-I'm a small business owner, community connector.
-I'm a progressive leader with a decade of proven results.
-I'm born and raised from here.
-Cannabis entrepreneur Joy Hollingsworth
and transportation activist Alex Hudson...
-Hi.
-...are in the closest race for the Seattle City Council
this year,
in a battle to replace council member Kshama Sawant
in District 3.
D3 is diverse, and both candidates agree
its needs vary by neighborhood,
stretching from East Lake to Madison Park
and Capitol Hill to the Central District.
Will voters in District 3 roll with Alex Hudson
or get in step with Joy Hollingsworth?
-Public policy has really impacted our community
and a lot of the people that have fallen through the gaps.
-The candidates debate the issues.
-We need to have an economy
that is working for working people.
-Electing a new city council member
to serve Seattle's District 3,
next on "City Inside/Out".
♪♪
Welcome to this edition of "City Inside/Out".
I'm your host, Brian Callanan.
Kshama Sawant's decision not to run for reelection
in the Seattle City Council District 3 race
has opened the door to new leadership,
but there's no clear choice on who will replace
the city's currently longest serving council member.
Top candidates Joy Hollingsworth,
a cannabis business owner,
and Alex Hudson, a transportation advocate,
were separated by less than 100 votes in the August primary.
That's the closest result
of any of the seven races on the ballot,
making the battle for a politically active District 3
a top race to watch in 2023.
-I'm Joy.
-Candidates Joy Hollingsworth...
-I'm Alex Hudson.
-...and Alex Hudson
both promise a new direction for Seattle City Council District 3,
from the Central District to Eastlake
and First Hill to Madison Park.
-I'm a small business owner, community connector.
-I'm a progressive leader with a decade of proven results.
-Thank you so much. -Hollingsworth,
who owns a cannabis business with her family,
came out on top in the August primary by just 89 votes.
-Do you care about, like, affordability?
-She's endorsed by "The Seattle Times".
-I'm running for us to bring back --
prioritize essential government services
that really affect our day to day lives.
-I want to build a lot more housing.
-Hudson, the former director
of the Transportation Choices Coalition,
an advocacy group...
-Yeah, have a good one. Bye. -You, too.
-...was second in the primary,
and is endorsed by "The Stranger".
-And I think we have all the ingredients here
that we need in order to really help Seattle
and the people in it live its full potential.
-Hudson ran the First Hill Improvement Association
for five years
and says housing, transportation,
and public safety
are her top priorities.
-I think running a neighborhood organization
is a real asset
because I've worked directly with people
at a geographic level to make things happen.
-Bye, y'all.
-Hollingsworth says she comes from a long line
of local civil rights leaders.
Her top issues? Public safety,
homelessness, and affordable housing.
-We have built our priorities literally block by block,
not my agenda, but what our community is saying.
-Hollingsworth, a basketball star
who's helped bring girls sports to underserved areas,
works with Northwest Harvest Food Access Network.
-I'm in the intersection of community, culture,
and commerce.
-Hudson, whose family does not own a car,
says her experience surviving cancer with help from Medicaid
has led to her life of public service.
-It's a debt of gratitude
that I have to good government policies
and the people who fight to make it happen.
-After nine years under council member Kshama Sawant,
D3 will soon have a new leader.
-I think it's important that voters
really get it right this time,
ensuring that we have someone on council that will listen.
-I'm excited about bringing my experience
and track record of results to City Hall
so that we can start delivering some solutions for people.
-And we are joined by the two candidates for District 3,
Joy Hollingsworth and Alex Hudson.
Joy, very good to see you.
-Likewise. Thank you for having us.
-And, Alex, good to see you, too.
-Yeah, good to see you. -Here we go.
Had a coin flip before the show,
and Joy, you've got the first run at the opening statement.
If you could keep it to a minute, please.
-Oh, absolutely. My name is Joy Hollingsworth,
running for Seattle City Council District 3.
Third generation Seattleite. I was born and raised
in the historic Central District neighborhood.
39 years, I've seen how public policy
has really impacted our community
and a lot of the people that have fallen through the gaps.
Small business owner, nonprofit leader,
community connector, and also a problem solver.
