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-Thank you for being here this morning.
I'm pretty excited with what seems to be the interest level
on this new cast of characters here.
Over the last week, our administration's been meeting
with the incoming councilmembers to help them
prepare to take office and hit the ground running.
That becomes critically important.
But I think, quite candidly,
that they've earned these positions of leadership.
And our administration,
which consists of our department heads,
our employees, our unions, the community activists
that are part of sort of our DNA,
if you will, that these councilmember-elects
have earned the right to lead this city.
And we are excited to be partners with them.
They're meeting with our deputy mayors,
our staff, our department directors.
Our commitment to transparency becomes critically important.
You know, having, of course, served in that position,
I remember how critical it was to have access to people,
access to data.
I've worked in with administrations
as a councilmember when it was less than ideal.
And I understand that often because we have an agenda,
we have an idea and a vision and sometimes it could be
misaligned with people in a different department,
whether that be the Legislative Department
or the Municipal Court or even the City Attorney's Office.
And, when I took office, one of the things
that our administration committed
to was to try to erode those factions,
those artificial barriers to the success of the city.
I've personally watched these councilmember-elects campaign.
And I was very proud as a Seattleite to see
how they led with integrity, commitment, passion.
Things are exciting.
You're going to hear from these incoming members in a moment.
But what they've been doing since the campaign,
quite candidly, is getting ready.
They've heard me say that we don't take victory laps.
You're going to take a couple jogs now and then.
That's okay. They did win.
And they won because they worked hard.
And I expect their work effort
to shine through through policies,
through budget analysis, through advocacy.
And, quite candidly, many of them, in fact,
all of them talk strongly about public safety,
their commitment to the issues residents care about:
housing and homelessness,
a focus on the basics like constituent response
and listening, fixing potholes,
accessible transit, clean and welcoming parks.
These are the basic components of this city
that they talked about passionately.
Too often, I think, people want to put politicians
in a binary box of progressive or moderate when, in reality,
this group is less concerned about the hardline ideologies
and more committed to just simply getting stuff done.
I've heard them campaign on that.
And that's why I think this is so exciting.
What really excites me about this group
is the diversity of life
and professional experience they have.
I'll name just a few.
We have -- this is supposed to be sort of funny,
but I don't know how this is going to roll out.
I didn't practice this part, by the way.
So, we have two veterans,
we have two UDub alumni, go Dogs!
But we also have five Husky supporters.
[ Laughter ]
I wrote that in there. I wrote that in there.
Two from city service. We have three lawyers.
We have four with parents or kids in public schools.
We have two that are dog owners. No cat owners in here?
I can't even believe it. Oh, God, we love cats, too.
We have two who parents worked as welders.
We have two whose parents worked in educators -- as educators.
We have two that are small business owners
to join Councilmember Nelson as a small business owner.
The diversity of life experience,
they're well educated,
well versed in philosophy, religion --
no, I don't know about this stuff.
But, in all seriousness, their life experiences,
which I think are so critically important to these jobs,
I think we've heard their stories
and they were passionate stories about what they've overcome,
the impediments to progress,
impediments to their self-optimization
that got them to this point.
That becomes critically important that this --
of this work we're going to do. Now, very recently,
I spoke about some of the outgoing councilmembers to --
some of those who attended a going away party.
And, again, I want to thank my cabinet members
who are here, partner -- parts of our --
members of our administration that,
contrary to what some would say,
we did some marvelous work together.
And that's why I'm so thankful for their work.
We sent 344 bills down to this council
in the last couple of years.
All of them passed. None of them failed.
I see central staff members here.
I want to thank you for your policy work that you did.
In fact, Councilmember Sawant only voted against
22 of those 344. So, that's work right there.
Of the council-sponsored 57 bills, I only vetoed one.
We worked together collaboratively
on trying to get things across the finish line.
We sent council 22 department director nominations.
And they confirmed all of them.
Very recently, the outgoing council passed,
very recently, some phenomenal legislation,
our Building Emissions Performance Standards,
affectionally known as BEPS.
