Who is likely to get Seattle's open city council job?

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the latest edition of Seattle Nice. I'm David Hyde here as always with Erica C Barnett of Publicola, Sandeep Kaushik political consultant, and today Thursday evening breaking news dozens apply for this at large Seattle City Council seat vacated by outgoing former

[00:00:30] city council member Teresa Mosqueda Mosqueda I should say. So we're going to be talking about some of those names on this list of 72 and just kind of what the process is but boy 72 names. My

[00:00:42] first question is why the fuck would anybody apply? I mean why are there 72 that's a lot of applicants? What is going on here? This is I'm pretty sure unprecedented number of people applying

[00:00:54] for this position. What on earth is happening here Erica C Barnett? I don't know about the precedent but I think there is a sense. I mean this was very heavily advertised I think compared to previous council vacancies there's a lot of encouragement for the general public to apply

[00:01:10] and I think in a lot of cases general public is what we got by that I mean you know there's a lot of people on this list that their sort of background is IT professional or you know

[00:01:21] lawyer or worked at Dizzillo or you know things. No offense to all our listeners who are IT professionals. To any of those fine professions but not a lot of civic experience or maybe some volunteer work and that sort of thing but not institutional knowledge or city of Seattle

[00:01:39] government experience and I'll also say there are a good number of candidates who just recently failed to win election. A lot of candidates who flunked out in the primaries and are trying again

[00:01:51] and then of course there's Tanya Wu who lost by about 400 votes to Tammy Morellis in District 2 so it's you know it's a real mix of people including some we talked about last week

[00:02:03] but yeah 72 is a lot. I wouldn't say that most of them are you know particularly viable but you know anybody can you can go online and read the 600 something pages of applications and see if

[00:02:13] you agree. Financial disclosure. Sadiq I want to ask you and just apparently King County elections had to go through this and verify that all of them were legit but before we get to it does anybody

[00:02:21] know Jack Edson Wissner? I do. Political activist. You do. Yeah. So he quotes Liam Neeson and taken in his cover letter did you see this? Oh I didn't I have not. Good for him. Yeah I have not had

[00:02:34] to look for all this because it's been a pretty busy day but yeah Jack I believe works at Metro and is kind of like well I was going to say Gapfly about town but that word has negative connotations

[00:02:45] you know he's a guy who has some strong opinions about transportation is at a lot of transportation meetings. I mean I know him from sort of sound transit adjacent stuff and just covering transportation over the years. You know this series taken Liam Neeson? Yeah yeah of

[00:03:00] course. In what context did he quote it? He says I do have a very particular set of skills. Skills I acquired over a very long career. Skills that would benefit the council in many ways. Of

[00:03:11] course Liam Neeson is talking about knowing how to murder and assassinate people or whatever. Commit an accident violence. I don't think that's what he's referring to in this case but yeah. Hitman skills might be good on the council we could use some hitman skills. I just wanted

[00:03:24] to start there my editor at work flagged that and I love it. Anyway there are some other candidates on here that Erica mentioned Sandeep what do you want to say about this list of 72?

[00:03:35] First of all 72 is a big number. I think the last time we had this kind of appointment I think I was talking with someone today I think it was more like sort of 40 candidates that applied

[00:03:45] so this is you know maybe almost double that but you know these sorts of things do tend to bring out lots and lots of people out of the woodwork including a lot of people that probably

[00:03:55] don't have any realistic chance of getting this appointment nor are they particularly qualified in a significant way to be appointed and this has always amazed me since I've been involved in Seattle politics but in every mayoral race I've been involved with you know going back to

[00:04:14] 2009 and Greg Nichols like every mayoral year there's always like four or five or sometimes more very you know nice well-intentioned people who you know have never been involved in city government and apparently you know don't have any real sense of like what the mayor does but thinks like

[00:04:35] hey you know I'm cool I could be mayor of Seattle why don't I run for mayor you know and throw their hat in the ring and says like I've got good values and why not I mean you