A lot of our priorities are based on our response
to homelessness, public safety,
our housing affordability, what's going on,
our youth, our infrastructure and understanding
how all of those play into each other,
and I'm literally a product of community,
commerce, and culture, all connected,
and I can't wait to answer the questions,
and really happy to be here.
-Okay, great. Alex, you're up next.
If you can keep it to a minute, please,
an opening statement.
-I'm Alex Hudson. I'm a public school mom,
a renter, and a transit rider.
I'm the first person in my family
to go to and graduate from college,
and when I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma
at 24 years old, Medicaid saved my life,
which is when I decided to dedicate my life
and my career to serving the public,
which is what I've done for over a decade here
in the city of Seattle.
I ran a neighborhood organization in First Hill,
where we helped to site homeless shelters
and build affordable housing
and make our streets and our parks better,
and I've helped to be an advocate
for public transit riders across the state of Washington.
So, I have a long history of working within my community,
building broad coalitions
to deliver effective and progressive solutions
on the challenges that are most important to people in our city.
-Thank you both for that.
Alex, let me go back to you and talk about this issue.
You are running to replace Kshama Sawant --
you both are -- who currently is the longest serving member
of the Seattle City Council, perhaps the most controversial.
She has her supporters and her detractors in District 3.
Tell us your thoughts, Alex, about Councilmember Sawant's
leadership for the past nine years
and where you want to take D3.
Are you seeking her endorsement?
-You know, the thing that I will say
about Councilmember Sawant
is that everybody always knew where she stood,
and that is, I think, something that people really
want to see in their leaders,
is a really clear vision
and a really clear ability to articulate
whose side you're on and what you're fighting for,
and I wouldn't say that I am here
to "replace" Councilmember Sawant by any means,
but I, too, believe that we need to have an economy
that is working for working people,
a government that invests in the needs of people
so that they can remove barriers
and allow families and communities to thrive
and be connected to opportunity and to have a sustainable planet
where every person is coming together
to take responsibility for the care
and well-being of each other.
-Got it. Joy, same question to you.
Are you seeking Councilmember Sawant's endorsement?
Your take on the leadership of D3 over the past nine years?
-Yeah, we're really focused on block-by-block priorities.
So, literally,
every time I'm knocking on people's door, I'm asking them,
"Hey, what do you want from City Hall?
What do you want in your leaders?"
And I think the difference is we're really trying to be
hyper-focused on local issues per neighborhood
because they're different all the way from Madison Park
to Capitol Hill to First Hill.
And so, what's really important is that,
you know, they have a council member who listens,
who connects with them, who's transparent,
who picks up the phone, who's in community,
connecting with them, and ensuring
that they are the bridge between literally neighborhoods
to the 45 city departments that are within our city,
and that's what we're looking forward to.
-Got it. Joy, you've raised
about $176,000 for your campaign as of mid-September.
Let's talk about maybe your top three endorsements,
if you wouldn't mind breaking some of those down with me,
and what you think voters should understand from that.
-Yeah, we have a broad coalition of people
that have endorsed our campaign,
from our "Seattle Times" to our mayor,
all the way to MLK Labor,
and then a lot of small business owners and community leaders,
and so, it's this huge, broad coalition of folks,
and I think that's been reflected in our campaign
and our democracy voucher
and people wanting to invest in our campaign,
and we're really proud about those endorsements
and the support.
-So, what does that say about your campaign?
-Yeah, it just shows that we're willing to work
with anyone and everyone, and I think it's important.
I grew up in a Seattle where you literally didn't matter,
like, who you were sitting next to,
who you were across the table with,
what views -- political views, right?
It was literally, "Hey, can we find common ground?
How do we move forward?"
And I think that's the values
that we're trying to bring back to our city government.
-Okay. Thanks. Alex, you've raised about $126,000
as of mid-September for your campaign.
Tell us about your top three endorsers, if you would,
and what you think voters should glean from that.
-Yeah, I'm proud to be endorsed by "The Stranger".
I'm proud to be endorsed
by Planned Parenthood advocacy organization,
the Sierra Club, the 911 Dispatchers' Guild,
as well as, you know, dozens of elected leaders,
over 100 community members,
over 20 individual organizations,
and what that says is that there are people
who really see that I'm able to be bringing together people
from across the variety of different perspectives,
but stay really rooted in the progressive
and effective solutions
that people in our district really want.