We worked on and passed a firefighter contract,
our downtown activation plan and associated legislation.
They recently confirmed
our two very important department directors,
Jennifer Chow and Gulgun Kayim,
that's of Arts and Culture and Department of Neighborhoods.
The Housing Levy they worked on that
passed the same time these leaders were passed.
Nine hundred and seventy million toward one of the crises
of the hour, our housing issues.
The Industrial Lands Policy, the Tree Ordinance.
The outgoing council. We did some phenomenal work together.
And, so, I want to dispel of this narrative
that things were so, so bad in City Hall,
because that includes all of us together, things are so bad,
we couldn't get anything done. We got a lot done.
Which then leads and sort of begs the question,
"What can we do now with people
who decided to leave and people who come in?"
And that's why we're here today. We have some excite --
we have some excitement and some energy
on the kinds of things we want to do together.
And I trust that they will lead with integrity,
with passion, with intelligence. They are proven already.
And, so, it's my honor to --
we're going to go in the order of the districts.
It was not random, 1, 3, 4, 5 and 7.
So, we're going to start off
with Councilmember-Elect Rob Saka.
Then from Councilmember-Elect Saka,
we'll go to District 3 Councilmember-Elect
Joy Hollingsworth
all the way down to 4, 5 and 7. Okay?
So, with that, Councilmember-Elect Rob Saka,
you have the microphone, my friend.
-All right. Well, thank you, Mr. Mayor,
for your leadership in organizing
and hosting this conference.
I'm excited and honored to be with you all today.
Thank you to my fellow councilmembers-elect
and members of the media. Rob Saka.
I have the honor and pleasure -- I'm one of the veterans,
by the way, Air Force veteran, go Air Force!
But I am one of the veterans
that the mayor alluded to earlier
along with my council -- my fellow councilmember-elect,
Bob, who will be up here in a moment.
But I'm also part of many communities.
I'm someone who has overcome the foster care system.
I'm someone who is a father of three.
I'm someone who lives in Delridge.
I wear many hats in my life today,
personally and professionally.
But the thing that I had -- that brings me the most joy,
honor, and I recognize my privilege in this,
is being a servant of the residents,
the people of District 1 and the people across this city as well.
And I am really, really looking forward to serving everyone.
We have a very unique once-in-a-generation opportunity
right now to usher in a new culture in Seattle City Hall.
One -- and, by the way, as I understand it,
this hasn't happened in a long time,
in modern history actually,
we haven't had this many new councilmembers.
And, so, we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity
to help usher in a new culture at Seattle City Hall,
one that's based on collaboration, transparency,
getting things done, mutual trust and respect,
being disagreeable or disagreeing
without being disagreeable.
And I couldn't be more energized and excited
to help bring about the change
that I think everyone wants to see,
certainly the residents of District 1.
And, so, again, I am --
I couldn't be more thrilled to help usher
in this new generation of leadership at Seattle City Hall,
one that is based in service and collaboration
and respect and transparency.
And hat tip and shoutout to the amazing staff,
dedicated staff, central staff at Seattle City Hall.
I've been honored to help -- like I've been empowered
to get up to speed on a number of really important topics.
During my election night speech or conversation
that I had with Tracy Record from the West Seattle Blog,
we talked a little bit about --
I made an offhand colorful remark, I --
"One of my first orders of business is figuring out
where the bathrooms are at City Hall."
Good news to report, we've mastered that.
But, importantly, we've also learned how to comply
with our open public records obligations
and other really important nitty-gritty --
like things that help bring about
a more functional responsive government.
So, I'll shut up. Joy, the floor is yours.
-Thank you. -Thank you, thank you all.
-Thanks, Rob.
I'm at the age where I've got to have something in front of me
to make sure that I don't forget what's going on.
I definitely want to thank Mayor Harrell for his leadership.
His administration has been completely accessible
and transparent during this process
to getting us up to speed about what's going on in our city.
And I think that really sets the tone
and shows the commitment to collaboration.
I know someone has a bet how many times
we're going to say "collaboration" up on here.
