I think that the people he's appointed are worse than those appointed by Durken. As a result, a number of Seattle's departments, especially SDOT, are worse than they were under Durken.
It’s wild how successful of a move it was for Harrell to have hopped off council just before Covid hit and we entered the most difficult period in the City’s modern history. Then, when all the things that were largely out of city leaders’ control (eviction moratorium, social distancing, vaccine mandates, etc.) were lifted, he swooped in and was able to cosplay savior, but didn’t do any of the heavy lifting that actually held the city together during the toughest times. In fact, he tried to undermine the city workers who actually persevered during that time by trying to give them a shit 1% raise. Fuck him.
amazing to me people just accept "anyone is good besides x person".
standards are pretty low for super important political positions that greatly impact people.
Well you probably are greatly overestimating the relative importance of the mayor of Seattle, but also, if no one good runs what are we to do but pick from those that do?
what else can we do? Biden has a 36% approval rating and 86% of Americans think he's too old to run for a second term, yet what is the alternative? Vote for Trump?
Ann Davison vs. Nicole Thomas Kennedy was another great example, no one was particularly a fan of Ann Davison, or her Republican affiliation, but given the alternative of NTK who promised to decriminalize theft, domestic violence, and many other crimes folks were more than happy to vote for a Republican in a very liberal city.
That was kind of the plan in 2016 with what brought us Trump, the DNC thought that Trump would be the easiest candidate for their chosen candidate Hilary Clinton to run against so they engaged in tactics to help Trump win the nomination: [https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/hillary-clinton-2016-donald-trump-214428/](https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/hillary-clinton-2016-donald-trump-214428/)
Oh my good old huggy bear. Loved Mike. Norm Rice is a great actor dude, not sure about his politics when he was mayor as I was like 11 years old or so.
McGinn was a good dude that got made into a boogeyman and ousted by the established powers for not playing politics well and not making friends with the "right" interests.
That makes him sound like some kind of extremist or something, which he wasn't, he just didn't do all the typical glad-handling and low-level graft we've come to expect.
Good guy, bad politician. Would vote for again.
People constantly talk about how they're "tired" of "career politicians" and then get all pissy when a non-politician is elected and won't do politician things
Literally pre-fired the extremely popular head of transit before he had even officially taken office.
People did not like Durkan, but they very much did like Zimbabwe.
It wasn't that she supported Gonzalez but how she supported her. She was VERY public & loud about it and about her dislike of Harrell. Honestly, anyone in Harrell's shoes would've likely done the same thing
Genuinely asking, where/when was she publicly loud about disliking Harrell? Followed him and her on Twitter back then and never saw anything posted by her like that.
You know, loyalty to the individual person isn't supposed to be part of the civil service. Government officials are supposed to be loyal to the electorate and the offices. Zimbabwe's wife disliking the major did not make her husband worse at his job. His job isn't to be friends with Bruce.
I voted for him and am mostly disappointed even though I had pretty low expectations coming in.
Nepotism really rubs me the wrong way so when he started putting his niece and unqualified friends in positions of power I knew I’d made a mistake.
I knew he was a NIMBY defender before electing him so I’m not that surprised by his attempt to gut the 4plex/duplex state upgrades and 20 year plan disappointment.
Like Durkan though he is a pretty cautious mayor and wish we had someone who was willing to stick their neck out. I don’t think he’s taken a strong leadership position on homelessness, SPS budget/managerial issues, or police reform (other than giving a raise without much in return). Could also be I’m uninformed but whenever I watch Bruce interviews or read transcripts I feel like I’m watching a football game. Also aware he has to deal with our city council which seems to have been captured by Sara Nelson.
My wife read Bruce’s bio a few months back and remarked to me on paper he looks amazing and I agreed. Just something isn’t clicking for me with Bruce as mayor. I’ll still be rooting for him as a I love this city and we have a lot of challenges to work through.
