In November, Seattleites will have the opportunity to significantly impact the leadership of our City Council. Seven of the nine seats are on the ballot, and it is important voters pay attention to the candidates’ perspectives on many pressing issues facing our city. Seattle Parks Foundation reached out to candidates with questions pertaining to some of the most important issues that impact our parks and public spaces including: equity of access, public safety, tree canopy, climate readiness and district specific issues.
As you read the candidates’ unedited responses, please consider how they show their commitment to our parks and public spaces, then fill out your ballot and VOTE!
Alki Beach Park
This candidate did not respond to our survey.
Seward Park because it’s a great place to walk the trails and clear my head in the summertime since it’s a cool oasis in a part of the city with too little tree canopy.
This candidate did not respond to our survey.
I grew up in the historic Central District neighborhood, where I still live today and rent the home that my grandmother purchased in the 1940’s with my wife, Iesha. While the neighborhood has changed immensely over the past four decades, one thing that hasn’t changed is the community building and fellowship that takes place in our parks and public spaces. My favorite Seattle Park is Garfield Playfield and Community Center. I spent every summer as a child growing up in programming at Garfield. To this day, I still stay connected with Ms. Shari Watts, the former Director of Garfield Community Center. It was Garfield where I have rich memories of my childhood, where I felt at home and in community. Garfield Playfield and Community Center was also one of the Seattle Parks that my dad, who was a career-long Seattle Parks employee, fought to ensure had the same investments and resources as parks in wealthier parts of Seattle. On City Council, I want every youth to have the opportunity that I did to access programming, enjoy safe parks and public spaces, and experience community.
Wow, I’m not even sure I know how to pick! I’ve served on the board of the Freeway Park Association for a decade, and I love that park’s iconic architecture and innovation, especially how its lidding of a section of I-5 created this beautiful space. I helped to lead a community re-design of First Hill Park and feel an incredible appreciation for our little jewel box park that serves so many people. And I feel so lucky to live in District 3, with our abundance of Olmstead legacy park riches at Cal Anderson, Volunteer, and Interlaken parks.
Ravenna/Cowen Park. I first discovered its wonders as part of a running route over ten years ago. Soon, my son’s daycare was taking him on trips to Cowen Park, and seven years ago, we moved in next door to the park. Whether the unusually excellent playgrounds on the East (Ravenna Playground’s climbing opportunities and sandbox are top notch) /West (Cowen Park) ends (those huge swings, the digger, traditional merry-go-round, and that zipline!) of the woods, the treasure hunts and games we’ve played in the woods, the nature exploration/owls/eagle’s we’ve seen–birthdays we’ve celebrated, friends we’ve picnicked with–even the stories of playing in there from my kids’ great grandpa (who recently passed away at 96 and grew up in Northgate)–It’s both objectively gorgeous and personally very meaningful to me.
Union Bay Natural Area because it’s the best place in the city for bird watching and is one of the most diverse ecosystems in our region. I love visiting the park and walking there with my kids because it is an opportunity to learn about a part of our natural land that is unique to Seattle and the collaboration between preservation of parks, critical scientific research, and natural beauty.
This candidate did not respond to our survey.
Northacres! My dog, Barkley, loves running around in it, and it’s his favorite.
Discovery Park and Green Lake are my favorite parks in Seattle. I grew up going to Discovery Park often from preschool to adulthood. It is truly a unique park to have in the city because of how remote it is from the rest of the city – and where else has had cougars? Green Lake is equally amazing for different reasons, as it is the center of North Seattle. It is the meeting place for so many people in the city and throughout my life you could count on seeing someone you know if you walked the loop. Having lived a few blocks from the park, I know first hand that it is the most visited park in our city and this is because the natural environment blends into the urbanness of the city so eloquently.
Discovery Park. Over the years, I have run thousands of miles on the trails at Discovery Park and volunteered with Friends of Discovery Park to remove invasive plants and help with native plantings.
Discovery Park. I have fond memories from growing up, high school, and college associated with it. And I love the sense of remoteness despite still being in a city.
Big Howe Park (West Queen Anne Playfield) because that’s where I’ve taken my daughter to play and have coached soccer there too.
Trees and green spaces are essential to our efforts to combat the impacts of climate change and to build healthy communities. And here again, we see the connection between race, climate, housing and economic justice. Redlining, which essentially limited further investment in minority neighborhoods, resulted in fewer parks and trees, which has led to much higher temperatures in those areas. I will fight to better fund parks, rain gardens, bioswales, green roofs, green walls, planter box barriers, green medians, street trees, and urban forests. And I will prioritize historically underinvested neighborhoods first. Heat is the deadliest of the climate crisis effects, and the right amount of tree cover can reduce daytime temperatures up to 10 degrees.
This candidate did not respond to our survey.
Environmental justice: Historically marginalized communities in D2 often experience more pollution, toxic sites, and heat exposure while lacking access to parks and green spaces. We must prioritize environmental justice initiatives, like expanding and maintaining public parks. So I will continue to prioritize investments in parks and green spaces in historically underserved neighborhoods, addressing inequities and improving residents’ quality of life. My goals include protecting and restoring native ecosystems, promoting green infrastructure in urban planning, expanding our city’s tree canopy – especially in the south end, and encouraging community engagement and stewardship. Green spaces are proven essential for residents’ well-being and overall community health. I am committed to increasing access to parks, open spaces, and natural habitats for all Seattle communities, focusing on equitable investments, preservation, enhancement, and community involvement to create a more sustainable and inclusive city.
This candidate did not respond to our survey.
Public safety is a number one priority for my campaign. As community spaces, parks should be a safe space where all people feel welcome. Unfortunately, from what I have heard from community members and experienced myself, is that parks house some of our city’s most pressing public health crises: homelessness, substance use, and community violence.
On the Council, as I have done through my career, I will champion root cause investments that address our city’s most urgent issues and diversion programs to provide immediate relief and help navigate resources to those most impacted. All Parks should be maintained with care and that requires the full staffing of the Parks Department. If elected, I will work with all city departments to make sure we deliver on our commitment to public service. I will continue the legacy of my father to ensure equity in our city.
We need more investments in maintenance and activation. Cal Anderson Park, for example, is one of Seattle’s most popular, but it’s not included in the Urban Parks Partnership, and staffing shortages at the SPR mean it doesn’t always get the activation and maintenance at the scale of its importance to the community. I will work to ensure park maintenance and activation budgets are up to the task. Many of our parks will need infrastructure upgrades to help them adapt to climate change, like irrigation systems to address drought and replanting of trees that can withstand heat. We also need more park space – our district is growing and to meet the basic need for greenspace we’re going to have to get creative about how to do that. Our parks are some of the places where our toughest social issues play out – homelessness, mental and behavioral health challenges, and by supporting programs like the Rangers, investing in REACH and other outreach workers, and supporting healthy activation we can ensure they are safe and welcoming for everyone.
Yes! Many of our facilities need upgrades/restoration. As an example, the bathrooms and common area building at Cowen, just across the street from my house, are egregious in comparison to the park they sit in. Bathrooms need to be upgraded (and/or added) in just about every park.
Magnuson needs enormous capital investments just to get to standard–some of the buildings or other facilities (docks) have safety and HVAC issues, and chronic underinvestment there has led to real decay. Public safety/cleanliness is obviously an issue–and access to greenspace in the densely settled U District is a problem.
Access to swimming lessons/pools is also a huge issue for the high concentration of families in my district, as well as staffing/hours of operation at centers like Ravenna/Eckstein.
Access to world-class parks is woven into our city’s social fabric. It’s why when I moved here from New York over 20 years ago, I knew it was the best place in the world for me to start and raise my family. Unfortunately, lately I’ve felt that many of our parks lack basic infrastructure and safety so that everyone in our community regardless of ability, access to a car, or background are able to enjoy them fully.
Three major issues are top of mind to me. First, ensuring we designate safe and healthy streets that allow safe access to our parks and green spaces by foot, bike, or other means. Second, maintaining the cleanliness and safety of our parks by investing in park staff and infrastructure, so that everyone in our community feels welcome and safe there. Finally, I am deeply concerned about the loss of tree canopy in our city. The city’s comprehensive report shows that the single largest area of loss of trees is on publicly owned and maintained land, including here in District 4. It is a top priority for me to engage with our Office of Sustainability and Environment to design effective rules and investments that will grow rather than diminish tree canopy on our green spaces.
This candidate did not respond to our survey.
District 5 has a disproportionate number of parks with lower income communities having less overall green spaces and access to them than those in higher income neighborhoods. I attribute this to environmental racism as the neighborhoods with the least access are more ethnically diverse with bigger BIPOC populations. I will push for more public parks to be opened in the areas most needing them, I will also push for the reintroduction of indigenous plants and trees into our neighborhoods to revitalize the greenery in the city, and specifically D5. Parks, like Jackson Park Golf Course, are not accessible to everyone, since only some parts of it are free to access, which is inequitable and needs to be addressed.
The Parks Levy this last year was instrumental in funding many of my priorities and in my next term I will work to ensure the projects are delivered on time. From new restrooms, to retrofits and rebuilding buildings – we have a lot to be excited for in our Park system, but money allocated doesn’t mean it will be implemented. As I helped pass this levy, I am now best positioned to monitor its progress.