I also want to thank the councilmembers
that are transitioning, Councilmember --
President Juarez, Mosqueda --
Councilmember Mosqueda, Councilmember Lewis,
Councilmember Pedersen, Councilmember Sawant,
Councilmember Herbold for their service to our city as well.
They have been accessible as well to let us know
some of the stuff that's coming down the pipeline
and some of the groundwork.
Also, to our soon-to-be colleagues
who are on the second floor, Councilmember Nelson,
Councilmember Strauss and Councilmember Morales,
who have been accessible as well,
who have talked about this teamwork, collaboration.
There goes another dollar in someone's pocket.
But, for everyone to be working together,
they have talked about that and I'm really excited about that.
I love stats. The election was certified November 28th.
This is day 17 of that process.
And I give myself grace a little bit to understand
that that's a short period of time.
And, by the time you are sworn in on January 2nd,
that's 35 days.
And, so, what we've been doing --
what I've been doing is meeting with people.
We've had a couple safety meetings in our district,
connecting with business owners,
connecting with community, nonprofit groups.
Meeting with elected officials,
meeting with the Mayor's Office, the mayor.
All these things in such a short period of time.
And I just wanted to throw that out there
because I think that's really important.
We know that this process will take time.
We know that everyone wants a sense of urgency.
But we also understand that it's a process.
And we -- the one thing --
the beautiful thing that I love about all of my five
soon-to-be colleagues is that, you know, when we were running,
and you heard this on the campaign trail a lot,
was we just did not want the job title,
we actually want to do the job.
And, you know, City Council is a destination for us
to be able to do the job, serve our constituents.
And I'm looking forward to working with them,
working with the Mayor's Office
and you all as well to keep pushing our city forward.
So, thank you all for being here today. Thank you.
Oh, and I'd like to pass it off
to my soon-to-be colleague, Maritza Rivera.
-Thank you, Joy.
I want to thank the mayor for his leadership
and for including me today. And I want to thank city staff
and members of the media for being here.
I just want to say that I'm truly humbled
by having been elected by our district residents
to fill this seat.
I really am here to do the work and not the title.
And I'm really looking forward to working
with our councilmember-elects here
as well as the current councilmembers
and the mayor to get the city back on track
to its a vibrant state that most of us remember
when we moved here or grew up here.
And, so, really, that is my main message
is really I'm looking forward
to rolling up my sleeves along with my colleagues and the mayor
and working together collaboratively,
there's another dollar in someone's pocket,
to really do the hard work of the city.
I love this city. I've been here 22 years.
I'm raising two daughters here.
And I'm just looking forward to getting the city
back to the vibrant state
so that our kids are really thriving here
as well as all of us. Thank you.
-Well, good morning, everyone.
I am Councilmember-Elect Cathy Moore from District 5.
And I wanted to thank Mayor Harrell
for arranging this opportunity for us to come before you
and say a few brief remarks
before we are officially convened on January 2nd.
And also thank you to the media for your interest
in seeing what we've been up to.
So, along those lines,
what I've been up to since the election
was I took a little break, but not much,
and I've been really working on trying to assemble a great team
because we have a lot of work
to be done in the city and in District 5.
And it's important that it's not just me, but my team,
and that we are working in partnership together
and with everybody throughout the city with central staff,
with the executive departments staff and leadership,
as well as the Mayor's Office, the City Attorney's Office
and the community leaders in our community.
And, so, I've been working to put together a strong team
because we do need to address the issues of public safety,
of homelessness, affordable housing and climate change.
And, in District 5, particularly important to everyone
and is sort of the Holy Grail
is getting a side walk in every single neighborhood.
So, I will be working on that, hopefully, in collaboration
with my other councilmember, Alex.
Other than that, I'm really just looking forward
to the opportunity to begin the work.
Spent a lot of time talking about the work.
And, so, I'm anxious to begin the work.
I'm anxious to work in collaboration
with Mayor Harrell's administration,
with the new council leadership and with my soon --
all of my soon-to-be council colleagues.
