Wait.

Telepathy doesn't work?

Dang!

Hooray… most of the Stranger Candidates didn’t win. Maybe now there will be some oversight in the money the city spends. It’s going to take years for the city to get cleaned up.

What if some of the "Hot, very busy young people out there" saw through some of the more ludicrous candidates?

Oh noes, poor Han-Han.

On Friday D4 had 100 write-in votes. Now there are 96. Huh?

3: Catalina, that will be enough of logical, common sense questions such as yours, thank you.

I hope Tanya Woo puts forward her name for consideration for Mosqueda’s seat.

@6 it's not roots it's Seattle leaning into being a coastal elite city. Transplant tech workers banding together with legacy homeowners to strictly vote their economic interests. "Pragmatic" being the in-group keyword for protecting business and property values nevermind the impact on poor and working people (not that there's many of the latter in Seattle proper anymore anyway).

@8, @9: Normally, I have a healthy dislike of appointing the loser of an election to that office*, but in Woo’s case, I believe we could make that exception. If she loses, it will be by a tiny amount of votes. She came from deep community roots and dedicated community activism to (nearly) defeat a well-moneyed incumbent. The rest of the election results show how disgusted voters citywide have become with the failures of the incumbents’ governance, and voters’ rejection of the incumbents’ governing philosophy.

*Yes, Woo ran for District 2, but CM Mosqueda will vacate an at-large seat. Thus, strictly speaking, Woo’s appointment to District 8’s seat would not be to a seat she did not win. Given the uniformity of rejection of candidates citywide, I believe appointing Woo would follow in the pattern set by the voters. (Also, CM Woo’s very presence would remind CM Morales of how little voters really wanted her, and maybe she’d better go for a mid-term exit as well, just like CM Morales did after her wake-up call of an election.)

@10 "the progressive policies enacted by the City Council that have driven the poor and working class out of the city."

Please explain. I want details. Tell me what specific policies taken by the City Council (with or without the mayor) has lead to driving the poor and working class out of the city.

While you try and defend your absurd statement, let me remind you that it was the former mayor -- not the city council -- that destroyed the work done by his own commission to reduce housing costs. That's right, Mayor Ed "I like 'em young" Murray formed the Housing Affordability and Livability Advisory committee. After much debate, they came up with a fairly conservative set of recommendations (duplexes, triplexes, stacked flats and other multifamily structures in single-family zones). But even this was too much for the mayor, and his conservative allies. He rejected their recommendations, and made much smaller changes. The result was precisely what every economist would predict: higher housing costs. This drove the poor and working class not only out of the city, but in many cases, out of their homes. The increase in homelessness can be tied directly to the conservative choices made by the mayor, in defiance of more progressive council members, who wanted to liberalize zoning.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/mayor-murray-withdraws-proposal-to-allow-more-density-in-single-family-zones/

@3 -- The only "ludicrous" candidates in this round were endorsed by The Seattle Times (not The Stranger).

Saka had trouble even taking a coherent positing much of the time. He is basically running as Harrell's lackey.

Tanya Woo only voted in two local elections during her nearly 30 years as an eligible voter in Seattle. She never voted in the race in which she is now running (and lied about that). WTF?

Rivera doesn't want to abolish single-family zoning. I guess this doesn't make her a ludicrous candidate, just a very conservative (if not reactionary) one that doesn't give a shit about housing affordability or homelessness. Oh, and why the fuck would you take such an anti-business stand in the middle of a revenue crisis in the city? Every new home means more money for the city (and more affordable housing) -- why discourage that?

Kettle is a classic "law and order" reactionary candidate, wrapped in progressive verbiage. He somehow wants to spend more money on cops, more money on the justice system, but not increase funding.

In contrast, The Stranger largely endorsed the candidates that were better qualified. They knew the issues, and had coherent strategies for solving the various problems. The only candidate that could be considered "fringe" was ObeySumner, but still not as bad as some of the candidates The Seattle Times endorsed.