There are many issues affecting our parks including accessibility and safety issues, and preserving the plants and wildlife in our city’s parks. During my first term I was instrumental in the Green Lake Outer Loop completion specifically between the Put Put Golf and HWY 99 so that residents can have safer access to and around Green Lake. I also resolved the encampments at Ballard Commons and Woodland Park without sweeps and have partnered with Mayor Harrell to expand our homelessness response by creating neighborhood based response teams and funding for park rangers. I will continue to work hard to keep our parks safe and open to the community including hiring park rangers.
Ensuring that all parks remain open and available for everyone to use. Increase the geographic area that the Park Rangers can work in.
Yes. I am proud of the work we have done to advance a robust capital plan via the Metropolitan Park District renewal. But, only when that plan is truly implemented will we be able to pat ourselves on the back. If last year was dedicated to locking in a plan, the next six are dedicated to getting the work done.
In District 7 that means finally renovating the Queen Anne Community Center. The $23 million update will be the most significant improvement since 1950. I am immensely proud of securing the investment to get this done and I want to see it finished.
Beyond the Community Center, Queen Anne needs turf sports fields at Big Howe. I am committed to bringing this capital improvement about.
In the Downtown core, we need to continue our work of partnering with the Downtown Seattle Association to active our urban parks and open spaces. Bell Street Park in particular has immense potential as a source of order, stability, and activation in a neighborhood struggling with public safety concerns.
There are a few issues–one of them is to have more parks dedicated for off-leash dogs. There is currently a shortage of off-leash dog parks in District 7, so when dog owners take their dogs to parks without off-leash areas and let them off the leash, the dogs can damage the parks. Another one of the issues I see personally is trash and other potential biohazard material from those individuals who are living in some of District 7’s public parks. As part of my campaign platform about homelessness, I would encourage our unhoused neighbors out of public parks and into supportive and transitional housing. Lastly, there is the general issue of maintenance. We need to take care of the primary needs of the parks from watering trees and to maintaining buildings. This is a good governance point.
Using fracked gas to heat and cool our buildings is responsible for over a third of our city’s climate pollution, as well as a major source of indoor air pollution. Moving our buildings to electric heat pumps is a critical task that will eliminate climate and indoor air pollution, add life saving cooling capacity, and lower energy use through greater efficiency. I support the Building Emissions Performance Standards coming out of the mayor’s office that sets deadlines for ending climate pollution from buildings larger than 20k square feet, but I believe we need faster timelines, 2035 rather than 2050, and stronger enforcement mechanisms. We need to help our affordable housing providers and multi-family buildings make these changes, too. I will help them search for local, state, and federal funds to get this work done under a Community Workforce Agreement as quickly as possible so renters can get cooling capacity quickly without major rent hikes. Half of the homes in Seattle are still unprepared for the next heat dome because they lack air conditioning. This leaves vulnerable residents in grave danger. I will develop strategies using Inflation Reduction Act funding to drastically increase the proportion of Seattle homes with heat pump air conditioning to be ready for a hotter future. I will partner with environmental groups developing policy and fight for major state and federal subsidies to ensure that we can equitably eliminate climate and indoor air pollution and get people access to cooling without burdensome costs. Finally affordable housing, high wage jobs, and density in our cities are key climate solutions. To eliminate emissions from commuting and improve peoples’ lives we must stop displacing people out of the city to only commute back here for work. We need an economy where people can afford to work where they live. And we need to upzone strategically: I support Alternative 6 for the One Seattle Comprehensive Plan.
This candidate did not respond to our survey.
In office, I dedicated funds for turning half of Seattle’s community hubs into climate resilience hubs, but the work won’t end there. The next step is to do the same for our BIPOC community and cultural centers where people already go and trust.
I’ve also been a proponent of the Seattle Green New Deal before it was even implemented, helped implement it, and secured progressive funds for it. That said, some of the funding sits unused without designations from the mayor. It will take all of us advocating with the executive branch and our state delegation to advance the choices needed to end environmental racism.
Then there is, of course, increasing our tree canopy. Inviting homeowners to do the burden will result in disparities. The pilot on this recently came out, and we should expand the youth union job core with tree planting. I would hope to move this into the Parks Department.
Plus approximately 87,000 Seattle homes are still on fracked gas (10% of emissions, the second biggest contributor). We can and should wane people off of this while following through with our promises to unions about jobs within the just transition. Part of this means being ready at the municipal level for the release of IRA and CC funds before big corporations like Tesla and Apple try to scoop them up first. We can then take these public investments and pair them with community workforce agreements. Cheaper energy bills.
Beyond homes and buildings, our biggest emitting sector is transportation. We must both reduce commutes via affordable housing that keeps people close to where they work, and reduce reliance on cars by making transit the easiest option (frequent, reliable, and accessible).
Seattle should also divest from fossil fuels—a big, volatile component still within our pension funds.
This candidate did not respond to our survey.
To combat the dangerous and damaging impacts of climate change, a coordinated response from all sectors and residents in Seattle is necessary. The City Council serves as the Board of the Seattle Parks District, and can and must center improvements to Seattle’s green spaces, urban forests, parks, and overall tree canopy to meet not only the recreational needs of our city, but also climate resilience goals – including carbon storage, water and air filtration, and other critical roles trees and open space play for the health and quality of life in our communities.
I’ll work with my colleagues and at the state and federal levels to realize the potential of our parks and open spaces, including immediate action to re-forest areas of our parks that have suffered the majority of tree canopy loss in the city, as well as investments in neighborhoods that are becoming “heat sinks” of pavement, poor cooling, lack of trees, and proximity to fossil fuel infrastructure.
A commitment to the Green New Deal will create housing, healthcare, education, and job opportunities for everyone in our community. I am deeply in support of this initiative. The Green New Deal centers Black and Brown voices in environmentalism and is the type of change we need to protect these communities. We must approach this crisis with a dual focus on overall improvements and best practices, as well as targeted investments in underserved and historically marginalized areas of our city.
We’ve seen an increase in heat and smoke in our region and frontline communities have had to bear the burden. With the development of Resilience Hubs, we are able to assist those folks in preparing and staying safe for climate emergencies. Changing existing infrastructure in all 650 of our city buildings will guarantee our residents can enjoy their communities without dealing with the health complications associated with pollution. Relying on outdated technologies and environmentally dangerous fossil fuels is not serving our communities now and certainly has no place in our future. The focus at every level of government must be a transition to clean, renewable resources, including solar and wind. Investing in multi-family affordable housing projects with electrification instead of fossil fuels will ensure thriving families and thriving futures for them. We must advance our climate justice efforts by evaluating our emissions and moving towards electrification and decarbonization to improve the health of the community. The Green New Deal means healthy neighborhoods.
I have spent more than a decade working for solutions that build walkable communities where you don’t need a gallon of gas to get a gallon of milk and to decarbonize our transportation sector by creating real alternatives like reliable transit, safe cycling, and accessible walking. Cities are climate leaders, and I’m excited about the opportunity to keep pushing for safe, green, and healthy communities and have Seattle continue to be a climate leader.
Prevention. At the municipal level, we can aggressively pursue carbon emissionsemission through the promotion of public transit, support for transportation electrification, building code updates, and increasing housing density to support walkable, carbon-lite neighborhoods. Good urbanism is a major component of the climate movement’s progressive future.
Adaptation. Cities have to recognize that climate change is already here. We need to keep investing in clean air centers for wildfire smoke events, rapidly planting urban trees to increase our canopy, creating resiliency networks for neighbors to support each other, and stockpiling masks for public health.
Building Walkable Neighborhoods connected by great transit. Dense walkable neighborhoods are climate solutions. Seattle must make zoning changes to allow for more housing and support decarbonized transportation with good transit planning and multimodal options. I’ve published housing and transportation policy papers, each with dozens of ideas on how we can advance on these at City Council.
Championing Seattle Climate Action Plan. City government has committed to building three low-pollution neighborhoods by 2028. I’ll push beyond that and pursue low-emissions zones, eco-districts, resilience districts, more parks and open space, and pedestrian market streets across the city, funded in the upcoming Move Seattle Levy.
Building a Green Economy. I will champion increased and sustained investment in workforce development to train, educate, and mentor people to be prepared for the green jobs of our future – building housing and infrastructure, operating transit, installing clean energy solutions, tending to our urban forests. We must focus the future on good jobs for a healthy planet.
Centering Environmental Justice. We all have the right to clean air, water, and land free from toxins. Pollutants are not evenly distributed, and low-income, black, brown, and indigenous communities bear the brunt of environmental destruction and degradation. Environmental racism shortens lives, increases illness, destroys communities, and is present and obvious here in Seattle as much as it is around the world. We have to look to the intersection of social justice and climate action to build a better future that doesn’t replicate the harms and misses of the past.
I have a lot of thoughts about addressing our climate impacts, and my plans for doing so are intertwined with the rest of my platform.
There is, for example, a major intersection between our wildfire smoke preparedness and housing. Seattle must provide housing for all of its residents and while we are building it, provide safe, clean, temperate spaces during emergencies. At times when our air quality is some of the worst on the planet, leaving unhoused people in the streets is inhumane. I have discussed my plans for housing above. Further, we need to improve air filtration standards in buildings and provide subsidies for those who cannot afford it, and work toward a Passivhaus standard. We need 100,000 more street and park trees (the nurture of which will require real investment), which cool and filter the air. While these will not be enough to combat a major smoke emergency, they do reduce the overall level of exposure individuals have on a daily basis. Although I support aggressive upzoning, I’m partial to modestly higher buildings and lower lot coverage maximums, protecting trees and greenspace and absorbing runoff as well.