[00:04:45] know I could make great decisions and be a great mayor and so it's always sort of amazed me that there's a lot of even quite smart people that really don't have much clue about government or

[00:04:59] governance or the fact that there are skill sets involved and things you need to know and you know all of that kind of stuff all the all the mundane nitty gritty and they're just

[00:05:08] sort of like hey I can I can do it some of whom arguably just got elected to the Seattle City Council this flushed wall I shouldn't say that I shouldn't say that's me I don't mean that to

[00:05:18] anybody but you said that I meant I meant no prior government experience well I responding to that really quickly I mean I think that that you're actually hitting on an important point about

[00:05:28] you know government experience I mean these are you know city council you don't have to have government experience necessarily to be on the city council or especially you know elected experience but you've got five brand new council members the most senior council members have

[00:05:41] been there for two years or four years and so you know I mean you're looking at a very very fresh I don't know bench is that is that am I using that sports metaphor correctly it's it's

[00:05:53] a lot of people with that experience they're on the team ah okay yeah you're right they're on the team okay fine whatever we've got a bunch of new starters you know sure yeah sure that

[00:06:03] but um you know so in that situation you would actually want to consider you know what kind of experience the sixth member of that new block has and you know and maybe find somebody that's got a

[00:06:17] little bit more institutional knowledge of like of the city council I mean you know this week as we're recording this they're all sort of getting up to speed getting to know each other like

[00:06:27] figuring out you know should we walk into each other's offices and uh and you know or should we make an appointment should you know how does legislation work you know it's there's a lack of institutional knowledge that I think they could consider addressing by picking somebody with

[00:06:41] a little bit of it but it kind of seems like based on these uh applications and also kind of the way the wind is blowing that that's not what's going to happen yeah I didn't see tons and tons

[00:06:52] of deep governmental experience on that list of 72 people I mean obviously there's some there's some variance there you have everything from a you know as we talked about last week captain and the sbd a precinct captain was going for the appointment to we talked about

[00:07:08] whizner you know as a transportation guy you know so so you know there's a wide variety of different callings and walks of life and all that kind of stuff represented on this crew and

[00:07:18] as Erica said including a lot of people that have sort of attempted to run for the city council before unsuccessfully but yeah and then it just in terms of like having familiarity with the

[00:07:30] the person I think one thing to note here is that I think Tanya Wu who I would label maybe the the frontrunner or more like most likely candidate to get the appointment is is someone who was

[00:07:41] running last year along with all of these other newly successful council members so there is a familiarity there she's some she's a known quantity I think to a lot of the new members

[00:07:51] of the council and they've got good relationship with her they they have a kind of feel for how she thinks and who she is and so that may be played to her advantage well whether they have a feel for

[00:08:00] how she thinks and who she is I mean I think they were all running their own district campaigns and you know I didn't see a lot of them at these forums for district two that I was at but

[00:08:08] you know in addition to that I mean you are talking about essentially the you know these incoming newcomer council members effectively relitigating or overturning the results of an election that just happened in order to install somebody that they you know maybe find more palatable

[00:08:25] than the person who did win Tammy Morales who is one of their colleagues so you know I think that sends a really clear message to to to council member Morales at least you know and

[00:08:36] I don't know that that you know even if you you know or it's Sunday if you're saying you know that's the voters intent stick it to the left whatever you're putting words in your

[00:08:45] mouth a little sorry but you know even if even if that is kind of your reaction I mean it is also not a very collegial thing to do in in one way because I mean she she just lost and I sort of

[00:08:59] wonder how this council would react if you know there's a counterfactual in which Andrew Lewis was installed after Bob Kettle won you know or Alex Hudson after Joy Hollingsworth won or you can go down the line this is potentially a treacherous situation that they're that they're

[00:09:17] they're waiting into where they're relitigating an election well it's pretty clear Tammy Morales you know who won that election in a close race against Tonya Woo in district two is pretty isolated on the council she was ideologically the farthest left member of