So, thank you for your time and happy holidays to all of you.
-Good morning, everyone.
As the District 7 councilmember-elect
I'm used to going last.
And, so -- but I'm good with that.
And I'll keep it short relatively.
First, I want to say thank you Mr. Mayor for your support
and bring this all together.
Also, thank you to the Executive Department folks
we've been meeting with.
And also the Legislative Department.
A lot of meetings this week getting to learn, as Rob noted,
the -- you know, the nuts and bolts of governing
and making sure they're --
we're on the right side of all the laws
and the procedures that we need to be in.
I also want to say thanks to my fellow councilmembers
starting with Rob, Joy, Maritza and Cathy.
I only say those in order too
because that's what we're used to on the campaign trail.
Everything is done in order starting --
and poor Rob always had to go first.
But you know what? As you know Rob, he can do that.
So, that's good. And I'd also like to thank,
you know, the --
you know, the current members are going to be with us.
You know, Councilmember Nelson, who's been a great support,
but also Councilmember Dan Strauss,
who obviously I shared Magnolia with District 6.
So, it's really important that --
to connect with Dan on the issues
that relate to Districts 6 and 7.
And, even before the election,
I had a call with Councilmember Morales on issues.
And, definitely, we're setting up an opportunity
to have a great amount of collaboration
amongst not just the cohort of us coming in,
but the whole new council. And, you know,
I'm -- that point that somebody referenced
about those councilmembers leaving,
I really want to thank Council President Debora Juarez.
She is fantastic. I love her.
I had some great conversations with her,
some great mentoring from her, some great insight from her.
And the same thing with Councilmember Alex Pedersen.
And I also wanted to say thanks to those who are leaving
because one thing I've learned being a candidate
is that this is a daunting experience
and it's a daunting, you know, experience to walk into
in terms of being a councilmember as well.
So, for those that are leaving, thank you for your service,
to include Councilmember Andrew Lewis,
who I'll be meeting next week with.
I was very appreciative of his call to me
and his offer to meet to ensure that District 7 is covered.
And, so, that's very important to me.
And I'm very happy with that and thankful for that.
And then, moving forward, in terms of leadership,
you know, leadership, as some have heard many times
on the campaign trail with the North Star.
And I recognize, Mr. Mayor, that he's used that term often.
But, as a Navy guy, I'm going to claim,
you know, some privilege with the term North Star as well.
But really important to leadership
with accountability and transparency.
We've got to work that. Leadership with good governance.
And what that means, you know, positive engaged leadership.
And this is where programs like One Seattle are so important.
We have to have that positive engaged leadership
as we move forward and listen and reach out.
And, most important, listen to all stakeholders
to get all the different pieces of it
so we can get it right the first time out of the council.
And that's so important. And then, ultimately, it's --
you know, it's about leading with compassion,
but then also wisdom and having balance.
Balance is like my new favorite word.
And I'm looking forward to, you know,
leading with that balance with my cohort mates and --
but also the other members of the council
as we move forward with the Legislative Department team
and then the Executive as well.
So, thank you very much. I really appreciate it.
And I really appreciate seeing a lot of the faces
that I know from the press community
during the course of the campaign.
That, in itself, was a great learning experience as well.
So, for those that are here from the press, thank you.
And I really appreciate the opportunities
during the campaign to be interviewed live on the street
or in a coffee shop or wherever it may be.
So, thank you.
-Someone should tell Councilmember-Elect Kettle
that sucking up to the press never works.
I've been trying it for decades now.
In all seriousness, I do want to give a shoutout
to the current councilmembers, Nelson,
Morales and Strauss, my friends, our friends.
And, so, this is an opportunity to celebrate
the new folks coming in and to celebrate the work
that they've done together in the past
and sort of moving forward now. So, I wanted to make sure
that they are recognized properly, in my words.
We'll take a few questions, a few easy questions, hopefully,
but we'll go from there. Jim, I may need a little help.
So, when I call on folks, do you mind calling, please?
-Yeah. Tracy?
-A question for Councilmember-Elect Saka.