In terms of limiting our own climate impact, over 60% of our emissions come from cars. Investing in a 15-minute-city by legalizing most uses in all places will mean fewer and shorter trips. Reducing the time, convenience, reliability, and safety penalty for transit, biking, and walking, dramatically shifting modeshares. Because much of the climate impact of a car happens at manufacture–the cleanest car is one that is never built.
My goal is to make getting around the city without a car as safe, easy, quick, convenient, and reliable as it is with one–no matter a person’s ability or financial situation. This will require relocating our uses on many of our streets and pedestrian areas. We’ll need a protected, connected biking grid, safe streets and even safer crossings, excellent pedestrian facilities, and frequent, fast, and reliable transit. All will take considerable investment, and most will require moving right-of-way away from its current dominant form–general purpose lanes. We will also need to electrify everything that isn’t human-propelled, which will mean a very different distributed charging and storage infrastructure. This reallocation will also bring the opportunity to expand tree coverage and greenspaces, which, aside from the climate benefits, will also serve to beautify the city and attract visitors. Buildings are our next biggest source of emissions. We need to move to carbon-storing (mass timber) construction at greater heights (without concrete), as other jurisdictions have set extremely high operating standards for building operations. We should eliminate all parking minimums and charge impact fees on new parking, particularly in transit-rich neighborhoods.
First, becoming a truly sustainable city means integrating our land-use and public transportation. The best way to reduce emissions is to ensure people live in complete communities close to the places they need to get to. We’ve talked a lot over the years about making Seattle a 15-minute city, and truly making that promise a reality means bold investments in multi-modal transportation, pedestrian infrastructure, and greenspaces alongside more inclusive zoning.
Additionally, Seattle has a proposal on the table right now that would reduce the city’s emissions by 10% through new Building Emissions Performance Standards. This is one of the most significant single steps we can take to address Seattle’s impact on the climate. Outside of this policy, I support boldly addressing Seattle’s transportation emissions. Transportation accounts for 61% of our emissions and nearly 10% is just freight. Through partnership with the Port of Seattle, private business, the federal government, and our regional allies we can make investments to electrify all 4,000 heavy duty vehicles serving the Port. Seattle has promised net-zero emissions for 30% of goods distribution, but we are nowhere near accomplishing this important goal. We need to scale up our Transportation Electrification Blueprint, Electric Trucks Pilot program, and invest in electrifying all of Seattle’s publicly owned fleet.
This candidate did not respond to our survey.
Expanding the Green New Deal in our city, and ensuring that the upcoming Comprehensive Plan is interconnected with it, is essential to limiting our climate impacts. We need climate justice motivating our climate resilience. It is important to recognize that much of the climate impacts that we are suffering from are coming from corporations and entities. To truly address the issues, we need to have a just transition towards climate resilience with make equitable investments, and progressive divestments from industries that are contributing to climate impacts. For example, I will advocate for policies like the Seattle building emissions performance standard policy and the living hotels ordinanceI also aim to have a network at the county and state level to ensure that we are all moving towards infrastructural and systemic change.
After helping pass the greenest energy code in the nation we still have a lot more work to do. I will continue to focus on developing micro grids like at Miller Park, upgrade our electrical infrastructure to take on higher loads, identify clean energy sources, and work to electrify existing buildings and expand electrification in new construction. As Vice-Chair of the Transportation Committee it is my priority to electrify transportation, extend bicycle greenways and expand pedestrian connections. Passing the tree ordinance will fund the new planting of trees. With so many trees dying in our parks we need to use this funding to ensure the tree canopy in our public parks grows, not shrinks.
Plant more trees on city-controlled land. Making sure that we prioritize underserved communities that are in heat deserts.
I am proud of the investments we made in the last Metropolitan Park District to upgrade 13 of our 26 community centers to be cooling and sheltering centers during extreme weather events. These investments will also decarbonize and weatherize these community centers, some of which have not had a major update in over 70 years.
Climate change is here and we have to face it. I am proud to be the only candidate running for City Council in District 7 who mentioned climate change as a priority in my voter guide statement. It starts by making the investments and putting our money where our mouth is. In the Metropolitan Park District plan that is what we did.
The easiest answer to this question is to build up Seattle’s tree canopy. It mitigates the urban heat island effect and acts as a basic air-cleaner for the city. I would also work with key stakeholders like UW, City Light, the Office of Sustainability & Environment, and big and small businesses to develop common-sense solutions can be applied all over the city, like finding cost-effective methods to reduce reliance on carbon while supporting City Light and separately addressing waste/storm water run-off.
Redlining, which essentially limited further investment in minority neighborhoods, resulted in fewer parks and trees, which has led to much higher temperatures in those areas. I will fight to better fund parks, rain gardens, bioswales, green roofs, green walls, planter box barriers, green medians, street trees, and urban forests. And I will prioritize historically underinvested neighborhoods first. Heat is the deadliest of the climate crisis effects, and the right amount of tree cover can reduce daytime temperatures up to 10 degrees.
This candidate did not respond to our survey.
It’s clear to me that the recently passed Tree Protection Ordinance was rushed—didn’t even engage the Urban Forestry Commission. While it was an improvement in so far as it creates a fund for planting trees, it is far from perfect and so will need amendments. Trees are incredibly important to me because they help with climate mitigation (reducing heat stress and related medical emergencies by providing shade and water retention, reducing land degradation, and cleaning our air). Heat waves have become more and more frequent. We cannot continue deprioritizing trees. It is especially clear that historically redlined neighborhoods have been forced to become some of the hottest, and therefore deadliest, places in our city via decimated tree canopy. This is unacceptable.
This candidate did not respond to our survey.
The Tree Protection Ordinance is an important first step in protecting critical tree canopy within our city and investing in equitable tree canopy for our future. As displayed in the 2021 Tree Canopy Assessment presented by the Office of Sustainability and Environment, neighborhood residential zones are one of the leading accounts for total tree canopy loss. We must prioritize climate action. While curbing tree canopy loss, the Tree Protection Ordinance also invests in historically underserved communities which will be the first to feel the climate consequences.
In addition to the programs and partnerships the city is pursuing to achieve tree canopy goals, we must commit to the Tree Canopy Equity and Resilience Plan being developed by the Office of Sustainability and Environment. To meet our city’s housing crisis and global climate crisis, I will work with our city’s departments, developers, elected leaders, residents and communities to prioritize a sustainable and equitable future for Seattle.
Policies such as the tree protection ordinance are a good start but do not do enough to expand our tree canopy to the city’s 30% coverage goal by 2037. City data has shown that tree canopy loss is disproportionately happening because of suburban sprawl eating into the greenfield space at the edges of our city. I will prioritize urban infill through upzoning so developers will focus new construction inside the city rather than destroying greenspace for more low density housing. I will also aggressively pursue funding tree canopy expansion using progressive revenue sources to not only meet the city’s 30% tree canopy goal but to push far beyond it to address economic and racial inequities exacerbated by heat islands in this city.
We need to keep as many trees as possible, and we need more housing. Our code currently sets these up in a near zero-sum manner and then just asks developers to pay to deal with the loss. We can do better. We need a lot more of both.
The only way to both do that and ensure that the housing supply keeps up is to change the rules that force the relationship to be zero-sum. We should use more stringent lot coverage limits (including green space requirements) and flexible footprint location (with significant height and FAR bonuses for footprints that are further constrained because of protected trees (and yes, we should have trees that are firmly protected too) to make it feasible to both protect mature trees and build all the housing we need. I think the key is to make sure it is both profitable to build more housing and equally or more profitable to do so while firmly requiring the protection of mature trees. I believe the way to do this is as follows.
Set more reasonable lot coverage requirements (50% or 70%, not 85%+).
Eliminate setback requirements so buildings can fulfill their lot coverage allotment without bulldozing trees.
Set firm protections for those trees.
Where the firm protections for those trees don’t allow a builder to get their full lot coverage requirement/FAR, offer height bonuses. Building up is usually more expensive, so the height bonus will probably have to exceed the FAR lost.
For example, if you have a 50% lot coverage maximum on a 5,000-square-foot lot and a FAR of 2, you’re nominally allowed to build 10,000 square feet. But say the site has mature trees that prevent the 50% from being used, and only 40% can be used. I’d be inclined to offer extra height to make up 1.5x the square footage lost. This would not only protect trees and address the additional cost of building up, but it would mean we site more housing next to mature trees, which is something our communities need.
In addition, by changing our streets to be less car-centric–adding bike lanes, more public transit, and smaller lanes so cars go slower, resulting in fewer fatal collisions–we will also reclaim space to plant trees. In places like North Seattle, where there are sidewalks missing, we have to be sure that trees are built into expanding pedestrian infrastructure, and any spaces that are fully pedestrianized must also meet a certain amount of greenspace and tree coverage.
We also need to site more housing next to tree-heavy parks! That way, the human experience of existing trees is expanded, too–this is a matter of climate justice.
I supported the Mayor’s ordinance – it was well-intentioned and much-needed. But I think we can go much further. Protecting our tree canopy is protecting what makes Seattle special as well as being essential to our climate and sustainability goals.