[00:09:30] the council other than Chama Sawant on the last council and very much at a step I think with her colleagues so yeah I mean I don't think she's got a ton of juice with them I take your point that

[00:09:42] you know appointing Tonya might not be the most most collegial thing in the world but you know I will say this from the I won't say who but I've had conversations with a couple

[00:09:51] of the council members about their thinking going into this process and I know there seems to be a widespread fixation not just on disappointment and you know who will be a good colleague and

[00:10:05] somebody we can work with that we feel simpatica with but also this person whoever it is is going to be immediately campaigning and running to be elected to the office the election will be in

[00:10:18] November we have now confirmed that there's going to be I think we've confirmed that there's going to be a primary in August and then a general election in November to kind of permanently

[00:10:27] fill out the seat which means they'll run again you know a year from now too in November so there's going to be two back-to-back elections this November and the following November and I know

[00:10:37] a lot of the council members want to appoint someone they feel will not just be a good colleague but a potentially good citywide candidate remember this is a citywide seat that's another argument I would say against somebody who only won 12,000 or so votes because it's a district

[00:10:52] election I mean how electable is you know is the the unsuccessful candidate in one district in a citywide race I mean I don't think that Tanya Wu has a ton of name recognition to begin

[00:11:04] with and then running citywide I mean I just I can see her being at a significant disadvantage the only advantage being that she would be you know by then the incumbent I mean whoever

[00:11:14] is running in the seat is going to have the advantage of incumbency but a citywide election is quite a bit different than one district so 400 votes separating the two candidates Tanya Wu

[00:11:24] 1270 Tammy Morales 13123 she got a lot of votes in district two which is one of the more liberal districts in the city so I guess there's the argument there but I am very curious to see yes on deep what you think about her viability as a candidate citywide

[00:11:41] were that to be the the pick here yeah in answer to both you and Erica I actually think Tanya is potentially quite a strong candidate in a citywide race maybe a stronger candidate than she was in

[00:11:50] district two as we've talked about before districts two and three are in some sense outlier districts in that they are both significantly more progressive and you know demographically younger than

[00:12:05] the rest of the city so they tend to perform much farther to left and let me just give you an example and I'd have to look up the numbers for district two but I have to remember off the top

[00:12:14] my head in district three Bruce Harold beat Lorena Gonzalez by one point in 2021 as he was going on to a 17 point citywide victory which means the the delta between district three's performance and and the rest of the city is probably about 20 points 20 points farther left and district

[00:12:31] two is pretty similar to that so I think the case would be made that that Tanya who ran a you know as a kind of moderate progressive right not certainly not in the left lane and sort of

[00:12:39] on things like public safety would probably be a stronger citywide candidate than she'd faired in district two where she came very close to win it right I think that's the argument for Tanya

[00:12:48] what are her progressive bona fides according to you sundee because I know you always use this term moderate progressive when everybody else would use conservative for Seattle or centrist what are what are the progressive bona fides because I know that the main thing that she

[00:13:00] is known for is fighting against a homeless shelter in the Chinatown international district that was the Soto shelter that ended up not expanding in part because of activism that she led

[00:13:09] so what is that what are her progressive bona fides yeah if you if you if you talk to Tanya I don't think she's some kind of one-dimensional sort of law and order candidate she's somebody

[00:13:21] who was concerned about public safety but she had deep civic involvement in the Chinatown international district community including a lot of uh yes she was involved in fighting the quote unquote homeless mega plaques that is true and that sort of maybe was the highest profile

[00:13:35] thing she did but she did a lot of outreach work in that community where she'd go out on the kind of neighborhood you know night watch engaging and trying to help people who were on the streets

[00:13:47] of of that community and if you talk to her you know I I don't think she's coming at those sorts of social service kinds of issues from a straight up law and order perspective I think

[00:13:59] there's a lot there's a lot of kind of um she has a lot of interest and support in non-punitive interventions and those sorts of things so I so I think that's what differentiates her