@17

"Action: Up zoned neighborhoods for higher density
Reaction: Property values and taxes increased, pushing up the cost of housing"

Ha! That's funny! Orwell would be proud.

Look, upzones reduce the cost of housing. This is just simple economics. This sort of thing is understood by little kids selling lemonade -- the more supply, the lower the cost. Of course, like all economic issues, folks with fancy degrees like to study the fuck out of it, proving the obvious. https://law.yale.edu/sites/default/files/documents/pdf/hier1948.pdf.

I really don't understand why people can't grasp this concept. It seems so obvious to me, but I was raised in the 70s. Everyone knew about OPEC, so the idea of a cartel was well understood. Gas prices skyrocketed because artificial limits were placed on production. The same thing happens with housing. I'm not saying we should get rid of it, but if we did, housing supply would increase dramatically, and then prices would plummet.

It is worth noting that every country in the developed world has zoning of some sort or another. It is just that ours is a lot more restrictive than in other places. Japan manages to have very affordable housing because they allow so much more housing. This is true of every city, but the most startling example is Tokyo. This is a mega-city, like New York or Paris. But unlike New York, they allow a lot more housing to be built. Supply has basically kept up with demand, as they have added tens of thousands of units every year. This explains why someone can afford to live there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGbC5j4pG9w

@16 -- "Refusing for decades to impose impact fees so that "growth would pay for growth" in the way our neighboring jurisdictions have?"

Why would impact fees make it easier for poor and middle class people to live here? That makes no sense. Impact fees increase the cost of housing. Any economist would tell you that. Prices for new housing gets more expensive. This pushes up the cost of housing, both old and new.

Imagine there was a tax on all new cars. Not just fancy ones, but all of them. Buy a new car, pay an extra $5,000. Obviously buying a new car is more expensive. But now buying a used car is also more expensive, since it is more valuable.

This is the way taxes work. Taxes are inevitable, and with the state being the way it is, we are forced to have regressive taxes to pay for essential services. But we don't tax food, and we should not be taxing housing (directly or indirectly).

@19
So where has the cost of housing gone down anywhere in western Washington?

It is funny how people don't like calling these candidates "conservative" even though they were endorsed by The Seattle Times (which has a conservative editorial staff) and are clearly more conservative than their opponents. All the while, they make statements that are clearly reactionary, as if they were written by Reagan or Thatcher. Take this paragraph:

"as if poor and working peple aren't fed-up with having their shit stolen or living next to a dumpster fire encampment. or having to leave work to pull their kids from sxhool because some asshat brought a gun for the third time and for some reason still isn't expelled. poor people can afford a new back window when theirs gets smashed out by one of the friendly neighborhood tweakers. yeah, poor people and working people totally are free of these problems."

This is clearly reactionary, and missing a key element: cause and effect. They are complaining about homelessness, and crime. Homelessness is a housing problem. That is very clear. If you reduce the cost of housing, you have fewer homeless. How do you reduce the cost of housing? There are many ways, but the cheapest and easiest it to liberalize the zoning code. Those opposed to liberalizing the zoning code are, of course, conservatives (and endorsed by The Seattle Times).

Crime increased nationally with the pandemic. There are many local factors that can effect crime, including the role of the police and the justice system (although the social safety net has a bigger impact). The police department in Seattle has never been defunded. It is as dysfunctional, and fully-funded as always. You can easily make the case that we should defund it, the way that Camden, New Jersey did. That lead to a big decrease in crime, as the police force was a lot more effective. But we didn't do that, because the city council (and the mayor(s)) were too conservative. The other thing that can have an impact on crime is enforcement. The city council has little influence on this -- it is largely the city attorney and mayor (a liberal conservative and a reactionary, respectively) that are in charge of enforcement. This has had little impact (which isn't surprising, since enforcement is not the most effective, let alone the most cost effective way to reduce crime).