I’d work with the community to make a bolder plan. In addition to creating more stringent rules for tree canopy on private property, we also need to take a hard look at management of public land. Mismanagement of publicly-owned trees accounted for the most significant source of loss.
This candidate did not respond to our survey.
I absolutely support this ordinance and will want to amend it to include maximizing the retention of existing healthy trees, especially large ones, and planting more trees, as part of a climate resiliency plan for low income communities. I am also of indigenous descent and I am fiercely opposed to the removal of trees. The world is a better place when we’re in tune with nature, not working against it. I support the planting of indigenous trees and helping foster our local environment, and will want to ensure that our tree ordinance prioritizes keeping trees rather than removing them.
The tree protection ordinance culminated decades of work to preserve, protect, and expand urban tree canopy. Passing the tree ordinance represents the start of ongoing tree protections in our city and the ordinance passed this year protects more trees than ever before in city history. There are still improvements to make as is always the case with passing laws that have been caught in gridlock for more than a decade.
When the tree ordinance passed, I stated the need to continue working to protect trees in our city, and I look forward to continuing to do so. Four years ago, I helped write and pass a resolution about what was needed in the Tree Protection Ordinance. This resolution directed departments on what to focus on which led to the ordinance we passed this year. When we passed the ordinance this year, I committed to continue updating the tree protections within city code and I have already begun working on the next resolution which will outline the next set of parameters. We expect this resolution to pass this coming December. I look forward to updating protections and working with stakeholders to improve tree regulations.
The ordinance is a step in the right direction, but more needs to be done to protect our tree canopy. Incentivize builders to save trees on private property by giving other allowances such as extra height.
The ordinance addresses one of the most significant category of tree loss which is the unsanctioned removal of trees on the property of neighborhood residential homes. In total, this category represents 87 acres, or nearly a third of the total tree loss. By contrast, tree loss due to development was only 35 acres. By expanding more protections to trees in neighborhood residential areas the current tree ordinance should help reverse the decline of canopy growth.
Parks and natural areas represented by far the biggest category of canopy loss in the most recent survey at 111 acres. In the recent renewal of the Metropolitan Improvement District we increased the budget for tree planting sufficiently for a NET increase in tree canopy on park land over the course of the six year investment cycle. We cannot continue to have canopy assessments indicating that our parks and open spaces are debtors, and not contributors, to our tree accounting. I am proud of my leadership to reverse this decline and invest in our trees.
Seattle needs its trees, and having more trees around in general by contributing to canopy can also benefit residents and developers in other ways. Trees help mitigate the heat island effect, benefits mental health, and increases property value. For me personally, I love the evergreen trees and we also need to maintain the evergreen aspect of our city’s story. With respect to the tree ordinance, I have concerns from the perspective of good governance. We need to have all stakeholders participate in this process and have their voices heard. We need to find that balance where we’re supportive of densification and development, but also find ways to increase–not just maintain–our tree canopy.
I envision a future where all Seattle residents can live healthy, prosperous lives, in a thriving sustainable ecosystem—where we all have access to clean air and water, and respite from heat and smoke. A future where we’ve made an equitable transition away from fossil fuels, leaving no one behind. One where we invest in infrastructure including transportation, EV charging stations, free municipal broadband, green spaces, and public facilities to create stable, well-paying jobs that prioritize local hire and are protected by Community Workforce Agreements to ensure high-quality work and benefits for local workers and neighborhoods. A future where we support families and communities, including paid family and sick leave, affordable child care and health care, and high-quality, low-cost educational opportunities for all, while prioritizing investment in communities historically most harmed by economic, racial, and environmental injustice. I will do everything within my power to make this a reality, building coalitions, and partnering with Indigenous and frontline communities, unions, and environmental groups to ensure a better future for all. I will fight to better fund parks, rain gardens, bioswales, green roofs, green walls, planter box barriers, green medians, street trees, and urban forests. And I will prioritize historically underinvested neighborhoods first. Heat is the deadliest of the climate crisis effects, and the right amount of tree cover can reduce daytime temperatures up to 10 degrees.
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Certainly, a component of this is expanding language justice to every department. D2 is the most diverse district in Seattle, with many different language speakers. I have been working hard on this, but the work is far from over. Our Parks Department does a lot of outreach and community engagement, but there’s always room for improvement (like participation for workers of all shifts, childcare, translations and translators, accessibility). And then there’s the steps after engagement. Seattle does a lot of talk but struggles with follow-through. We simply need to be better on this, and know when to stop saying ‘more studies.’ There are many times when we have studied something plenty, done the engagement, and know what to do; so we should just do it.
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As a lifelong neighbor of this District, I have seen and experienced first-hand the inequitable access to parks and public spaces and their consequences. My father, who served thirty years with the Seattle Parks & Recreation Department, dedicated his career to ensuring that parks in both North and South Seattle were clean and welcoming to all.
Improving the access and protecting the health of historically burdened communities needs to be centered in decision-making and prioritized in policy. I am dedicated to protecting the rights of BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, people with disabilities and other historically excluded communities that have long found a home in our neighborhoods and City. On the Council, I want to help amplify voices like mine that have been historically excluded from City Hall decisions to implement community driven policies and solutions.
– Improve public engagement in parks that have been historically under-funded or maintained, including community events and public meetings.
– Expand the P-Patch Community Gardening Program in neighborhoods that are situated in a food desert.
– Enhance access to learning and childcare opportunities, including extended teen programming and affordable childcare.
Parks, habitat, and other open spaces are what makes living in the city a healthy and happy choice. Humans just don’t do well without access to greenspace, and nature fails to thrive when habitat is threatened. Seattle has 485 parks and open spaces, totaling approximately 6,414 acres or nearly 8% of the land. We love our parks and open spaces in Seattle, and yet we fail too often to fund and protect what we have and create more for our growing population, and fail to meet inequities in our investments and decisions. My goals are to protect what we have and to continuously work to increase and improve our habitat, open space, and parks inventory with environmental and social justice at the forefront of that.
I have experience doing so. First Hill has the biggest public greenspace gap anywhere in the city, and nearly 15% of residents live at or below the federal poverty line. As director of First Hill’s neighborhood group, I led the project that rehabilitated our tiny First Hill Park. Though small, the park’s impact is mighty, and I learned how important it is to the community; the park is well used as a place to read a book, catch up with neighbors, and provide a needed third place. We need more of these easy-to-get-to parks spaces, in District 3 and across the city. I also helped to lead the creation of the First Hill Public Realm Action Plan, which created a strategy to use our streets and right of way to creatively increase open space in a highly constrained urban context and delivered projects that did so. We can push housing development to include great spaces for people, as I did at 800 Columbia and 702 Spring Street. These are some of the ways we can meet the growing need and invest where the gaps are biggest. I am very supportive of the Trailhead Direct program that connects people to the wilderness and believe we should increase the size and scope of the program.
We need to work with affected communities to make significant investments in new parkland and in massive investments in street trees (since streets touch every property in the city). Our most poorly covered areas are also our most marginalized–so this means they should be prioritized for new trees. But because there will be a risk of gentrification, we also need to work with these communities to devise the right strategies–particularly for new parks (which will displace some people) to ensure the prevention of displacement. My instinct is that a mix of community land trusts and a strong right-to-return ordinance will best accomplish this, along with significant investments in social housing.
As mentioned above–another important way to address this is to put more housing–including affordable and social housing–where the best public goods already are–and that includes trees and parks.
The city must ensure that investment in parks and greenspaces is equitable among all of our neighborhoods – but especially those that have been systemically underserved. Existing parks need to be well-maintained and kept clean and have safe street access. Many neighborhoods which disproportionately serve communities of color have seen less robust investment in basic infrastructure to ensure that citizens can easily navigate everything our city has to offer, including our public parks and spaces.
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We can start by providing amenities to marginalized communities, densifying neighborhoods, and constructing more parks. I’m not suggesting that we uproot people from their homes, but I believe that densification would allow us to restructure our neighborhoods around modern, high-quality amenities and enact restorative justice to the communities that have been disenfranchised throughout Seattle’s history.
In Seattle, we continue to see low income neighborhoods adjacent to industrial lands to bear the burden of pollution without the support they need to live in a healthy community. I have supported programs to collect the data to back this up and the programs to address this issue. From the “Georgetown Green Wall”, to adding trees scarcity in industrial areas, to supporting the EPA/County/City’s work in the Duwamish, and I will continue to support historically burdened communities and their right to healthy and clean environments. As a city, we need to make sure parks in marginalized communities are equally managed and funded, and designed for accessibility. We need to continue to work directly with communities on how to design, update, and increase park and green spaces in their communities.
Include all voice at the table.
In the recent renewal of the Metropolitan Improvement District that I presided over we doubled the size of the Equity Fund for park improvement projects. The Equity Fund makes resources available for needed parks infrastructure without requiring a private match. This allows communities all across Seattle without the historic ability to secure such match the ability to bid for needed improvements, like playgrounds, sports fields, and the acquisition of new parks.
I am proud to have led to double the Equity Fund. I am also proud to have carved out curtain projects from the Equity Fund to be paid for separately through the general capital investment plan, allowing the dollars in the Equity Fund to go even farther. All communities in Seattle deserve great parks facilities. In the new Metropolitan Park District we are leading.