-Okay. Let me throw something out here,
because I've been looking with Seattle ethics
and elections over the past couple of weeks here,
and I've noticed that there are some
independent expenditure groups in this race
and a lot of different council races out there.
How do you think independent expenditures
are going to impact their campaigns?
Do they have an impact on your campaign?
Can you talk about that, Joy?
-Yeah. We haven't seen any independent expenditures
come just yet.
We're a campaign that is allowing,
like, no corporate PACs.
We made that clear from the very start
that this is a grassroots project,
like, this is a grassroots movement that we are,
you know, participating in the democracy voucher program,
but if they do come, you know,
you see a lot of labor movements,
you see a lot of different organizations
that are investing.
This shows how important this race is
and all the different races in city council
for the city of Seattle.
-Yeah. Any thoughts about these independent expenditures?
It's been growing as a big part of this race
over the past several cycles here.
-Yeah, absolutely.
As Joy mentioned,
we haven't seen any independent expenditures in our race yet,
although there was polling that was done
in our race a couple of weeks ago
that was testing negative messages about me,
and so, my hope is that the independent expenditures,
if they do come,
we'll keep it a positive message,
which I think has been really the commitment
of all of the candidates in this race,
is to be talking directly to voters
about our positive vision for the city of Seattle.
-I would like to try to split apart the connected topics
of homelessness and affordable housing,
if I could, with you, as we get into this
For the sake of clarity,
Alex, I'll start with you.
Talk about your approach to the visible homelessness crisis,
if you could, what you're hoping to do differently
than what the city is doing right now,
and especially in District 3.
-Yeah, absolutely. Visible homelessness
is a moral failing of our city,
and it is unbelievably heartbreaking
to see so much misery,
that people have fallen so far through the cracks.
When I ran the neighborhood organization in First Hill,
we helped to put two homeless shelters in our neighborhood --
one in the basement of First Presbyterian
and another at Harbor View Hall.
Those are still operating and have now provided
thousands of nights of shelter for people that didn't exist.
So, what I saw through that
is that when you bring people together
and have a conversation, that you can build momentum
towards the solutions to these big problems.
But what we need right now is shelter.
I was talking to outreach workers recently,
and they let me know that that day,
which was Wednesday of this week,
that there are eight shelter beds available in our city.
That's for the tens of thousands of people
who are homeless in our region.
That's totally unacceptable.
There is no way that we're going to provide people the care
that they need when we have such limited resources.
So, building and placing and siting shelter
is critically important to be able to get people connected
and inside so that no one sleeps in our streets.
-And do you think that D3 is open to that?
You mentioned the work you've done to site places before.
Are they open to actually siting
some of these different shelters in District 3?
-District 3 leads with very strong progressive values,
and people want to see effective solutions
that are leading with compassion.
In my experience in running a neighborhood organization,
we brought people together around the yes.
"Yes, we want these things in our neighborhood."
"Yes, these are assets."
So, I have seen it happen before,
and I know from talking to, you know,
thousands of people on the doors
that they want that, too.
-Maybe I can get your thoughts on this, Joy,
your approach to homelessness and what different approaches
you'd like to take to this crisis in D3?
-Yeah, I've been working in the food access space
for the last four years.
-With Northwest Harvest. Right.
-Correct, and being on the front lines
of food insecurity, you are literally seeing people
who are one check away -- paycheck away
from experiencing homelessness
or people that are experiencing it right now,
people that are living out of their cars,
people that are in shelters, shuffling out of shelters.
It's for parts. You have a housing problem
that we have in our city, affordable housing problem.
You also have a mental health issue that's going on.
We also have people that are
experiencing substance disorders,
and we have people preying on vulnerable individuals
that are in a lot of these spaces,
and so, idea around it
is you have to figure out different on-ramps
to get people into the type of services
they need with being very focused on
when you are going into encampments, understanding,
"Hey, what is the best pathway to get this person
into permanent, supportive, or transitional housing?"
Some people just need a voucher. They need a leg up.
Some people need a certain type of treatment,
wraparound services.
Other people need certain different aspects
to get them over that hump,
and so we need more places where --
like, we want to get everybody inside and off the street
to where they can have a day shelter,
where they can get connected to resources,
a one-stop shop where we can be able
to have better accountability and also transparency
so we can measure progress
into the people experiencing homelessness,
the issue that's going on in our city.