The opioid crisis has been going on for a very long time now. The use of Fentanyl has increased as other opioids from pharmacies have been more difficult to attain. The fact that so many drug users are on the street (and not in homes) goes back to the primary cause of homelessness: lack of affordable housing.

The schools are run by the school board -- not the mayor, let alone the city council.

So basically this is just a typical reactionary rant by people who are "fed up" but don't have the patience of intellectual curiosity to figure out what is causing the problem, let alone how to fix it. This is how the right wing operates. I'm not saying that the person writing the statement is a right-winger, but the way they approach the problem would be quite welcome at a Trump rally.

(RVs being packed, wistful sad looks as a last blast of Fenty and/or Meth is smoked. Engines roughly fire up as the RVs migrate south. Queue soundtrack to camera cut of caravan heading south.)

"The Dream of the junkies is alive in Portland.
(Or maybe Takoma)
The Dream of the Tweakers is alive in Portland
(Or maybe Takoma)

You can use on the streets anywhere in Portland
(while taking over the parks now)
You can steal all you want from the shops in Portland
(and also the normies)"

@18: “Saka had trouble even taking a coherent positing [sic] much of the time. He is basically running as Harrell's lackey.”

His opponent ensured his election when she embraced “defund.” It is difficult for mere words to do justice when describing the level of fear and hatred which mere talk of that failed policy engendered in District 1.

District 1 was my last home in Seattle. In Nov. 2019, we re-elected CM Herbold on a promise of proper funding for SPD. She extravagantly broke that promise when she embraced “defund” the next June. Although that wasn’t a long time for a truly spectacular flip-flop, in the meantime, SDOT had closed the West Seattle Bridge, effectively turning West Seattle into an island. After years of community requests and activism, the Southwest Precinct of SPD had recently opened; CM Herbold’s reckless embrace of “defund” raised fears the Southwest Precinct would close, effectively leaving West Seattle without protection from the SPD.

Knowing full well recall of CM Herbold was not an option in this case, thousands of West Seattle’s citizens signed a Change.org petition for it anyway. Her embrace of “defund” may itself entirely explain her decision not to ask for re-election this year.

(Oh, and bonus points for your incorrect spelling, in a sentence where you attack Saka for incoherency.)

@18 is correct

Anyway, back to the article itself (instead of the comments). Good job, Hannah. I think you covered it well. The lack of voting by young people probably tipped a few races. I think there are a few other factors:

1) The mayor remains popular. Hard to see Saka winning without it.
2) Name recognition matters. Hollingsworth benefited from it, as well as the family connections.
3) Redistricting probably had an impact, but it gets complicated:

Lewis -- Was helped by the redistricting (but it wasn't enough, apparently).
Strauss -- Was hurt by it, but managed to win (barely).
Davis -- With such a small margin separating candidates, he probably would have won with the old district.

4) The Seattle Time picked stronger candidates in the primaries than The Stranger (which has been the trend for a while now). I don't see any conservative candidate in the primary doing better than the candidates The Seattle Times picked. In contrast, Jenks would have done better than ObeySumner, or she may have lost anyway.
5) The Stranger still has a major influence in the primaries (I don't see ObeySumner beating Jenks without it) but they are losing influence in the general. There was a time when The Stranger was as focused on competence as they were ideology. They routinely swept races like these. Now, those days seem to be gone. Creating a reputation for endorsing candidates who are focused more on making noise than actually serving on a board and getting shit done is not doing the other candidates they endorse any favor.

It will be easy for The Stranger Editorial Board to look at the results and chalk it up to a reactionary public. Hopefully they will rethink the endorsement process (as well as the editorials themselves) and not just assume that they can rest on laurels that none of the current board had any role in creating (except maybe Dan Savage).

@29 That's funny, you think Seattle has done substantial upzoning. Also, since when are there single family homes still worth $650k in Seattle today lmao.

@31 - ??? Each “neighborhood residential” plot can now add a DADU and subdivide. That is absolutely substantial. But zoning changes do not equal new units.