Increasing green and park space access, particularly in areas like South Seattle, is very important to me especially when thinking of tree canopy. Seattleites need public parks and spaces where they can play with their children and dogs, and having green spaces readily available is good for residents. I will gladly work with my colleagues to find spaces all over the city where even small parks can be added to best serve their communities. Turning to District 7, I think it’s important to develop the links between parks to increase access, so we need to have park-like pedestrian corridors that connect, so, for example, connecting the Seattle Center to the new waterfront and also to South Lake Union to further the idea of “lake to bay.”
This district includes South Park, the industrial Duwamish River, Roxhill, and Delridge. All are neighborhoods that have inequitable access and maintenance of public spaces and/or significant exposure to pollution. What is your plan to address these issues?
I will fight to make every library and community center a climate resilience hub with clean air, heat-pump cooling, microgrid solar for backup power, and access to wrap around social services so when we have extreme heat, smoke, cold, or our inevitable earthquake people have a place to go. And I will start with the historically underinvested neighborhoods first, like Georgetown and South Park. I will partner with community organizations like the Duwamish River Community Coalition to ensure that we center the voices of the communities that are most impacted. We must leverage the Superfund, and work with local neighborhoods and the Duwamish tribe who have suffered from pollution and flooding to decide what investments they want to make to build a stronger future. I will work to stand up city run distribution systems of simple and cost effective fan filters so people can protect themselves from the impact of wildfire smoke. My previously mentioned policies to get buildings heat pumps as quickly as we can are a key piece of ensuring peoples’ homes and workplaces have access to life saving cooling capacity.
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I have and will always be a proponent of prioritizing the spaces that have been historically de-prioritized. Part of this has to do with redlining and the impacts it has today with access to green space. We must right these wrongs by prioritizing more green space protections and creation within D2 rather than only to those who have the loudest voices (typically homeowners in weather, whiter parts of Seattle). I have thus deliberately fought for and provided more investment in D2 than it has historically received, but it still pales in comparison to other districts.
A part of my plan to improve community safety involves activating our streets, and we can do the same for our parks. The more events and activities we have, the less crime we see. This has been proven by community violence intervention organizations on the ground in D2. Another component is improved lighting. Both city workers and city residents would benefit from this.
Much of my approach has to do with prevention. Reducing violence must begin with changing the community conditions that lead to violence in the first place (lack of stability and security). So a part of the answer, naturally, must include affordable housing, food security, higher wages, and fostering stronger community relationships.
That said, we can’t ignore that guns are a uniquely American problem. Shootings in Seattle have nearly doubled since 2019, from 197 shooting reports to 417 up to July of each year. Because of gun violence we have lost advocates, leaders, and family. Even when non-fatal, this violence traumatizes victims and their families. We do not have to live like this or die like this. Gun violence is preventable. That’s why I will partner with the County to create a Regional Office of Violence Prevention—a partnership-based, data-driven violence reduction strategy. Let’s scale up violence intervention work WHILE coordinating municipal and county authorities. A similar program reduced gun injuries by 50%, and reduced the number of shooting victims by 63%. Comparison precincts without this program saw only 5% and 17% reductions, respectively.
I would also like to support culturally appropriate models to violence interruption, like neighbors in the CID and New Holly request.
And then there’s education. Let’s teach families how to have gun responsibility conversations. Simply checking in before a playdate or sleepover can protect our children. Normalize asking if guns are locked away and unloaded. This is proven to prevent accidents from curious children, teens, and moments of anger or sadness. Seattle also saw a jump in suicides last year. Simple practices like this can prevent losing loved ones.
As for incident response, we must apply language justice across the board. It is unacceptable that those who don’t speak English or are an English-Second-Language speaker experience significant emergency response delays. Plus communication on investigations should be consistent and timely, no matter your language or address. This has been a very recent and consistent issue in D2. SPD needs translators in-house for all matters.
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As a third-generation District 3 neighbor, I very much appreciate this question. We must practice thoughtful city planning to meet the needs of our growing city, inviting density while also curbing the impacts of gentrification and displacement that my family and I are intimately familiar with. Many neighborhoods in D3 were historically redlined – receiving the least infrastructure investment, parks, open space protections, and transit access – a structural disadvantage which now manifests in environmental justice issues, including lack of access to safe housing, poor health outcomes, exposure to pollution, and vulnerability to extreme weather events. I am committed to protecting communities that are affected by generations of systemic and discriminatory policies and practices and generating pathways to homeownership like that presented in the new Covenant Homeownership program introduced by Rep. Jamila Taylor. There are many policies that can help address these disparities, including: – Improving Seattle building standards to retrofit existing public supported housing and mandate cleaner new construction; – Making our transportation system less dependent on fossil fuels, and helping communities adjacent to freeways and arterials with better air purification, less stormwater runoff, and better access to safe routes to transit, school, and jobs; and – Directing parks funding to improve tree canopy, and enhancing and restoring green spaces for cooling and clean air. The gentrification of my own neighborhood and displacement of Black families is a painful lesson for the City and community leaders that thoughtful planning is critical to successful urbanism.
I believe in supporting community-led groups who want to steward and champion their neighborhood parks, like we do at Freeway Park Association, with resources, supporting community efforts and solving problems, and by starting with an attitude of yes! I am supportive of the Garfield SuperBlock, a nearly decade-long community-led effort to honor the multicultural history of the Central District and make that park thrive. I have worked with the Cal Anderson Park Alliance, the Volunteer Park Trust, and the Arboretum Foundation, and want to support these community members in helping their parks thrive.
I’ve been going to Magnuson park multiple times per week, sometimes every day, for the last six years. My sons have done almost all of their after-school activities there (until my oldest recently aged out) through the YMCA (I’m on the board), and they spend their summers there at camp. I have been speaking to a community leader (Lhorna Murray) who lives in the affordable housing at Magnuson and is very active in leadership in that space, some local activists working on the food desert issue, and I am working with one of the local nonprofit leaders to gather his peers to discuss emerging issues in the park. At the Y, I also put our local regional after-school leadership in touch with some of the community center leadership–because I noticed a significant racial gap in who was accessing these services next door to one other–and of course, we have done fundraising work to support the food pantry and scholarship for kids attending after school and summer activities at Magnusen.
In other words–I’m already invested in this community and would very much love to use the opportunity as a council member to dig in much deeper to address its needs. I would love to engage with affected residents, business tenants, and regional stakeholders to envision the next chapter for what has the bones for being a world-class park and community.
(Note: I’m a big fan of the model that the University Heights Building has used to attract capital from the State and tie that to a strong social mission and requirement for its nonprofit tenants. I think something similar could be done for Magnuson, at an even larger scale.)
Representatives need to listen to all of their constituents, particularly underrepresented and marginalized communities. If elected, I’d be the first person of color to represent this district. Magnussen holds a special place in my family’s heart – my kids have grown up there – from playing on the play structures, to flying kites to rec soccer. The revitalization of the area has brought recreation, education and community-engagement opportunities to so many. There’s a great new community center, and an affordable housing development situated in the park. Mercy Magnusson has allowed direct access to acres of green space to a whole new population of residents. And there is room for much more thoughtful growth in the park. But like all parks in our city, Magnusson needs the staffing and resources to keep it well-maintained, clean and safe.
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I will begin by rebuilding the community center, and pushing for the creation of more parks in Lake City. It is an area that has been often neglected by our city, and I plan to change that once I am elected
(1) We need to address homelessness without sweeps, get people inside and into shelter and permanent housing. My work at Ballard Commons and Woodland Parks resolved encampments without sweeps and helped restructure the way Seattle addresses homelessness by creating a census, needs assessment, and taking the time to move people inside. I have been an outspoken supporter about expanding this model to be neighborhood based teams so that each neighborhood has a team they work with and rely on. My work didn’t stop there. For both parks I set up plans that were immediately implemented to attend to deferred maintenance and improve both parks. Woodland Park, as an urban forest, required less work and the park today is in better condition than it was in 2019. At Ballard Commons we planted more trees, added benches, increased the lighting with the cafe lights, and fixed the skate bowls for the first time in over a decade. The park looks better now than when it was first opened.
At Ballard Commons we are in year 4 of a 6 year plan to improve the park. As Ballard Commons is by design an urban park, this means that adjacent private property owners need to be part of the solution too. This summers’ schedule of activities was an immense success and just last week we broke ground on the new children’s playground which is being added to the park. Right now the only amenities in the park are the spray park (for 0-5 year olds) and the skate bowl (for 17+ year olds) which creates a gap in activities for anyone between 5 and 17 years old. This playground will help close that gap because the park needs to be inviting to all ages and abilities.
Across the street I have worked with and helped St. Luke’s church with their redevelopment plan. They will redevelop all the land across the street from the park to have family-affordable housing, market rate housing, and a new sanctuary. This new project will bring many more people to the park by being just across the street and the family affordable housing will create opportunities for families who currently can’t afford to live near the park to have immediate access to the space.
(2) Green Lake Community Center was originally going to be funded in the first round of Metropolitan Parks District funding, but the neighboring community identified projects in other parts of the city and decided they were more important. The 95 year old building has been failing on many fronts for longer than a decade. To bridge this gap, the last Metropolitan Parks District funded some renovations to the community center and have since been implemented, yet those renovations have already failed. As the most heavily used park in the city, the building needs to be replaced. I understand why the price tag jumps out at people because it initially jumped out at me as well.
