Seattle Has Heard the Promises. Now Wilson Needs to Deliver Results

Since the turn of the Millennium, six consecutive Seattle mayors (Paul Schell, Greg Nickles, Mike McGinn, Ed Murray, Jenny Durkan, and Bruce Harrell) have each left office against their wishes.

Will current Mayor Katie Wilson meet the same fate as her six predecessors, or will she overcome the perils of office to depart from the job on her terms?

There was no overriding reason why the six mayors were unable to achieve their goals in office. Sexual scandal (Murray), bad policies (Schell and McGinn), poor reactions to a crisis (Durkan), and the ongoing battle between progressives and moderates (Nickles and Harrell) have each played a role in why citizens voted for a change at City Hall.

Mayor Wilson’s fate appears to be dependent on whether she can overcome some initial “rookie mistakes” and demonstrate that she and her staff can handle the responsibilities of the position. Because of these errors and lack of political experience, it seems as if Wilson needs to prove her capabilities at a quicker rate than those who held the job before her. The next few months will be crucial if she wants to avoid being considered a lame-duck mayor with three years remaining until the end of her term.

Wilson and her team have inherited many difficult problems, but the voters believed her when she said she was ready to be mayor. Now, they want results. While the list of problems is daunting, they each provide an opportunity for the mayor to demonstrate she can meet the challenges of the office.  The biggest problems for Mayor Wilson and her staff include:

• A $488 million deficit due to both spending increases and declining revenues. This gap has occurred despite a 75% increase in revenues ($5.1 billion in 2016 to 9 billion in 2026) in the past decade, while cumulative inflation was only 38%.
• Homelessness has grown 68% in the past decade.
• Vacancy rate in downtown Seattle is a record-breaking 36.5%, causing a steep decline in property tax revenues, sales tax revenues, and B&0 tax revenues.
• Despite a strong recruiting effort, the Seattle Police Department (SPD) is still 400 to 500 officers shy of the number of officers comparable cities like Boston and Indianapolis employ (approximately 1,500 deployable officers).
• A dwindling rental unit market, as over-regulation has made it more difficult for property owners to profit from their investments. This has increased demand and rental rates.

Wilson’s early challenges come from learning what it is like to be in the political spotlight, where nearly everything the mayor says or does can potentially be critiqued by the media and is discussed by thousands on social media.

Mayor Wilson’s missteps thus far include:

• Waving and saying “bye” to job-creating individuals and businesses who are leaving Seattle due to taxes and regulations.
• Alarming the business community by choosing to attend an anti-Starbucks rally (and telling the crowd, “I am not buying Starbucks, and you should not either” the day after being declared the winner in the mayor’s race. While the company’s decision to move 2,000 jobs to Nashville was likely made long before Wilson’s comments, the optics have not been good for the new mayor and caused Seattle Councilmember Rob Saka to state he was “gravely concerned” about the mayor’s anti-business comments.
• Poor advance work by her staff at Wilson’s first State of the City speech where she clumsily stood in front of the crowd for over a minute attempting to fix problems with both her microphone and teleprompter.
• After announcing her plan to add 4,000 tiny homes to shelter homeless individuals, the mayor avoided answering questions by leaving the event through a back door. Following the announcement, reporter Jonathan Choe released a video showing a serious problem with black mold in many of the units. We Heart Seattle’s Andrea Saurez then provided video of an interview of a tiny home village resident where he showed a tiny home that was set aside for drug use while there is no information available for those seeking treatment for their addiction.
• A young staffer awkwardly interrupts an interview of Mayor Wilson by KOMO’s Chris Daniels over concerns that the question had not been approved. Realizing the disruption would likely have a negative impact on the mayor, Wilson later returned to finish the interview.

Many political figures go through a period of adjustment when they assume a new office. The key is to learn from these experiences before the public loses faith in the politician’s abilities.

After Mayor Jenny Durkan mishandled the 2020 violent protests, her public approval dropped to the point she knew she could not win re-election in 2021. For over a year, Durkan was a lame-duck mayor with the Seattle City Council determining the city’s agenda.

The next few weeks and months are crucial to the Wilson administration. The public is tired of excuses from City Hall, and they voted for candidate Wilson because she claimed she was prepared to tackle Seattle’s homelessness, crime, housing, and budget issues.

After her rocky start, Mayor Wilson recently replaced her chief of staff, accepted resignations of a couple of key staffers (including her lead on homelessness issues) and reshuffled her senior staff. Will this be enough to end the mistakes of the mayor and her staff? The summer will bring many opportunities, and by Labor Day, the public will know if Katie Wilson can handle being mayor and in the political limelight.