-And there's a word out there
that always gets a different reaction
from a lot of different people.
It's called sweeps,
and I just wanted to get your thought on sweeps.
What's your position on them?
-Yeah, unfortunately, sweeps, you know,
it shuffles the problem around
So, very against sweeps,
but I also know that sometimes, those encampments
are next to our schools.
We have to prioritize our kids,
and so, in order to do that,
we have to go and hyper-focus into those areas
where there are encampment resolutions
and we're connecting those people to services
to be able to clean out those spaces to ensure that we have,
you know, functionality in some capacity.
But definitely against sweeps
and would like to see more
resource encampment resolutions.
-I want to make sure I ask that question
about sweeps to you, Alex. Some thoughts on that?
-Yeah. Sweeps hurt people.
Sweeps disconnect people who are living in community.
Sweeps disconnect people from the social service providers
that they've been working with,
and it does nothing except
to exacerbate a really cruel cycle of harm
for the people who are absolutely the most vulnerable
in our society.
So, yes, we need more outreach.
Yes, we need more investments, we need more things,
but that can't be outreach to nothing.
That has to be outreach to care, shelter, services,
programs that are actually deeply invested in
at the scale of the enormity of this crisis
that is facing people in our community,
because there are, as Joy said, way too many people in Seattle
and across our region who are one paycheck,
you know, one illness away, right?
We know the number one reason
that people get into homelessness is medical debt,
and that the vast majority of people
who are homeless actually are employed,
and so, getting people connected to that next best step
can only work
if we have the investments in those resources,
which right now, we just simply do not.
-Got it. Let me stick with you
if I could, Alex, and talk a little bit
about affordable housing, specifically in District 3.
You got a lot of renters there, as you know.
The stats show Seattle has the --
or had the largest rise in average rent
between 2010 and 2020, about 92%.
Thinking back over the past several years,
Councilmember Sawant's tried and failed
to pass a rent control measure there.
Do you support rent control?
What sort of measures can you talk about in terms of
trying to keep control of rent in District 3?
-Yeah, I'm a renter. I'm a renter in the open market.
I've been a renter my entire life,
and I'm a mom, so I rent with a family.
I'm also on the board of the largest
affordable housing provider in King County,
so I have spent years working on this issue.
When I ran the neighborhood organization,
we helped to site and build hundreds of units
of affordable housing in our neighborhood,
and so, I know that the solution is more housing,
that it's a supply and demand thing.
Seattle is the fastest growing city in this country,
and we need to be able to catch up.
And so, that starts a couple of ways.
We need to allow more housing in more places.
We need to make it faster,
easier, and cheaper to build housing.
We need to streamline our permitting
and regulatory processes.
We need to invest in affordability.
We need to protect communities
so that we aren't seeing the rapid displacement
that we've been seeing in our city.
That 92% -- that hurts people.
Your paycheck hasn't gone up 92%, right?
And so, that has forced people out,
and it is harming our community.
So, it's really very clear
that we need to have over 200,000 units of housing
in our city in order to catch up,
and that 80% of those need to be
some kind of regulated, affordable housing.
So, there's a variety of ways that we can do that,
but without a place to live,
communities and people cannot succeed.
-I wanted to pin something down here --
your thoughts on rent control specifically.
Does it work? Is it something you support?
-I believe in rent stabilization, right?
Like, you should be able to have proper notice
if your rent is going up.
You should be able to have some kind of protections
if those rents are going up pretty exorbitantly,
and we have seen some pretty innovative policies
from the city of Seattle that mean to address that.
Some of those policies have had unintended consequences,
and we need, as a city, I think, always, to be able to go back
and take a look and measure what our programs have done.
So, I do believe in rent stabilization
that protects people so that they can have
stability and predictability in their housing.
-Okay. Joy, some thoughts about rent control,
dealing with renters?
Any thoughts you want to share?
-Yeah, absolutely. So, back in 2000 --
and I've shared this story often -
when we saw our neighborhood,
you know, going up with the pricing,
we turned our grandmother's house into a triplex,
and that's where I currently reside into that home.
She purchased it in 1947,
and it took us three months to get a permit.
Now, that's actually six to eight months now in our city.
Could be up to a year, and then to be able --
We turned that house around within 15 months.