There are several additional factors which escalate costs rapidly. When John Olmstead lowered the lake level, more space was created for the park which is where the community center sits today, atop unstable lake sediment and fill. Additionally, the existing pool was built by casting all the piping in concrete which means the facility needs to be completely rebuilt because renovations are not possible. On top of the pool is a roof that was built in the 1955 expansion and has since been designated a landmark by the city. These are just the baseline issues causing the price escalation before adding amenities such as childcare, or reopening the western wall to better integrate the waterfront and the community center.
The most recent design of the Green Lake Community Center replacement was designed beyond what should be built and raised the replacement cost to around $160 million. This design was beyond what is responsible for the city to build. While it would be nice to have two swimming pools, it is not a must have.
Rebuilding the community center has already been passed over. Since Green Lake is the most used park in the city with the renovations already failing, there is no other option than to rebuild the facility. While we do not need a replacement with all the bells and whistles of the most recent design, we do need the community center replaced. I wish the project did not require as much funding as it does, but because of the issues mentioned above, the rebuilding of this community center requires a higher level of funding than typical community center construction projects.
Green Lake Park is the most popular and heavily visited park in our system. Therefore, the Community Center must be built to reflect this continued popularity. That being said, we are responsible to the taxpayers to ensure we stay within a reasonable budget.
Downtown parks have been severely impacted by the pandemic while we also have funded major city projects that will open during your term if elected (Waterfront Park, Aquarium Ocean Pavilion). How will you ensure other downtown parks such as City Hall Park, Pioneer Park, Belltown Park, Denny Park and South Lake Union will get the attention they need to serve their residents and the community?
Every park is unique and requires its own approach and planning for full utilization. Let me go through park-by-park.
I am proud to have been intimately involved in the recent plans to restored City Hall Park with activations, physical improvements, and programming following a horrific pandemic that saw the park become a symbol of Seattle dysfunction. City Hall Park in no way resembles the horrible scene from 2020 and 2021. I am proud of the work we have done to bring it back.
Pioneer Park is a similar success story. The site of a notorious encampment until the fall of 2021, Pioneer Park is a great example of the power of place-based activations and partnerships. Right after the JustCARE remediation of Pioneer Park, my team worked with the Downtown Seattle Association, the Alliance for Pioneer Square, and Parks and Recreation to activate the space with buskers and activations. It has been a great lunch and leisure spot ever since. We need to maintain the programming commitment to keep the momentum going. And, perhaps someday, lets restore the Pergola bathroom that sits underneath.
Belltown Park has immense potential as a source of activation and stability in a neighborhood with significant public safety concerns. We should enhance the park as a right-of-way for bikes and pedestrians between South Lake Union and the Waterfront. We should also make Belltown Park a hub for our park ranger program to provide presence and safety activations.
Denny Park is blessed to have one of the most active “friends of” organizations in the city. Seattle’s first park is a gem of our park system and a great platform for seasonal activations. Protecting and expanding Denny Park’s role as a gathering space is something I will remain committed to.
South Lake Union Park requires an extensive update after its first full decade of existence. We need to work with the community to determine the best priorities for the investment of Landscape Conservation and Infrastructure Program (LCLIP) dollars in capital updates to the campus. This can include a resodding of the turf, reinvigorating the boat racing pool, and strategies to deter the geese who have been a nuisance to the hygiene of the park.
One of the things I want to do as the District 7 Councilmember is to build a District 7 Neighborhood Council, where all neighborhood community councils (including a new Downtown Community Council) can be represented and bring their ideas and concerns to me related to District 7 but also the broader city ideas and concerns as a member of the Parks District board. Representatives from all of District 7’s councils will be able to advocate for their community, and I know that my district is well-known for its love of its parks / community spaces. It’s also important to have a safe base and we need to ensure that our neighbors can enjoy these parks safely.
The feeling of safety while walking, biking, and taking transit is essential to improving health, expanding accessible mobility, and meeting climate goals in our city. While other council members often block these improvement projects due to small vocal opposition, I will remember that my district has repeatedly requested safe mobility networks. I will advocate to: – Maximize the $25.6 million safe streets grant from the federal government for D1 to implement speed humps, lower speed limits for intersections near schools and parks, more and wider sidewalks, and lane barriers. SDOT safety teams will know that I am a partner in improving the safety of our communities. – Invest in Housing, Mental Health & Substance Use Disorder Care: This is at the top of the Public Safety list because we need to start truly investing in solutions that actually deliver lasting results. No more whack-a-mole money down the drain. When mental health and substance use disorder needs are met prior to public crisis, public safety will be dramatically improved. – Skilled Unarmed Responders: Approximately one fifth of 911 calls are for mental/behavioral health or substance use disorder crises. We have waited far too long for Mayor Harrell’s proposed Third Department/CARE Team. We need fairly-paid, high-skilled, low-turnover social workers to lead mental and behavioral health crisis response, and medical professionals to lead substance use disorder care, to both preserve armed officers for the calls where they are actually needed, and also because we’ll be sending the most qualified person for the job. These additional teams will reduce response times, improve outcomes, minimize armed-officer contact with community, and alleviate the strain on the under-staffed police department. – Expand LEAD: We need to finally expand Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) into a full-scale program. LEAD has been so successful as a pilot program, including reducing participants’ recidivism by over 60%, that it has been studied by top experts and replicated nationally and internationally. We should learn from our own success and scale-up the program. – Therapeutic/Community Court: The Community Court program, although recently shuttered by the City Attorney, had an 80% success rate at preventing recidivism within two years. Community Court and a complimentary Therapeutic Court specifically tailored for drug use (building on King County’s decades old program) will be crucial tools for improving safety and helping get lives back on track. – Community Responder Programs: Create data-backed neighborhood-level safety alliances where community members and neighbors respond to low-level street crime. Scale up the promising “We Deliver Care” program. – Youth and Family Programs: Support music and sports programs, safe community spaces, and data-backed crime reduction organizations like Choose 180. Increase access to familial counseling. – Gun Violence Prevention: I will support and partner with groups like Alliance for Gun Responsibility, Choose 180, and Community Pathways that provide support and resources to communities that are disproportionately affected by gun violence.
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I feel like this question is pretty similar to the D2-specific question! See my answer there.
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I will use my experience as a lifelong Seattle resident, and my connections to community, businesses, and government to develop community-centered solutions that reduce crime, prevent gun violence, connect vulnerable people to care and keep our youth safe. I believe that all 45 of our city departments have a role to play in meeting the public safety needs of our city. As a Councilmember, I will serve as a conduit between constituents and our city’s departments and services to ensure that our communities have reliable access to basic infrastructure for all to be safe in our city.
To meet this challenge, we must take the following actions:
– Support the Mayor’s Comprehensive Police Recruitment and Retention Plan to hire more officers, first responders and reduce response times. We must invest in the appropriate staffing and responses to emergency situations, ensuring that our first responders are equipped with relevant resources and training to respond to our community’s most pressing public safety concerns.
– Prioritize alternative responses, including crisis response teams and non-armed responders, for neighbors in crisis. This means implementing policies that reduce police presence in non-violent situations and invests in our behavioral health and social service workforce.
– Expand root cause investments in youth engagement, violence disruption, and other alternatives through City departments. Models already exist within programs like DON’s Generational Wealth Initiative and partnerships with community-based organizations like Community Passages in District 3. I will strengthen investments in City Departments that have a proven track record of effective gun violence prevention and youth intervention and work to identify new partnerships with communities most impacted by gun violence.
– Fund community-based violence intervention and diversion programs, such as Seattle’s Youth Leadership, Intervention & Change (LINC) Program and Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) Program, to provide immediate service for our city’s most vulnerable communities.
– Enforce state law to address the illegal use of fentanyl in public spaces, meanwhile increase substance use services and emergency housing options.
Parks and public spaces are central to thriving communities and I strongly believe violence prevention work includes investing in local priorities to keep youth engaged: maintaining parks and green spaces, funding vocational schools and apprenticeships, and enhancing community centers and libraries to offer safe spaces for our youth with robust programming. It should always be a priority of our City Council to ensure that our neighborhoods and communities are safe and healthy. On Council, I will be a champion for bold and community-driven solutions to reduce gun violence, address root causes and disrupt cycles of violence.
Our parks can and should be a safe space for everyone in the city of Seattle to enjoy, and I am committed to that goal. The current practice of solely relying on armed officers to keep our public spaces safe is falling short and we need a holistic approach that creates both tailored responses and addresses the underlying issues that create criminal activity in the first place. I support evidence-based police alternatives such as Park Rangers, social workers or officers trained in de-escalation to respond to calls of criminal activity where an armed officer is not truly necessary. I also recognize that most violent crime, especially gun violence, is a product of poverty and alienation. The city can take significant steps towards alleviating this issue especially in our youth. Expanding community center operating hours, funding youth programs, staffing our parks for later operations, and expanding city employment opportunities are just a few of the many ways the city can provide a civic alternative for young people. We must also keep leaning in our Park design and maintenance as a deterrent to crime, CPTED improvements, activations, and ensuring basics like all our lights work make parks a place where everyone is comfortable and where anti-social behaviors are discouraged.
My position on this is really the same as my position on all public safety–and this affects both public and private spaces. In fact, my practical approach to this is why the Bus Drivers’ Union endorsed me–because they are very concerned about their own safety!
We need to prevent crime upstream, get the right response for the right crisis, ensure accountability and community legitimacy for that response, and reduce recidivism. Unless we do all these–our community will continue to suffer from being too unsafe.