So, you guys have already talked a lot about getting stuff done.
But -- so, what's the first thing --
since you campaigned as the public safety,
public safety, public safety cabinet,
what's the first thing public safety-wise
do you plan to get done?
-Yeah. So, it's going to --
public safety is really important to me.
That is always -- it's a great question.
And public safety has always been my number one priority.
And, so, I look forward to working collaboratively
with my fellow
Councilmembers, this Mayor's Office
to help bring about the public safety or the change
we want to see in public safety. We need to hire more officers.
The current, you know, incentive structure hasn't worked.
We need to figure out a path
to make sure we have appropriate staffing levels.
We need to -- it stood up today. I see --
I saw Amy Lee in this room, the head of our new CARE team.
But we need to figure out a way to quickly grow and scale
that to make sure we have a comprehensive holistic approach
to public safety, one that recognizes the importance --
critical importance, probably now more than ever,
of policing and enforcement, but also police reform
and officer accountability and alternatives,
or civilian responses, this CARE team, if you will.
So, we have a lot of important work to do ahead.
And it's a shared responsibility,
but a shared opportunity to really advance this work.
And, so, I'm looking forward to doing just that.
And talking to stakeholders involved,
including small business owners.
I've been doing a fair amount of that, to be honest,
in the past few weeks throughout the whole campaign.
But I want to thank the mayor for opening up his office
and being very transparent and making his office,
particularly on the public safety front,
open, available and accessible
because that's going to be important to continue
on a going forward basis.
So, thank you.
-Thank you. And Josh, Erica and Chris.
-Mr. Mayor, with the new council in place,
what are your top policy goals for the coming year?
And are there things you think you can get done now
that you did not get done in your first few years?
-Yeah, that's a -- that's an easy question.
My policy goals is we proposed a budget that just got passed
that I think we think centers our values.
We have new ideas for public safety. as an example.
And I think that the public needs to understand
why we're trying to do this
when we're looking at either acoustic gunfire
locating systems or CCTV cameras, for example,
that our need for privacy is heightened in this world,
but our need to protect all communities is heightened.
So, we want to make sure we're piloting these kinds of things.
A lot of people in the city continue to confuse
public safety and health situations.
So, when they walk downtown and they'll see people that are,
in my mind, in my perspective, unhealthy,
others may see them as a threat.
So, we're going to do a lot of close work
working with our Board of Health,
an organization that's been around since 1951,
on how we can aggressively treat people
and make the distinction between someone that just needs help,
they just need treatment. I think you saw in our budget
we propose money for new facilities
and new outreach services to make sure
that we are diverting people from the criminal system.
So, I think that one of our highest priorities
is to make sure that on the health side of things
that this council has new energy with respect
to optimizing how we treat people.
Now, we're not typically in that space.
We're not the Health Department. We have police and fire.
That doesn't mean that we are not fully committed
to make sure people get health treatment.
So, I'm expecting this council to fully engage
on these issues with the existing councilmembers.
The last piece I would say is we just passed the Housing Levy,
as I talked about, our housing crisis,
our homelessness strategies on sheltering people continue.
And I expect this council to help me work
not just with the funds that we have through
the levy and through our --
we have our housing director here,
I'm very pleased to see that she's here,
but also working with the state
in some of the encampments around the state
to get people treated and to get people housed.
So, I'm hoping that I have new energy with this council
to help me engage with the state.
We had a meeting with the state legislators two days ago
and a few of the councilmembers-elect
were able to attend that.
And we specifically talked about encampments and housing policies
and how we can partner with the state.
We talked about progressive revenue strategies.
And, so, I expect to see some new collaboration
with other jurisdictions, county and state,
coming from this particular group.
And I'm excited to be a part of that.
-Erica?
-Do I need to direct to one particular person or can we --
-You can just ask.
-Whoever wants to jump up? -Yeah.
-So, the city's facing a rather major deficit next year.
A lot of candidates said that we don't have a budget problem,
we have a spending problem.
And the council sort of punted on capital gains.
