What's up, South End?
Ballots for the primary election arrive to your mailboxes as soon as July 18. That means y'all need to take a little time to brush up on your candidates so you can be a fully informed voter.
Here in the South End, we have four candidates competing for the District 2 seat on the Seattle City Council: Jeanie Chunn, Adonis Ducksworth, Jamie Fackler, and Eddie Lin.
The Emerald's contributing columnist Tobias Coughlin-Bogue is our resident politics-watcher. His "Everything Is Political … in South Seattle" column appears weekly. You can read Tobias' latest column here.
If you like your politics up close and personal, the Emerald is hosting a District 2 debate, moderated by Tobias, on July 21 at the Rainier Arts Center.
Tobias is still fairly new here at the Emerald, so I want to formally introduce him to y'all. Here's my recent interview with him.
MD: What is your personal connection to the South End?
TCB: I live in the South End, in beautiful South Park. I was lucky enough to be able to buy a house down here before real estate went really crazy. Having a mortgage instead of constantly increasing rent has been the only way I've managed to stay in this city and stay working in journalism, so I'm super grateful to be where I'm at.
MD: What is your favorite place to eat or grab coffee in the South End?
TCB: I hate this question! There are too many places. For coffee, I mostly make it at home but sometimes hit up The Scene or Good Voyage here in South Park. For food, it really depends on where we draw the line for the South End. If it includes the Chinatown-International District, my favorite thing right now is probably the pork and kimchi at Fort St. George. It comes in a sizzling cast-iron dish and it's one of those "perfect in its simplicity" dishes. Close to home, it's gotta be the family who just started running a taco tent down the road. They're open late and there's nothing better than getting done with work at the restaurant, getting off the bus a couple stops early, and going home with an insanely good al pastor quesadilla.
MD: How do you keep up with the City Council?
TCB: Well, a lot of the information about what the council is up to is publicly available. I make sure to read the Introduction and Referral Calendar every week to see what bills have been put forward, as well as the full City Council's agenda and any committee agendas. To know what happened, we are blessed to have full archival videos thanks to the Seattle Channel. To know why, I try to cultivate a network of smart people, including current/former councilmembers, current/former colleagues in journalism (Hi, Ashley! Hi, Guy!), and other experts. Plus, I try to read a lot of good journalism from our local area and elsewhere. Lastly, I do a bit of browsing on social media, although that has become less and less helpful since Elon eviscerated Twitter.
MD: Do you consider yourself a progressive?
TCB: On a personal level, I would say I'm a little bit left of what we would consider progressive in Seattle. On a practical level, I accept the structure of governance that we have and absolutely align more with the progressive approach to it. I write about local politics because I believe that … it does give regular, everyday people the best shot at changing their lives for the better. A lot of our elections are preordained contests between a "progressive" and a "centrist" where either candidate still mostly aligns with the status quo. Even so, I see the progressive approach as much more action-oriented, in that it wants to fully fund the government and use it for good. Centrists tend to want to reduce the tax burden on homeowners and corporations and have the government do less (while still spending an irresponsible amount on the police, of course). No one likes taxes, but everyone likes roads without potholes, robust public transit, public restrooms, parks, public housing, and so on. Progressive candidates can certainly do better … but I'll give 'em credit for trying.
MD: What are you looking forward to learning in this debate?
TCB: I really want to find out what makes these four candidates different! They all thought they would be running against a centrist or conservative candidate, not each other. Running as the best alternative to a bad option for District 2 is a very different campaign than running to be the best of four good options. I'm really trying to craft questions that will help voters figure out who is the right fit for them. And I'm hoping the good people of District 2 will pitch in by emailing me questions they want these candidates to answer. Seriously, shoot me a line (tobias.cb@seattleemerald.org).
Activism takes on many shapes and forms. For this group of Latinas, it looks like running shoes.
Emerald Executive Director Florangela Davila was on the scene for a local running club's efforts to "Melt ICE."
A few weeks ago, we published an op-ed calling for 10,000 trees to be planted in the South End to combat extreme heat.
Now, once again, trees have made an Emerald headline. Emerald contributing reporter Maya Tizon covered the June 25 City Council meeting, where housing density and tree preservation were big topics, and sometimes pitted against one another.
But advocates on either side said they were focused on the well-being of South End residents. During public comment, Maya reports, a District 2 resident said, "Our public health and anti-displacement infrastructures require tree equity. When tree canopy disappears, neighborhoods become hotter, less livable, and more expensive to cool." And supporters of housing density pointed out that more options could accommodate people with varying income levels and reduce homelessness.
Mike Davis is the newsletter editor and Voices editor at the South Seattle Emerald. Born and raised in Seattle's South End, Mike is a longtime journalist who's covered everything from arts and culture to sports to politics.
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