Some prevention involves deep investment that pays dividends in future years. This means reversing the ways we’ve fostered unsafe conditions–reforming the way we build in this city so we no longer force people to live in concentrated poverty and away from opportunity or so that we build housing as fast as people move here, so our most vulnerable don’t get pushed onto the streets.
Some prevention involves investments that pay dividends on the order of weeks, months, or a year or two. We have to rebuild our human services and social safety net, providing direct assistance to poor families with children and young adults up to 25. For the fastest gains, we need to invest in evidence-based community violence intervention programming–like Community Passageways–that interrupts cycles of gun violence and gets the highest-risk people away from violence. These focus on access to jobs and positive activities, engagement with mentors, keeping young people busy with positive pursuits, and reducing access to guns for high-risk individuals–and it is proven to reduce gun violence. We do a lousy job at funding it.
We also have to send the right crisis responder or use the right tool for each crisis.
We need to send social workers to most behavioral health calls. They have more expertise and are less likely to violate people’s civil rights. Taking this load off can free up police time to respond more quickly, intervene in violent situations, and investigate sex crimes. Almost half of SPD calls don’t require an officer. We should do as Albuquerque has done and scale up this alternate response.
Most traffic violations should be automatic and camera-enforced. Traffic stops are where a great deal of racial bias has shown up in policing, and this can be automated to help an overstretched workforce. We just need to ensure we do not over-enforce in already marginalized neighborhoods and that there are safeguards to prevent inappropriate surveillance.
Police aren’t necessary for directing traffic at events or for administering Narcan either. Police should then be able to respond to the more acute situations – impending violence, violence in progress, investigating sex crimes, and the destruction of storefronts.
It must also be remembered that police hiring markets are dire–85% of jurisdictions in Washington State are below target. Nationally, most large cities are far from the target, and some–including even red cities like Tulsa, Memphis, and Suburban Atlanta–are as far from their staffing peaks (or nearly so) as Seattle. Tens of thousands have left the profession rebuilding this will take a long time. The problem is much bigger than us. So we need to do our very best to hire–but SPD says that realistically, even with bonuses and marketing–we will grow by 15 to 30 officers in the next year. Not the 400 that some politicians magically promise. So, the specialization I mentioned above is also imperative if we want any actual response to emergencies!
We also need accountable policing. Any attorney will tell you governance requires oversight – any CEO must submit to a board, and our entire government structure at the federal, state, and local levels is built around mutual oversight.
The King County Sheriff’s Department and Seattle’s Senior officers are increasingly moving toward real civilian oversight, but Seattle’s front is not. If our police are not accountable, they will continue to behave in ways that alienate the community, violate civil rights, and keep our city under the watchful eye of the Justice Department, which had to intervene because of our racially biased policing practices. Getting this right will protect our citizens and will begin to heal the relationship between the community and its enforcers.
We need to rehabilitate people whenever possible. We have decades of evidence that focused, evidence-based practice can significantly reduce reoffending rates and that just straight-up jailing someone may actually increase reoffending rates. We need to prioritize actual safety and use 21st-century, science-based practices, not use the justice system as a way to briefly vet our anger at defendants and create lifelong repeat offenders.
I will never forget the waiting and worrying when my kids were in lockdown for hours inside Ingraham High School after last fall’s school shooting. I am running for City Council to bring the urgency, skillset, and focus that is needed to improve public safety and ensure every Seattle neighborhood is safe. Whether it is the highest levels of hate crimes in at least 20 years, more break-ins, car thefts and property damage, the epidemic of gun violence, or the deadly grip of fentanyl on our streets, we deserve better. I’m deeply concerned with violence in our public spaces and parks. Many of them have become examples of our city’s failure to meaningfully address public safety.
Job one is to listen to the community. Ultimately, community members know best what they need to be truly safe.
The current crisis is an interlocking problem resulting from skyrocketing drug and substance abuse, mental health challenges, lack of investment in crisis care, as well as a gutted police force with the lowest staffing levels in decades. We need to recruit and retain more officers; investing in substance abuse and behavioral health alternatives like Health One; increase enforcement of illegal drug use and dealing; and enact targeted strategies on gun violence prevention.
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The increased criminality due to breakdown in our system with housing and houseless services. We are low on housing, and houseless people do not have access to private spaces. When people are excluded from private and public spaces we essentially exile them which does not solve the issue with public safety. I believe that we need to target the root of the issue– what is causing the public safety threats and how do we eliminate it rather than have band-aid solutions to the issue. I believe that our city needs stricter gun laws, increased housing, and increased rehabilitation and social services access to people who need it.
Public safety is the top priority for my office. When it comes to parks, we need to increase the number of park rangers to deter activity and monitor parks and public spaces. The city needs to promote park ambassadors and increase activation in the program. Another strategy that has had success is closing parks 30 minutes earlier which reduced the need for enforcement at golden gardens.
Addressing public safety is my top priority. I stood up Public Safety Task Forces in my District connecting small businesses, service providers, police, and my team with actionable steps to address public safety. My public safety task forces, combined with a public safety coordinator position that I created, recently removed a firearm from an encampment and we stabilized an individual who has had an outsized impact on the community for 5+ years. I will work to secure public safety task forces and a coordinator in every neighborhood. We also need to expand our existing first responders, including Community Service Officers, Health One, Mobile Crisis Teams, and Park Rangers.
We should increase Co-Responder Teams in our Parks that experience this behavior.
When I started the Metropolitan Park District process my goal was to create a park system that is clean, safe, and open. At the onset of the last renewal process our parks had two rangers. Literally only two… for the entire system. The new investment cycle added 26 additional rangers.
The park rangers will be a significant benefit to public safety in our parks and open spaces. A 911 analysis requested by my office showed that overwhelmingly the calls for service associated with parks are non-criminal in nature and could be resolved by the intervention of a ranger. In those cases where a call for service requires the presence of an officer the ranger program will triage non-essential calls and free up the police to respond to situations only they can handle.
Finally, activations are a core element of public safety. That is why post-encampment plans for City Hall Park and Pioneer Park involved putting in place comprehensive activations and services to reinvigorate those key public assets and reduce the likelihood of them descending back into blight.
When I chaired the Public Safety Committee for the Queen Anne Community Council, I would hold joint meetings with the Parks Committee on parks safety. Based on that experience, it is very important to activate our parks plus using some of the design concepts in the Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) protocol. We need to ensure our parks are clean with open sight lines with well-maintained equipment and restrooms, along with more and different types of lighting. But key is to get people to come and activate the park. This will ensure parks will be accessible to our District 7’s neighbors.
I will partner with organizations like yours to ensure we are being strategic in funding the right projects for our communities.
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I was a major supporter of this and helped lead on it in my Council role. So, of course, it’s incredibly important to me that we keep our promise there. I will continue fighting for investments, like this one, that improve our communities rather than relying on budget cuts to crucial departments like human services and our parks that will cause more harm. While I support increasing the levy for parks, I simultaneously would like to rely more on progressive revenue streams. I have long been an ally to our Parks and will continue to do so.
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Parks and public spaces are critical pillars of our communities. I am a product of these investments and am committed to the protection and continuation of these resources and services. The historic Metropolitan Parks District funding is key to achieving my priorities: centering essential city services and expanding root cause investments for safe and thriving communities.
Our city is home to some of the largest businesses in the country, as well as a thriving airport, seaport, and tourism industry, yet we still face budget shortfalls. To address this, I will consider new revenue streams and business taxes, expanding existing taxes, as well as opportunities to work with the state to advance progressive revenue. I believe that it is essential for Seattle to have a fair and equitable tax system that ensures that the wealthiest residents and businesses pay their fair share. I am committed to finding progressive revenue streams to meet our city’s needs.
The City Council serves as the Board of the Seattle Parks District and holds important decision making power for our city’s urbanist future. On City Council, I will be accessible, transparent, and thoughtful in city planning to advance projects that put forth the best interests of the city, its residents and our future. When developing MPD funding and multi-year planning, we must consider all options, coordinate with our partners, evaluate progress, and identify solutions which will push forward our shared goals.
You will never have to worry about where I stand on the issue of well-resourced parks – I’ve been a champion and advocate for parks and public open spaces for over a decade and will continue to do so in City Hall. I will work with our Parks Department, our community-led organizations, and across City departments and with the Mayor’s office to ensure our parks, community centers, and other public assets are flourishing and that our investments are producing results at scale.
***[SPF combined two items into one here – so here’s the other reply:]***
Again, you can count on me to be an outspoken leader in creating funding. partnerships, and programs that lead to flourishing parks throughout the City. I will not just be a supporter of this, I will be your champion. I hope the MPD can be expanded to meet the real need and vision for our Emerald City, and will work to creatively address any gaps that might exist through partnerships, investments from other areas and departments, and looking to private, State, and Federal resources.
I’ll fight like hell with persuasion and my votes on the council to protect it! And then, I’ll engage with the community, city planners, and parks department staff to understand where to best prioritize the limited dollars–with an eye toward making sure that communities that have received inequitable funding get their rightful share.
As for the MPD, I will actively support renewal and expansion of the levy–both by making sure we put forward a bold proposal that captures the minds of voters and accomplishes a lot–and by campaigning for it.