So, I'm just -- I don't know who wants to take this,
maybe Maritza, since I remember you saying this on the trail.
Do you -- are you open to new taxation now
that you've maybe learned a little bit more
about the budget situation at the city?
-Thank you for the question, Erica.
You know, I did say on the campaign trail
that I would be open to exploring new revenue.
But, in addition to that,
I said we really do need to look at the current budget
and make sure that the things that we're investing
and are having the outcomes that we intended
when we made those investments.
So, I really look forward to working with the current council
and the mayor to look --
and the Budget Office to look at our current budget
and ensuring that some of the things
that the mayor just talked about in terms of helping people,
are we really helping people with the programs
that we're currently implementing,
because that's of paramount importance.
I mean, something that I know talking for --
to voters on the campaign trail
is that they want people to get help.
And, so, I want to make sure that the programs
that we are implementing at the city
are really having the impact that we intended
and are truly helping people.
And, if they're not, then let's look at a different program
that will have that outcome because, at the end of the day,
we need to make sure that everybody in the city is healthy
and --
you know, and participating in the city in this vibrant way.
And we really want to take care of people.
-Did anyone else want to tackle that?
I don't want to deprive any of you of an opportunity.
We're good? Okay.
-Okay, Chris, Brian, Conner.
And I'll come back to you, too, as well.
And I think that'll be everybody.
-I just want to go back to your answer on public safety
because you did say off the top that these were all candidates
that ran on a platform of improving public safety.
You also said you were able to work with the previous council.
So, now that you have allies on this council
on this particular issue,
does that change your agenda going forward next year
in terms of improving public safety?
-No. Next question. No, I'm just kidding.
And your purple is not distracting me,
it's just getting me excited. I recognize --
-I heard you played for the Huskies.
[ Laughter ]
-Well, I'm pretty excited in a few weeks
about what we may see here down in New Orleans.
I say "no" cryptically only to say
that our agenda on public safety has been clear
since the decade of work that I've been doing that.
Our charter responsibility is to keep people safe.
Sometimes I look at safety as a circle like this
and health as a safety as a sort of a concentric circle,
too, because, in addition to being safe,
I want them to be healthy, to feel safe, to feel healthy,
to feel good about themselves.
We've been doing this work for a long time.
And, in our administration,
we have to translate that into policy.
And, so, when we did the work with the current council
on how we approached the fentanyl issue,
I think that was the smart way to do it,
to have a baseline level of data.
Yesterday, I issued an executive order
on how we will use data
to see who was hurting out there for help,
to not be afraid to make lawful constitutional arrest
when people are threatening others.
And I think this council understands that.
Our approach will not change, our agenda will not change,
but I'm always in search of new ideas.
You know, I try to read as much as I can on criminology.
We have backgrounds here.
And that's why I pulled out their different backgrounds.
They have life experiences.
They've probably read books that I haven't read,
they have relationships that I do not have.
They're going to bring new ideas on public safety, new tools.
And, so, I always tell critics of public safety --
and, by the way, our crime rates are going down if you look
at what's really happening because of our policy work.
I have Councilmember -- Councilmember, what,
Deputy Mayor Tim Burgess is standing over here
that is just showing outstanding leadership with new ideas,
new creativity, working with police and fire
and with Chief Smith here in our CARE Department.
So, our agenda will not change.
But I do think we're going to have some new ideas
and some new passion for this -- coming with this councilmember.
And I look forward to that -- these councilmembers,
I look forward to that. -Brian?
-Yeah. I was going to ask, we talked about public safety,
has a public safety chair been determined?
Do we know about the different committees?
What's the scoop there?
-So, they agree -- they're going to start --
they're all going to be public safety chairs,
as I understand it. -Okay.
-No, I don't -- I -- so, I don't --
-Wait for the meeting.
-Yeah. You know, we're not -- I --
I'm not privy to know about council positions
and council chairs and committee assignments.
I've been through it several times
and my guess would be
that they're having ongoing discussions
and things aren't baked out yet.
So, I can't speak intelligently about that.