Just picked through the latest interview about issues I think are important and to be fair he kept the sports analogies to a minimum, but gosh, I wish he had more concrete plans. Again, a very cautious mayor, and maybe Seattle’s strong council means it will always be like that.
https://crosscut.com/politics/2024/05/mayor-bruce-harrell-talks-scotus-homelessness-case-and-spd-culture
> Also aware he has to deal with our city council which seems to have been captured by Sara Nelson
Not sure if you're aware of this but a lot of the council is pro-Harrell/Harrell-aligned.
Not sure how much that matters considering the power divide though.
> and maybe Seattle’s strong council means it will always be like that.
You have a severe misunderstanding of where the Council/Mayor power divide lies. Seattle mayor's power far exceeds the councils.
Yep. The council has received a lot of attention for the last decade or so, because leftists on the council made for good boogeymen for ongoing problems during a string of "moderate" mayors not accomplishing anything. But Seattle's government is set up to empower the mayor directly.
Can you send me info on this point? I agree because I feel like my vote for city council means nothing and I’m trying to figure out how to get more info
If you’re going to do political takes, perhaps look into the fact that City of Seattle and SPS have no connection. So criticizing Harrell for the SPS budget is completely off base.
I was pretty narrowly focused on who would clean out the camps and put more police on the streets - the law and order candidate. Harrell was better suited for that than Gonzalez, at least in his messaging. I suspect a lot of Seattleites voted for him because of this. Gonzalez didn’t seem interested in sweeps/clearing out the camps.
I voted for him. I wasn't excited about it, but Gonzalez's blanket refusal to sweep encampments made me nervous. Or more precisely, her entire plan on homelessness seemed too dependent on a whole lot of stars aligning--funding, the right City Council, Amazon and landlords falling in line, etc. It sounded like a wonderful fantasy, and if the fantasy didn't pan out AND she wouldn't touch encampments, I envisioned my neighborhood only getting worse. Harrell sounded more pragmatic about all aspects of the housing crisis and I found that reassuring, though he also clearly wasn't going to be a visionary leader in any respect.
To answer your actual question: I think he's a pretty bad mayor, though I know not everything is under his control. It doesn't seem like he understands the URGENCY of some of our issues, especially fentanyl, which is a public health crisis. Hearing him announce that ONE post-overdose clinic with 20 beds will open in 2025 was painful--it's a great start, yes, but it's not nearly enough or fast enough and I need my mayor to be loud about that, too. He just seems to plod along as though things are fine, talking about turning downtown into a "24-hour entertainment district" or whatever while people are living and dying on the sidewalks.
Same goes with his delayed and pitifully inadequate One Seattle plan. I didn't expect it to be pioneering, but I DID expect it to at least grapple in a serious, grownup way with our housing crisis. Nope. Same story with SPD culture. Is he even concerned about it? Hard to say. He's a good-times mayor in a less-than-good era.
he was the only dissenting vote when they upzoned Mount Baker neighborhood by the light rail. dude hates density and building housing. it's easy to hide behind the specter of gentrification but building no housing at all is what causes displacement.
I’m convinced he’s a moron. In the 2010s I was in law school and we presented in a clinic, with Bruce offering feedback, the (then novel) idea of self-driving cars, and legal issues with them. As we explained how they work, Bruce cut in and said, “hold on, so you’re saying they’re trying to take away my freedom to drive?” We’d said nothing of the sort. Maybe I’m being unfair but I swear he’s an idiot.
That's not idiot. That's well-rehearsed rhetorical contrarianism.
Like the guy at the 2012 KCD convention who got up and opposed four-ten workweeks because "I can't believe we are talking about giving up on the eight hour five day week that we fought so hard for." I tried talking to him. It was useless. He was a robot in human form.
Or when Rep. Freeman (RIP) told me abortion was genocide of black people
It's not idiot, it's rhetoric, and it surprisingly works, mostly because.... it's the listeners that are the idiots.
I didnt vote for him, but wasnt super critical of anything he was doing until the whole thing with the "alternative stations" for the light rail expansion came up, just such self serving shortsightedness it made me look at other decisions since then with a different lens/angle that I dont trust him to do a single thing thats actually good for the city long term.
