wealth.
• “I come from a legacy of activism, which has created my core beliefs,” Sugiyama said.
• “We need to scale our police force to the growing needs of our city,” Song said
• The Black Legacy Homeowner Group—which works to keep families in their home, provides resources and education, and low to no cost repairs—was highlighted by Nariya and Solomon for its important work in keeping Black families in their homes.
• Nearly all candidates agreed that sweeps are ineffective and damaging in the long run of addressing the city’s homelessness crisis.
• “I struggle with mental health for most of my times after leaving the service. That’s a struggle so I don’t think mental health issues are uniquely challenging to youth but I wholeheartedly just from an empathy, just from a direct personal experience, of course we should maintain an increase in funding for our young people,” Thai said, adding that he would challenge the mayor to do more. “You don’t need money to care. You don’t need money to reach out and say, ‘Hey, I see you, I hear you, I want to be with you’.”
• Song said her experience on the school-board will play to her advantage when addressing pedestrian and bike safety in areas like Aurora Ave N and Lake City Way. “We can improve lighting in those areas, install speedzone cameras and have sidewalks,” she said. The large number of pedestrian and cyclist deaths are attributed to a lack of investment, according to Song. She added that a large number of accidents involve those experiencing homelessness and in order to reduce accidents, the city needs to reduce homelessness.

The council seat has been left open after Teresa Mosqueda resigned her seat on the council to start the year to take her newly won position on the King County Council.

The applicant chosen by the council will fill the rest of the seat’s term through 2024 and potentially be in prime position to successfully hold onto the seat in the November election as it goes up for grabs.

Among the eight, Seattle School Board member Song has the strongest connection to Capitol Hill as a neighborhood resident. Woo, who was unsuccessful in her bid to take the District 2 seat last year but has strong support in the International District and for her stances on public safety and increased police spending, and West Precinct commander Capt. Strand, a Seattle Police Department veteran who says he has “embraced police reform, accountability, and civilian oversight” and is “committed to research and data-informed public safety,” also have wide support.

In an email to supporters of the independent expenditure campaigns that backed many of November’s successful city council campaigns, political consultant Tim Ceis called on the newly installed representatives to support Woo and warned against the selection of Song. “The Building Trade unions and the MLK Labor Council have started a campaign to get Vivian Song appointed,” Publicola reports Ceis wrote in the widely shared email.

The Seattle Times, meanwhile, is reporting on a “residency conflict” for Song as she has continued to serve on the school board representing schools in the city’s northeast despite her move to Capitol Hill.

Newly elected District 3 representative Joy Hollingsworth supported Thai, a public affairs expert and speaker with experience in Congressman Adam Smith’s office, in the selection process.

After the selection process for Position 8, six of the nine councilmembers will be in their first term serving the city.

Another special meeting for public comment and questions for candidates will take place Monday. The following day the council is expected to vote on an appointment.

CORRECTION: When first posted, this reported mistakenly referred to Linh Thai as Linh on second reference. It was been corrected to refer to the applicant by last name on second reference.

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