[00:14:10] from say quote unquote the term you like to use conservative or Seattle is dying never said yeah never said conservative what I say is that's putting words in my mouth what I say is conservative

[00:14:21] by Seattle standards which is really like I don't know why that is such a contentious term for you because it's I mean it's factual and descriptive you know I gotta say this this

[00:14:31] terminological dispute has now extended at least two episodes um well I'm gonna keep saying what I say and you know Sandeep can all right I'm gonna say then I'm gonna say then I think I I don't

[00:14:43] understand what the problem is with centrist or in her case like center left really I mean she believes in the positive role of government to help people through tiny home villages and

[00:14:54] etc etc etc go down the list right we'll see how she ends up voting but that's how she ran and I would say you interviewed her I interviewed her among the candidates running last time would

[00:15:03] you call her one of the more right-wing candidates of the one yeah yeah I mean I was just having a I was having to bait over terminology with Sandeep which we could do all day yeah I know

[00:15:15] I'm jumping in I'm jumping in because I got shit for um for using the word centrist in my coverage and oh well I got shit for that too I think conservative for Seattle is totally fine actually

[00:15:27] like I don't have any problem with it at all but I also think it's fine to use centrist and I think centrist is more accurate because what does conservative Seattle mean now that so wants no

[00:15:35] longer on the council the the scale has shifted so conservative for Seattle on this council what does that mean like no they're not conservative for Seattle she's liberal for Seattle given the

[00:15:45] new council yeah I mean it's a term I used as a consistent meaning for for more than 20 years so you know I was okay fine okay fine veteran veteran Seattle reporter but what does it mean today is all

[00:15:56] I'm saying but but but but to Sandeep's point about electability I want to go back to that because we are talking about a general election 2024 which is incredibly different than a general election

[00:16:06] in 2021 what Sandeep was hearkening back to and I just I think that if you're talking about somebody who is a centrist or you know a relatively conservative compared to the old

[00:16:16] councilor whatever you want to call her you know somebody who ran in a small in one district out of seven in the city you know then in in a presidential election year when the electorate is going to be

[00:16:27] significantly more progressive and larger if I was working for Tanya or if I was working for the you know advising this the five city council members I would say I don't know you might have an electability problem just based on those statistics alone just based on who's going

[00:16:41] to be in the electorate but you know I don't know I'm not the I'm not the pundit here that's just kind of my gut feeling about how that how that typically goes no and I think

[00:16:49] that I think you're actually making a fair point and I think that is the counter argument to this now I will say when you look at this list of candidates not like there's some people that

[00:16:58] have like intensive deep experience of you know running lots of successful citywide campaigns right so yeah you know it's pretty it's a pretty thin you know on that kind of level of experience

[00:17:12] I do think maybe potentially the biggest foil for Tanya both in this process and at least initially going forward into the campaign is Vivian Song right who has won campaigns as a at least one

[00:17:27] on the school board right she's a current member of the school board and has put her name in and I think presents a little more left lane maybe maybe significantly more left lane than than than Tanya

[00:17:41] and so I've certainly heard talk that Vivian not if she doesn't get the appointment will run for the seat and so I do think we're already seeing some of the jockeying happening to set up the kind of

[00:17:53] race you're talking about yeah and Erica to your argument yeah presidential year election high turnout a lot of a lot more younger voters maybe more renters maybe a more progressive electorate you know that would be the case to say yeah you know maybe it's somebody like like Vivian

[00:18:08] or maybe somebody who isn't even going for the appointment I've heard talk that maybe Ron Davis who just lost Maritza Rivera in district four potentially run for the seat and you know would

[00:18:20] obviously run on the left right and and you know we're probably looking at the same kind of demographics and math that we're talking about so you know I think it's going to be a dog

[00:18:30] fight don't to hold that seat whoever gets the appointment I think you're going to be a lot of interest in running for that seat from some of the names on this list who have applied and not get it