And, you know, I -- I've always made this clear
in terms of committees and committee assignments,
particularly when I was involved in trying to help decide that,
anyone could pass any legislation from any committee,
anyone votes on any committee.
So, I always thought that the -- whether you a chair,
a vice chair or a member was sometimes artificial
because, particularly when I was council president,
I made sure that if someone wanted to push an agenda
on a different committee, then work with that chair.
And I think that it's incumbent upon that chair
to sort of share the glory, share the love,
share the excitement about the new policy.
That's a good chair of any committee.
You're a member of a team when you are part of nine.
And I think what makes an ineffective council
when you're trying to have nine people outdoing each other,
always blaming the other person.
And I know that from personal experience.
So, with respect to committee chairs, to me,
I'm sure they'll all figure that out with the three
ongoing councilmembers. They have a decision --
they're going to have a vacant seat, of course.
I'm sure one of you had a question about that.
They'll figure that out.
I have all the confidence where they'll figure it out
and have some good committee assignments.
-Conner?
And then two questions after that and we'll be done.
-Yeah, this question is open to any councilmember-elect
who wants to answer it.
But despite you guys being brand new in January,
you will almost immediately be tasked
with selecting another new councilmember.
What are some of the qualities and experience
you're going to be looking for in that person
that will be added to the council
for Teresa Mosqueda's seat?
-Well, this is my first tough question
and not even officially in office yet.
I guess what I would say is that we actually as a group need
to come together and have that -- an open session.
Wait, I've got to worry about the OPMA here
in my training coming in.
We are going to need to have discussions
about what the criteria is
and what are the characteristics, experience
and sort of philosophy that we're looking for.
And we have not even begun that process yet.
So, that is something all of us are thinking about individually.
But, certainly, it's going to be something
that the council will need to decide.
And then we will be making --
through the council president, I assume,
making that list of criteria available to the public.
-I think Cathy wanted to say finding someone just like me.
That would be amazing. So --
-I second that.
-Anybody else want to talk on that one?
Okay. Matt and then Chao Yang.
-Mayor, this question is for you and a quick follow-up
after that.
Yesterday -- or last week when you met with the governor
at the homeless camp, you talked.
So, there's roughly 20+ camps
on state right-of-ways, it's still --
-Twenty-eight.
-Twenty-eight. The governor, in his supplemental budget,
is just allowing just 10 more --
10 million more to clean up all the camps in the state.
Can you characterize your relationship with the state?
Are you happy with their cleanups
and the progress of their cleanups on state
right-of-ways given that 10 million
going for the whole state
may not be enough even to cover the 28
that are in the state of -- the City of Seattle?
-Thanks for the question.
So, I'm not happy with the city, the county, the state,
all of our progress in this respect.
I think the public wants more.
I'm very happy with the collaboration
I'm getting from the state, the conversations we're having,
both the Governor's Office and the state legislators,
that this -- within recent years, this is --
these are new areas of concern.
And, so, they -- maybe 15 years ago,
they weren't equipped to deal with it
with the types of policies we have in place.
So, I'm very happy with where we're heading on this.
They were -- you know, we argue with data.
So, when I -- at the press conference
when I shared that there were 28 encampments,
I shared the number of responses from our fire department,
the number of responses from the police department,
that was not met with any resistance by anybody.
And, so, I think we have a great opportunity in front of us.
They understand that. And, so, I am happy with the way
the relationships are developing.
I am a mayor that works with a sense of urgency.
If anyone works around me, they know that I jokingly say,
"I'm in the fourth quarter of my life,
I've got to get things done quickly.
I -- I'm not parlaying this in something else."
And, so, I'm never -- I'm not a content mayor.
So, we have a lot of work to do.
They're going to help me get it across the finish line.
We met with Gael Tarleton,
our Office of Intergovernmental Relations director.
Their team works with us with the state.
We look forward to their leadership.
We're going to get a lot of work done.
And, again, we're going to lead with data.
You don't have to blame when you just lead with data.
Here it is, everybody, here's the problems,
here's the outcomes we're trying to drive.