For things not covered in the six year plan–I believe we are doing too little for parks, libraries, and transit with our general fund. We have put too much pressure on levies, and these rely on property taxes, which are relatively regressive. While I don’t see a path to eliminating those–I think we should be relieving some of this pressure by doing more with the general fund–and paying for it by raising progressive revenue. I wrote an article “Seattle Needs Money” in the Stranger last January on a variety of ways we could constitutionally do this without harming the business environment. These have some overlap with the recommendations of the progressive revenue committee–and where they do not, I’m also open to those recommendations.
I support the renewal of the parks levy. But when we look at any renewal, we need to look at the requirements and align them with today’s needs. Good governance is a lost art in our city politics. Investment in our parks and public spaces is critical to a healthy, vibrant, and safe community. As part of that investment, we must ensure that funding comes with oversight, accountability and metrics of success. I have worked at the city in two mayoral administrations, as a legislative aide to the city council, and a deputy director for a city department. This experience enables me to confidently navigate our complex budget process and deliver for my constituents on the issues that matter to them. Maintaining, or expanding, funding for MPD delivers what voters want, and rebuilds trust that we are good stewards of public dollars.
This candidate did not respond to our survey.
In the Green New Deal, we need to ensure that we have funding for the MPD, and that we are investing it in a way that is repairing and protecting the urban forest that we have in our city.
I will advocate for a partnership between MPD, the Social Housing PDA, and the Green New Deal, so that we can have increased access to parks, address the public health crisis, and the impacts of environmental racism and redlining. I will push to protect the MPD funding and expanding it when possible. I will support continued growth, and will push to create a priority list for projects not included in the 6 year plan based upon community and budget needs. We need to consider true community engagement, and potentially having a part of the budget be a participatory budgeting process.
Before I was elected I worked for Councilmember Sally Baghsaw who was instrumental in creating the Metropolitan Park District. For the last 5 years I have tracked the previous cycle of funding and planned for the cycle which we just passed. I have experience following the history of the first cycle of funding and this sets me up to be well positioned to track project delivery in this 6-year cycle as well as protect the funding.
I will support the renewal of the levy.
In the last investment cycle the Council added several critical performance metrics to be assessed by the City Auditor on a rolling basis. These reporting requirements and metrics with independent auditing will provide an unprecedented record of accountability to prove to the people of Seattle that we can and must make record investments in our parks.
Early indications show the Parks and Recreation Department is motivated to meet the ambitious goals of the Metropolitan Parks District investment plan. A surge in maintenance has the park system roaring back from COVID-era setbacks and we have reversed an attritional decline in grounds maintenance and other critical areas of investment. I am excited to see the report-backs on the accountability measures we have put in place to keep parks moving forward.
The best answer to this is that I am committed to protecting and investing in my district to ensure that park needs in District 7 are met but also the city as a Parks District board member as the board looks to set the 6-year budget. In the interest of good governance, I will adjust my approach based on the needs of my district and other considerations at the time. I’m not sure what the political and economic landscape will look like in 5 years, but I do know that I am committed to serving my district and city needs and will do so to the best of my ability.
I will fight to better fund parks, rain gardens, bioswales, green roofs, green walls, planter box barriers, green medians, street trees, and urban forests. And I will prioritize historically underinvested neighborhoods first. Heat is the deadliest of the climate crisis effects, and the right amount of tree cover can reduce daytime temperatures up to 10 degrees.
This candidate did not respond to our survey.
We can have both, so long as we allow it. One of the biggest roles of next year’s Council is advancing the next Comprehensive Plan that is the best opportunity we have to make lasting change to how our city manages growth. I’ve been a vocal supporter of the “alternative 6” proposal that would increase density throughout the city rather than forcing it on the backs of Districts like mine to take on all of the growth. We can’t ensure equitable distribution of green spaces, urban forestry, and stormwater management projects if we say growth can only happen inequitably. But density must be paired with holistic tree and park protections as well as requirements. I know that climate impacts, green space, and housing must all work together rather than against each other if we have any chance at climate mitigation and harm reduction. It’s important to note that the majority of tree loss is in our City parks. Additionally, major institutions and commercial/mixed use development together also contributed to significant canopy loss. There are many ways the City can create more housing AND protect our trees, including addressing canopy loss in other kinds of development and increasing canopy on public lands. A huge part of a healthy environment (and, subsequently, climate resilience and mitigation) is going back to supporting our natural environment—and, tangentially, supporting traditional Indigenous knowledge and care of our land. I want to be sure that encouraging better lot management regarding invasive species would not simultaneously limit the ability of affordable housing projects to pencil. The entire Pacific Northwest is at the epicenter of receiving more and more climate refugees as the crisis rages on. So we can’t ignore that we need climate mitigation while we provide more places for people to live. Green organizations like Sierra Club, Sage Leaders, and more have endorsed me for these very reasons.
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As our city continues to grow, we must be more thoughtful about planning for our future. We have to consider both where people will live and how they will live. Seattle has been hyper-focused on building a city, but I want to build a home. This means expanding our housing supply and housing options (i.e. family-size housing, homeownership opportunities), building out our city’s resources and capacities, and growing our community centers and green spaces to meet both population growth and climate goals.
I will be thoughtful, transparent, collaborative and solution-focused in maintaining the delicate balance of development and greenspace in Seattle. I will champion the expansion of community spaces and programming with a deep understanding of the powerful and positive impact that this has on people’s lives. As a third-generation Seattleite, I am sensitive to the necessary care in planning that is required to invite density while preventing displacement and gentrification, to building with quality and quantity, and to making Seattle a home where all are welcome.
Growing up in a neighborhood with nearby access to public spaces, parks and community was formative to who I am today. Today, these spaces remain a core pillar of community – where young families take their children, youth meet their friends, neighbors walk their dogs, and elders practice healthy lifestyles. My father was a career Seattle Parks employee and took pride in his service.
What we must do is to rapidly double and triple down on zoning for density across the city. Not just in transit corridors! Recent state legislative action to do some of that must underpin our Comprehensive Plan. We must reduce the use of concrete, expedite permitting, and increase modular construction for both residential and commercial buildings, creating sustainable union jobs in the process. We must reclaim more of our streetscape and return it to the people as greenspace. We must create more parks and protect the ones we have. High density development is necessary because the alternative is sprawl and further destruction of what little greenspace we currently have. By prioritizing urban infill we ensure greenspace is not razed for new housing and we can instead embrace the economic growth from new neighbors which will afford the city the ability to protect and most importantly expand our greenspace. We all know all of this, but we all don’t make it priority #1. I do, and I always will.
By not baking in mutual exclusivity and then investing in park expansion! Capitol Hill is one of the densest districts in the city and one of the best tree-covered. This is true of many moderately densely populated places. We need to create the ability to expand our housing market at a human scale, with livability built-in–limiting lot coverage but adding height, and doing this everywhere so that we can set aside some additional space for parks–and using the edges of streets–and the middle of them sometimes–to create additional canopy as well.
We also need to avoid screwups like the waterfront–which was a historic opportunity to create a lush front door to our city. We should lid I-5–and it should be mostly parkland (with social housing along the edges). We should reclaim concrete spaces for parks, pedestrianize places where possible (and add trees in those as well)–it’s time to be both ambitious and creative. We are already way behind.
Access to world-class parks, green space, and public spaces is what makes Seattle the best place in the world to live and raise a family. The fact is, development needs and access to public space are not mutually exclusive. In reality, they are often a positive feedback loop.
One example of a strategy that actually increases public space and development to meet our housing needs is lidding I-5. Feasibility studies show such a proposal could create space for 4,500 new homes and a new 10-acre public park all while reducing stormwater and noise pollution, reducing emissions, and connecting our multi-modal transportation plan throughout downtown and Seattle. I say this just to demonstrate that access to parks and green spaces can and should co-exist with affordable housing, development, and responsible growth.
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I would focus on incentivizing retaining as many trees as possible during the development process and ensuring developers are held to the standards city hall sets out. These could range from tax breaks to expedited permits. We could create tree replacement programs that would exist as a stopgap solution. Planting a tree for each one being taken down would help decrease the rate at which trees are being cut downAdditionally, having a tree registry required as a part of the tree ordinance will help streamline the communication process with developers and ensure that we have an accurate understanding of the green space in our city.. In general, the city’s public policy should be pushing tree preservation and ensuring regulatory enforcement is strict.
The city needs to improve the land we own that is not currently accessible and could be better utilized to fill greenspace. We need to continue to acquire land to land banks and ensure that greenspace is a priority. In new developments, requirements and development bonuses will help to create public space and ensure greenspace in new construction. Finally, creating the I-5 lid would be a big opportunity to add park space and amenities to accommodate our growing city. In the University District alone, a Lid could create 14 acres of public space, new buildings, open space, and reconnect streets. If we use the model implemented in Wasington, D.C. this could be funded entirely by private capital.
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Parks are an essential component of the urbanist ideal of a city. As we grow we need to identify new public open spaces for our community. The Metropolitan Park District renewal incudes capital acquisition funds to add new open space to the park system. In the next investment cycle we should also look at under developed open space to see what we can do to expand the impact of assets we are not fully utilizing. MacLean Park in Queen Anne comes to mind as a spot with a lot of potential that is completely undeveloped.
Parks and greenspaces are selling points for developers and property management companies. There are ways we can bring everyone to the table and figure out how to serve the people of Seattle but also the development needs that a city of Seattle’s size needs, and my goal is to find balance between each group’s needs to ensure an equitable solution.
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