[00:18:39] and there'll be I think a bunch of other people who didn't even apply maybe because they felt like this council's too centrist or whatever term you want to use for them to and they're too left

[00:18:49] but think that they have a good shot of winning a race who will get it Sarah Nelson gets elected and one of the things that she spoke about in her what do you call it council presidential address

[00:19:01] you know was to basically say uh you know I'm all about good governance is it good governance to appoint somebody who you think is going to spend their limited green time on a new council

[00:19:15] instead of governing to actually spend that time running for office if you know that that's what's going to happen is that sun deep an example of good governance well it's inevitable anybody who

[00:19:26] who gets that appointment is I mean I suppose they could have done you mean no is the answer no is that what you're saying no the answer is is you're gonna do both right I mean and and look

[00:19:38] council members run for reelection right uh Dan Strauss and Tammy Morales just got reelected they were on the council after serving three years I think the alternative is to appoint a so-called

[00:19:49] caretaker which is something that the council has done in the past it's not as if like that is an inevitable thing and yeah I mean I think if your focus is good governance you'd definitely

[00:19:58] make an argument that a caretaker who's just going to focus on governing would uh would be better on the other hand I don't know a caretaker that sounds like a like a seat warmer right so

[00:20:08] I mean the counter argument might be well you want somebody who's invested in this position in a long-term way who will run for reelection so you know I think there's there's arguments

[00:20:18] for and against both types of uh of council member although in this case I do think that they are looking for somebody who's going to run but I but I think you can I don't know I think

[00:20:27] you can make arguments both ways and I don't know that one is better than the other caretaker versus candidate I heard Tammy Morales in one of her statements early on basically saying the same

[00:20:37] thing Erica was saying which is we want an experienced person and maybe she had a sense that it might end up being something like Tanya Wu but you could you could certainly appoint an

[00:20:46] experienced person I mean I guess Tim Burgess isn't available but somebody who's like more in line with this existing council is there there's nobody on this list who's who's currently in or has served

[00:20:57] in government I haven't gone through all 72 names but basically we're not seeing anybody like that is what you're saying I didn't really in my past through the list you know it's a lot of

[00:21:08] people um most of them have not had any real direct involvement and in city government for sure yeah I'm going down the list again and I'm seeing I'm seeing basically I mean what what

[00:21:19] Sun Deep is describing there's there's a lot of people who have run for um election in the past to yeah why don't you name some of those folks who are as you're going through the list yeah sure

[00:21:28] I'm well so to leave aside the half dozen or so from this last election Kate Martin is a perennial candidate and sort of legendary crank who ran a campaign a while back to keep

[00:21:40] the viaduct or part of the viaduct intact downtown and turn it into a park she's also run for council a bunch of times I by the way did that campaign against that and and yeah as we defeated

[00:21:50] her venture yeah she got a bunch of money from Martin ceiling a big downtown developer to run that campaign and then we had to do a campaign against it anyway go on let's see Mack McGregor

[00:22:00] who is a an LGBTQ diversity training consultant this has done some work with the before the badge program with Seattle police he is running again he ran in 2017 Mark Solomon also ran against Tammy Morales and was unsuccessful he is running and I'm gonna mention Phil Tavill even

[00:22:21] though he did run again unsuccessfully this time he's run a couple times in the past I'm challenging Lisa Herbold his name's in here and there's probably others that I am that I'm missing

[00:22:30] but um there yeah there's a lot of people who are seeing this as you know maybe maybe they couldn't get elected by the people but they might be able to get appointed by the council

[00:22:37] yeah but those names aside and you know those are people who ran for office but never actually got into municipal office there's not a lot of municipal experience you did say Erica there

[00:22:50] was someone um that you said had a little bit of momentum that you were seeing who works at the city in the human services department and yeah that's Marie Sugiyama who works in the human

[00:23:01] services department she's a manager there and she's been at HSD for for some time and her father was Alan Sugiyama who is a civil rights activist and um I believe has a school named after him