In our city, it takes about four years,
three to four years to be able to turn around your housing
into a duplex, triplex,
or to build a building.
That is a problem,
and so, like Alex was saying
about streamlining our permitting process,
we also need to work with our utilities,
our Seattle public utilities and our our Seattle City Light
to make it a little bit easier
for people to be able to connect their property
to public utilities to the street,
whether it's water, sewer, garbage, electricity.
That will be huge.
We also need to be a community
that has more family housing, right?
Like, that's going to be huge for people,
because right now in our city,
you know, we're suffering right now
with the Seattle public schools,
and, you know, not a lot of kids going to those schools.
We have to do a better job of being -- young families,
and then workforce housing is going to be huge.
And then bringing people back to the Central District
will be huge
and being able to have down payment assistance as well.
-Can I get specific about that rent control question?
I just want to make sure I cover that base with you.
-Absolutely. Rent stabilization.
We've passed over 22 laws for renter protections.
All on board for that,
but I also want to make sure that we ensure
that we have this lens for small landlords.
You know, we have a lot of people that might own a house
and they have a duplex or a triplex
and they want to be able to rent as well.
Those are the people that are creating
a lot of affordable housing options in our community.
-Okay, great. Alex, let me jump over to you.
Let's switch gears to public safety, if we could.
Your platform on this issue -- saw it on your website there.
It speaks to the need for alternative 911 responses,
as well as more social services,
yet you have community leaders in the Central District,
for example, in D3, saying, "We need more police."
I realize this is a nuanced question.
That's why I want to ask it here.
Tell us about your approach to public safety,
what role social services need to play,
what role police need to be playing, please?
-Yeah. The city's most core responsibility
is right there in the charter,
is to create safe conditions for people.
Again, I'm a parent, right?
So, this really hits home for me.
Right now, we have not been able to recruit
and retain the number of police officers
so that we can have the proper response time
so that if you need help or you see somebody
who needs help, you can pick up the phone
and somebody is going to come and do that.
And we ask our police officers to do way too much, right?
Police officers cannot be housing connectors.
They cannot be behavioral health specialists.
They are not social workers.
When I did my observation with 911 dispatch,
one of the things I learned is that we have
two crisis response teams in the entire city,
and they can't be dispatched.
A police officer has to go there first.
So, if we don't have enough police officers
and we are asking them to do too much,
then it is perfectly logical that we need other people
who are better equipped to do those jobs.
I also believe we need a reformed
police department, right?
We've seen some pretty abhorrent things
coming out of individuals in our police department
that I do not think
reflect the values of the city of Seattle,
and that creates a serious recruiting problem
because not a whole lot of folks
who would otherwise want to be police officers
are going to see that behavior and want to sign up
for those folks to be their colleagues.
So, we need accountability,
but we need, obviously, to have police officers
who are responding to crime,
who are there to help you when you need it.
That's a given,
but what tasks we ask them to do,
what their culture looks like,
and who takes care of the other things is really critical.
-Thank you. Joy, let's talk about your platform.
You've spoken about reducing response times for 911 calls,
filling staff shortages in the SPD,
and some of his co-responder non-police alternative
type of situation for some incidents as well.
How do you balance this need for police
with the need for different responses to certain 911 calls?
-Absolutely. It's the right response to the right situation.
Public safety affects us in ways that we don't even realize.
What time are we going to the grocery store?
Are we taking transit?
You know, where are you kind of parking your car?
Are you going out at night?
Did you put a camera on your house?
These things have impacted people subconsciously
and consciously,
and government has a responsibility
to help protect people.
That is huge.
And so, when you're thinking about our police department,
of course, we want them to be accountable.
We need transparency as well.
We also need more social workers,
and they should get paid the same amount
as our police officers.
We were asking them to respond
to a lot of the 911 calls, to go into these crisis calls.
They're the first responders as well.
And so, it's a balanced approach with understanding
that, you know, when we're saying,
"Hey, there need to be less response time.
Do we want to increase police?",
it's also about the detectives, right,
that are solving a lot of the crimes
that are going on in the back,
you know, behind the scenes that we just don't know about,
or also, a lot of the activity going on in our city,
we have to get better engaged in youth.
So, it's about gun violence prevention.