You could like it or not like it.
The data speaks for itself. So, we are going to work
aggressively to shelter people and treat people
and make sure that right-of-ways are accessible.
-And, real quickly, have you rethought about a football bet
with the mayor of Boston?
-So, that -- that's always sort of jinxy.
I don't like doing the proverbial salmon stuff
and all that other stuff. I just --
I like being underdogs.
We are just not even getting the national respect we deserve.
I think we all can agree on that.
So, that -- I think it was a four-point underdog,
something like that. Yeah, we'll take that right now.
So, we -- I don't think I'm going to do the bet.
I may. I do know the mayor of Austin.
I'm not saying that I'm looking toward Houston after this,
but the weather in Houston this time of year
I've been told is pretty mild. You don't look beyond.
This is exciting for the city, though.
We couldn't be prouder
than our local university putting us on the map.
So, I don't know about the bets yet.
We'll figure that out.
-Chao Yang?
-Yeah, again, for the --
another citywide city councilmember,
do you know how many people are competing for their position?
And, as the mayor, do you have any preference
for that position?
-Yeah, any particulars for the position?
Oh, people, people for -- oh, got you.
Yeah. So, I do this -- I've been doing this --
if there are any of you interested in --
for that selection, raise your hand.
And I don't even know
if the application process -- when did -- I don't even know.
So, to answer your question, I don't have any particulars.
Now, in transparency, we like to lead with transparency.
I've probably had, oh, on last count,
maybe four or five people contact me
just to say they want to know what it's like
to be a councilmember. And none of them said,
"I'm going for it," or anything like that.
And I'm always willing to make myself available.
I'm always willing to make myself available
to the councilmembers that are just like Joy Hollingsworth
here that we're trying to trying to find.
So, I anticipate it's going to be a robust discussion.
I think what has happened is -- I'm going to be candid with you.
This is -- I can always tell
when my director of comm is looking at me saying,
"Keep your answer short, Harrell."
These are tough jobs. These are very tough jobs.
Your integrity gets attacked. Your character gets attacked.
And all you're trying to do is help the people in Seattle.
And, even with that, the opportunities are phenomenal
really to be able to effectuate the change that perhaps
you only envisioned you can do in another point of your life.
I'm hopeful that people answer the call to public service.
It'll be a robust discussion.
It'll be their decision, not mine.
But I don't have anyone in mind.
I've read some blogs, you know, that I have --
I'm sitting on some resume here somewhere. That's just not true.
That I hope good qualified people
come out and apply, they make a good decision,
I trust that they will with their colleagues --
the other three colleagues
and we continue this journey together.
So, unless any of you are sandbagging me,
you have someone you have in mind,
I haven't heard of any. But I do read. Eric, I do read.
What I -- I read the rumors, I read the rumors,
I read the rumors. We good? -Yep.
-Hey, everyone, let's have a great holiday season.
Oh, I want to make one last point, though.
You know, a lot of people don't know,
Joy and I grew up in the same church together.
And her grandmother was someone that was one of my mentors.
She used a word that I want sort of to care for,
and the word was "grace."
We are going to make some mistakes along the way.
I say "mistakes" as just another way of learning.
But you said -- she asked for a little grace.
Now, you don't come in saying, "Oh, I can't wait
to make some mistakes." You're going to learn,
you're going to listen to community feedback,
you're going to listen to differing opinions.
And that's how we get better. I've said that throughout my --
the last couple of years. I said, "Hey, we will work very,
very hard for you, City of Seattle.
We will read everything and we'll talk to people,
we will be mentored ourselves, we will mentor others.
But we're not perfect."
The folks standing up here, myself included,
we're not perfect.
But our efforts will be perfect, our intent will be perfect,
our energy will be perfect. But we do ask for grace.
And that's how we're going to be together as a strong city
recognizing that we can disagree,
but we don't have to be disagreeable,
as Councilmember-Elect Saka said.
So, together, we're going to build One Seattle
and we're all in this together.
So, thank you very much and have a great holiday.
[ Applause ]