[00:23:13] was the first Asian-American member of the Seattle school board back in the 80s the reason I say she has some momentum I've just heard I started hearing her name as a potential candidate which is you

[00:23:24] know unusual for somebody who's sort of in the bureaucracy of the city that I had never heard of before and apparently there's a letter writing campaign of some sort on her behalf

[00:23:32] and so there's been quite a few letters coming into council offices about her don't know if that represents true momentum but Tanya one of the one of her strengths when she ran in district two which includes the Chinatown ID was she really consolidated significant support in that neighborhood

[00:23:48] and there's a petition now going around in the Asian community that I've heard has what about 1300 signatories to it asking the council to appoint Tanya and so these are the sorts of

[00:23:59] things where maybe they make a difference right in terms of the council members who are who are kind of making the decision tell local jokes get local gigs I mean you know she's she's consolidating

[00:24:09] support in the same community that supported her for her council run and you know I that again speaks to like what where is her support base outside of the CID I haven't seen it yet yeah

[00:24:21] I think that's a fair point we will see but again it's all relative so who else has some really obvious signs of you know a coalition or some you know broad segment of the of the population

[00:24:36] that's supporting them for this it's again it's just a bunch of people who are throwing their names in and I think I mentioned last week just in passing Nihar Narayat the owner of the Civic

[00:24:49] Hotel who has put her name in she's Indian American involved in the hospitality association and so has involvement in the business community so there are various candidates that have some connections to various constituencies that are you know that that somewhat play in in city politics

[00:25:06] and we could see whether any of that makes a difference so now after this the council is going to get public input and expected to make a decision as I understand it it's still Tuesday

[00:25:15] January 23rd later this month then it's off to the races so to speak another for politics reporters like myself who thought I would be moving away from Seattle city politics a little bit this

[00:25:28] year right with sucked back in with the appointment with the appointment to happen on the 23rd right they're going to vote on the 23rd of this month so it's a quick process one thing I think we

[00:25:38] should mention because we brought up last week is the central staff oh yeah yeah uh we had a some premature news in kw a little bit this week about uh shake up in central staff

[00:25:51] sarah nelson letting go the current head of central staff David you said fired in your piece yeah ester handy and naming central staff director ben noble to replace her you know before the story

[00:26:06] had really been fully reported I think there was some premature speculation going on about what might be happening but of course since then there was a platform on social media for sure so

[00:26:16] of course since then we've learned a little bit more and and I'm hoping that the two of you can enlighten us about about some of that yeah I mean I think you know the the decision on serah nelson

[00:26:27] council president serah nelson's part to sort of come in and unceremoniously fire the the head of and that was that was your term David in your story and I heard I did not say unceremoniously

[00:26:39] oh I'm sorry fired fired was your term and and and so you know I think since that decision I mean there's been a little bit of a panic I would say internally maybe that's overstating a little bit

[00:26:52] but you know ester handy was very highly regarded among her staff and I think that Ben noble who's coming in who was the head of central staff from I believe 2006 to 2013 is a veteran you know he's

[00:27:05] widely respected you know I have a great deal of respect for him myself um and you know it is you know very much uh you know bureaucrats bureaucrat he's he's you know scrupulously neutral but I think

[00:27:17] ousting ester handy comes with some some repercussions internally and if you're the head of a council that is going to have six new members and you're you know you yourself have only been there two years the most veteran council member has four years under about

[00:27:32] shake ups can lead to further shake ups and if the if the if the council loses more institutional knowledge which is kind of what central staff is and does they they provide you know the ostensibly

[00:27:43] neutral analysis to all nine council members and you know serve as the institutional knowledge you don't want to lose all of them too because then you've got basically no institutional

[00:27:51] knowledge so um you know I think it's I think it's a risky move to come so early but obviously you know I assume it's something that council president Nelson has been thinking about for a

[00:28:01] while and just figured it was best to get it done quickly but I but I think that you know it is it is sort of having some repercussions and and making people wonder what the role of this