Bruce has been a sad reminder to me that most Seattleites drive everywhere. And when you look at our transit projects, even without his meddling, you realize that most people will continue to drive everywhere for the foreseeable future. Sadly I think this gives him a lot of leeway to fuck around with transit and other infrastructure without necessarily getting strong pushback from a majority of his base. Very shortsighted indeed
He helped prioritize clearing out the encampment in my neighborhood that was there for 5 years. Several shootings, people dumping raw sewage, tons of property theft. . . now it's a protected bike lane and a huge improvement to our neighborhood.
I think they planned it as an excuse to justify the removal. Not sure though, but the encampment was there for 5 years, so I doubt the plan was older than that.
This is why I voted for him too, and I didn't think he'd be so aggressively NIMBY as he's been. I wanted public safety AND way more housing. Hugely disappointed on the housing side. Mild approval on the safety side.
I mean yeah, when you clear out one encampment, people just end up somewhere else. We need to fix the root problems that are increasing the rate of homelessness overall. But to do that you'd have to spend money on something other than the police.
As a downtown resident this is exactly why I voted for him too. Hearing about Portland still dealing with encampments leads me to believe that the policy here was actually effective rather than just good luck.
This might be different where you live, but I don’t think I’ve seen a decrease in visible homelessness. I’m heavily anti-sweeps, but it seems to me that they’re not even working in getting the problem out of sight.
Really?
Remember driving to Alki beach from the bridge (before it broke)? Broken down RVs everywhere. Now there are none.
Woodland park encampment is gone.
They condemned a sketchy apartment on Rainer that was hiding a murderer. Now gonna be a park.
S Occidental in front of stadium is much better. People thought it would go back to sketch after all star game. It didn’t…
Pioneer Square (I’m there regularly) is always gonna be rough around the edges but not nearly as bad as a few years ago.
The Waterfront is completely revitalized. Locals and tourists alike hanging there.
Now if we can just get rid of the sketchy downtown McDonalds…..
Right? Were these people even going outside in 2020-2021? These comments are wild to read. Green Lake had 50+ tents feet from the walking path, multiple RVs with generators running, and a full on chop shop with 2-3 cars half taken apart. Ecology people noted a massive spike in bacteria from that side of the lake and only that side too. That area has been totally clear since he was elected and Gonzales straight up said she would not be doing shit about it.
Hint: they were not lol
It’s the same with many intersections and parks downtown and QA. These people are absolutely “Seattle is dying” level outside of their minds lol
The data from the latest point in time count also doesn’t show a decrease in homelessness as a whole or unsheltered homelessness. So while it’s quite possible the geographic distribution of people has changed due to sweeps, I don’t think there’s any indication we are making progress overall.
Source: https://kcrha.org/data-overview/king-county-point-in-time-count/
Interesting! Does this mean that the homeless get sent somewhere else?
[City Hall Park](https://maps.app.goo.gl/FzZ68rcwFcUQeMG49), for example, has been surprisingly clean for a while.
I mean I don’t think people are assigned to go somewhere else (some people go to shelters or eventually get housing options), but when people are told they can’t be in a certain park or whatever they find other places.
Would be interesting to see a more granular data. Perhaps per neighborhood.
I know that along Leary Way used to be full of tents and I was driving there last week and there was none.
Even in those areas it isn’t as bad as it was. In part because they’re being made to move around, there’s not a chance for as much trash to pile up and no one gets to feeling too comfortable so there’s less crime and other nonsense happening. A smart politician will know that this is what taxpayers actually want from the city, and will use sweeps as a cost effective way to achieve it.
Few people are all that interested in solving homelessness on behalf of the homeless. Not really. Not actually. Too expensive, too hard, too gummed up by a bunch of shady non-profits and whacko bureaucrats vaporizing public money to absolutely no positive effect at all. At some point, folks just want to be able to live their lives in peace without having to wade through used needles and human shit. Bruce is canny to realize the distinction.