It's about making sure that our youth have stuff to do
after school, in school, that mentorship.
It is this holistic approach,
ensuring that we have all these different safety nets as well.
-Thank you. I'm going to start wrapping up here.
I would like to talk about an issue
that we haven't talked about.
Everyone's talking about public safety.
Everyone's talking about homelessness and housing.
What's important to you that you want to let voters know
about you and your campaign?
Another issue, maybe?
-Yeah. You know,
one of the biggest things we are so passionate about is youth.
My grandmother was on the school board.
She always talked about, you know, youth development
and youth priority and education.
We have to ensure that our youth
are taken care of.
City council is not the school board,
so we don't do anything with curriculum,
but what we do have a responsibility for
is ensuring that our after-school programing,
our library, our community centers,
our parks, all these different pieces
are invested within our youth,
and, you know, looking forward
to being able to hopefully put our lens
and our fingerprints on the levy --
the family levy that's coming down the line.
-That education promised.
-That's going to be huge for our kids and our city.
And so, we have to ensure
that we're prioritizing our youth, our future,
and then also the infrastructure that's going on with our city.
-Thank you. Alex, another topic that we haven't brought up yet.
-Yeah, one thing we haven't talked about
that's critically important is our streets
and our transit system.
District 3 has some of the highest percentage of people
like me, who aren't drivers
and who rely on our public transit system,
or we have some of the most walkable communities, right?
So, I think what is really important is that we make sure,
yes, that our streets and our roads are in good condition,
but that we are making sure that we are building a city
where you can get around however you want.
Our transit system is struggling right now,
and as our city is growing,
it's going to be hard to absorb these folks
if we're asking everybody to have a gallon of gas
to get a gallon of milk.
And so, we need for our streets
to be able to be safe for people to get around,
for our kids to be able to move around in them,
and we need a transit system
that creates an irresistibly good alternative,
or at least at the very least, a good alternative
to the single option that most people have,
which is a vehicle.
-Got it. We need to wrap up here.
If you can keep it to a minute or less,
I would love it. I'm trying to get that closing statement.
Joy, why don't you go ahead.
-Yeah, absolutely. Look, we're at a time
where the product of community, commerce, and culture, right?
This was the Seattle that I know,
the Seattle that I grew up in,
the Seattle that I know we can be,
and it's important that we have someone
that can connect our community
to the 45 different city departments,
someone who listens, who wants to work with the mayor's office,
who wants to work with community about what their issues are
and amplifying their message.
That's going to be huge for folks,
especially with our comp plan coming down the line,
our family levy that's coming down the line,
all these different things where it's going to plan
and shape our city.
This is important that we have community input input.
District 3 is so vast, from Madison Park to First Hill,
Capitol Hill, all the way north to Montlake
and all the way south to the Central District
and a little bit of Mount Baker.
Those communities are very, very diverse
and so, looking forward to having someone in there
who's going to amplify all those voices to City Hall.
-You get the last word, Alex. Go ahead.
-Yeah, the thing that I will say
is that I love the city of Seattle.
I have lived in this county and in this city my entire life,
and I know from doing work at the neighborhood level
and building coalitions that have passed
transformative investments in people at the state level,
and just being a member of my community,
being a mom, being a volunteer,
that things feel really hard right now,
that it really feels like our city is on the ropes,
and that can make us feel like we don't know
if this is our city anymore.
But what I have seen over and over and over again
is that hard is not the same thing as impossible,
and that together, we can come together
in some of these incredible opportunities that we have,
as well as the ongoing business of the city,
to turn a new chapter,
that our future can be better than our present
and that our best days are still in front of us,
and that is possible if we have leadership that is courageous,
that is effective, and that is ready to deliver
for the people of District 3 and the entire city of Seattle.
-Alright. Thank you both very much,
and we will be right back.
What are people saying on social media about the two candidates
for Seattle City Council District 3?
One person writes...
Another person comments...
-We'd like to know what you think.
Send us an e-mail at contact@seattlechannel.org,
or find us on social media.
Coming up next week, incumbent Tammy Morales
faces challenger, community activist Tanya Woo
in a fight to represent South Seattle neighborhoods
like the Chinatown International District and Rainier Beach.
Don't miss our Seattle City Council District 2 debate
on the next "City Inside/Out".
I hope you join us.
♪♪