[00:28:11] council president is going to be because it has historically been you know less of an active role you know and more just kind of a an administrative role so we'll see yeah I'll

[00:28:22] just say I was one who brought it up in the podcast last week right um that there was you know potential I was curious to see what was going to happen with with council central staff and

[00:28:30] there was potentially some issues there with you know how they had performed overall in terms of you know being kind of neutral and non-partisan and producing you know kind of kind of down the

[00:28:42] middle analysis and I should just say right up front we taped that last Sunday about 24 hours before this news broke and David broke the news about this change and I would just say

[00:28:53] I did not know it was coming like it was news to me as well when it happened but I do think there's been significant concern and maybe fairly widespread concern from folks who

[00:29:05] have been dealing with the city and the council on various issues that some of the the neutrality in some cases at central staff have been lost which is why I brought it up last week right

[00:29:18] and I do think council member Nelson shared some of those concerns so I was in shock when we did hear the news that this was this was happening and I just want to emphasize because the stranger wrote

[00:29:30] a story about this that made this out to be some kind of like right-wing conservative coup and Ben Noble who's coming in is some advocate of austerity and you know it was sort of very

[00:29:42] alarmist and and I think well get ready for more of that from them I'm sure yeah and frankly just wrong it's I think Erica is absolutely right anybody who knows Ben Noble I've known him a long

[00:29:53] time Erica's known him a long time he's a long-standing you want to talk about people with like municipal governance experience who kind of understands government and and is immersed in

[00:30:06] it ways Ben Noble is that kind of guy as as Erica says he's a sort of down the middle bureaucrats bureaucrat is sort of a guy who in his most recent role ran the relatively recently formed budget

[00:30:20] forecasting office right where he was producing these data driven revenue forecasts of what was likely to happen with city tax revenues and other revenue sources so that the council could

[00:30:31] make budgeting decisions in a smart way and that's the kind of guy he is he's a data guy a numbers guy and I think he's a he's a really good hire and I commend councilmember Nelson for making that

[00:30:43] hire and hopefully we'll see a restoration of a more even-handed neutral approach from you know across the board at at at central staff yeah I mean I want to say I do think that

[00:30:56] you know that that that perspective that they're not neutral and that they're you know not even handed and that they are bad at their jobs in some way you know is is not really is founded perhaps

[00:31:07] as I keep saying I mean one thing that happens with somebody with anybody who works for all nine of the council members as they work for all nine of the council members when you're working for

[00:31:16] Shamma Samant you're also working for Deborah Juarez you're also working for Sarah Nelson and you're providing your writing legislation for all of them and you're providing analysis for all of them so you know there is I mean to the extent that central staffers may have political

[00:31:31] beliefs and to the extent that they are maybe sometimes reflected I mean I'm not denying that that that that can happen but you know I mean I think that the central staff works for the

[00:31:41] council and they're going to work for this council and I think to that to that same point Ben Noble works for Sarah Nelson and you know he is a he's a loyalist that's how he's hung around

[00:31:51] for 23 years and while I do think you know he is scrupulously neutral and he is you know an economist brain type of person he also is going to work for for Sarah Nelson just like he worked

[00:32:03] for Jenny Durkin just like he you know was initially appointed by Nick Liccata and he was budget director Fred Murray right so I mean so he's got a long but point being I mean in all

[00:32:12] those roles he advocated for the position of the person he was working for and I think that we are going to see that and so I think that you know to the extent that people are going to

[00:32:20] be annoyed about you know some of the analyses that come out of central staff I mean I think it's going to reflect the political opinions of this current council just like previous analyses may

[00:32:31] have reflected the current the opinions of the previous council I mean there's only so much you can get mad at central staff for writing a brief for Shamma Sawant that reflects you know

[00:32:41] the highlights and the positives of Shamma Sawant legislation I mean it is it that is also their job they can't just say you know I don't agree with this I'm not going to do it well what

[00:32:49] you could do is give all the council members as you said earlier the information they need to make informed decisions in the interest of better governance for the entire city and also give the

[00:33:00] general public and reporters your best shot at that and like I said last week like I think people can fall short in their jobs all the time I know certainly that I do and so I don't know how

[00:33:09] much stuff is ideology and how much is just I think my understanding is central staff is pretty overworked they don't just write these reports for council members they got a lot of other stuff that they're also doing well they're right legislation right you know and and these reports

[00:33:23] are long they're extensive so I'm sure it's it's difficult work and it's easy to whatever leave stuff out you know but you know if this means like we're just going to flip from one

[00:33:33] ideology to another I would just say that's that would be really disappointing you know if there's any change at all I would hope that the professionalism that you already see on central

[00:33:41] staff is more of what you'll continue to see I guess is the way I would put it that's right I you know obviously if that's what happens it just flips to being kind of one-sided in the other

[00:33:51] direction which means I don't think it's one-sided in any direction now I that's not what I'm arguing I mean some of this stuff I've seen coming out I'm just establishing that on this

[00:34:03] podcast I am not a voice saying that I think it's one-sided in one direction now it's going to flat right well I think part of the reason there was a there was a little mini-uproar on you

[00:34:11] know social media about you know Esther being replaced by Ben was that you know particularly from the from voices on the left was because Esther was seen as sort of quote unquote one of us right like

[00:34:23] her her background and pedigree was was very much coming out of out of you know Seattle's left and I think at times the performance of central staff under her tilted that way in ways that seem

[00:34:37] noticeable to me I'm not sure which social media I'm assuming you're referring to Twitter I mean I was that just all in reaction to that stranger story or was this a broader thing because I'm

[00:34:44] not widely there was some that was sort of independent of it but yeah yes yeah because I'm not aware of people being widely aware of the identities of people working on central

[00:34:55] staff or the existence of central staff to be honest I don't think that this is like a high profile position ordinarily so I think like to the extent that stuff was ginned up by one report

[00:35:05] that had a bunch of you know inaccuracies in it and you know people maybe went crazy on Twitter again I didn't see it because I don't look at Twitter anymore but or barely to the extent

[00:35:16] that I have to the former queen of Twitter well you know I just I got I got tired of having Nazis shoved in my face you know yeah I heard that people on central staff were a little

[00:35:28] demoralized as well and I'm sorry about that and I also hope that nobody else loses their job because that that sucks when people lose their jobs well I mean Sarah Nelson can't can't go in

[00:35:41] and fire people I don't think that I think the bigger issue is like there was the Morale and central staff was really bad under the person who preceded Esther in fact so bad that you know

[00:35:54] that was one of the reasons they unionized and now they are in a union which they weren't the last time Ben Oble was there you know and she restored Morale and people liked her and when

[00:36:03] you have a boss you like you don't you know ideology or whatever aside like you you want to keep that boss that you like just like in any other job and so I think that is kind of where

[00:36:12] the morale problems are coming from it's like oh my god like we have to go through this again and most people there didn't work for Ben Oble you know he left 10 years ago

[00:36:20] and it's it's a largely new staff so they're they're also like he's also kind of an unknown quantity for them that was actually super interesting place to end thanks so much to Erica C Barnett of Publicola Sandeep Kauschik of Kauschik and company political consulting firm

[00:36:36] that's the name of it I'm pretty sure and thanks to Quinn Waller our editor who's editing furiously like I mean because we're putting out these podcasts on a regular basis now thanks to

[00:36:47] your support when you go to patreon slash Seattle nice and I just want to say they're coming in a little bit more steadily now and we really really appreciate that because that's literally how

[00:36:59] we pay for this podcast we do have expenses and we're a little bit under still the podcast isn't really supporting itself and can't really continue you know if that's the case so if anybody

[00:37:11] out there listening wants to continue is able to support five or ten bucks a month please consider going to patreon slash Seattle nice and to everybody thanks so much for listening