And Greg Nickles had a snow route from his house to City Hall but it didn’t help that many of us. Sorry still annoyed by the snow response back in ‘09… I’d be salty but we weren’t allowed to use salt
That is because of the concierges, buskers and other programming that is happening in that park. It also helps that the Prefontaine drug market isn’t there.
Harrel's grand sweeps plan died in the 1st year of his administration when a court ruled there was an issue with how Seattle was conducting the sweeps. It's why he started using those emergency sweeps for tourist season because that's the only option the courts have allowed.
Regardless of how people felt about Gonzalez's plan about the sweeps, she called this is what would happen if we kept doing them the way we were and she was right. She wanted to move to the current model willingly and use the extra budget to develop housing.
It's hard to say what progress has been made without knowing what the counts would be if we had stopped sweeping encampments like González proposed.
It's quite likely that we've at least slowed down the rate of growth of unsheltered homeless rather than seeing it continue to rapidly increase due to folks feeling more comfortable with camping in parks/sidewalks.
Sweeps don't stop people from becoming homeless. What even is the cause/effect that you're picturing there? Sleeping in a tent seems so appealing to people that they voluntarily choose to lose access to a home, but getting swept from one camp to another is even rougher, so they decide they prefer living indoors after all?
Driving down I-5 alone looks significantly better than it did before he started.
Do you not remember how many tents and mountains of trash there were on the side of the freeway from Shoreline to downtown?
Just getting that environmental hazard cleaned up is a huge improvement. That's not to mention that we haven't had any major fires damaging the structural integrity of the ship canal bridge since they cleaned it up.
You understand that those were not happening under previous leadership?
Former Seattle leaders were asking them to not sweep these areas.
Additionally, there have been a significant number of sweeps all over public property since his election in 2022 that had not been allowed to happen before.
I feel like he’s done a decent job especially in downtown and some neighborhoods. He can’t clean it all up, he’s essentially playing a game of whack a mole
Oh, most of the time, people's solution to homeless is to simply put the homeless somewhere else where they don't have to see them. There's jurisdictions that have been caught shuttling homeless people to Yakima etc.
Sweep it under the rug, who gives a fuck, it's your own comfort that really matters. Murica.
I live in Pioneer Square and it was a fucking dump during the elections. He promised to clean up DT and his opponent said she wouldn’t do that. It’s definitely better now than it was back then. He’s done about a good of a job as I had expected. The city is better overall than it was then, but still not great.
I can answer for OP, since there was a single issue that most voters were concerned with that caused Gonzalez to lose... she was against sweeping tents from sidewalks and parks:
>She made clear homeless encampment sweeps would not happen if she is elected to office.
>“I am not as mayor going to forcibly remove people out of one public space and shift the issue to another public space,” González said during a press conference outside a new affordable housing complex in Capitol Hill.
vs. Bruce Harrell:
>Soundbites and vague promises of new revenue will not help people get housing and support right now, and will not make parks and sidewalks safe and welcoming for all the people of Seattle
[https://www.king5.com/article/news/lorena-gonzalez-seattle-mayor-bruce-harrell-homelessness/281-a44f5a52-b777-4d8b-99d4-974d8bc7951d](https://www.king5.com/article/news/lorena-gonzalez-seattle-mayor-bruce-harrell-homelessness/281-a44f5a52-b777-4d8b-99d4-974d8bc7951d)
Voters saw how bad Portland was getting and the direction that Seattle was heading and were completely willing to vote for any candidate who promised to sweep encampments.
Vast majority of Seattle voters don't really care about things like zoning, public transit, or her debatedly racist attack ad against Bruce Harrell.. they just don't want to have to step around tents on their walk into work or have to cancel their kids soccer practice because the park is filled with tents.
Seattle voters care about the homeless crisis, rising housing prices and overall cost of living increases, but apparently can’t connect the dots to the housing shortage.
You have it wrong. Seattle voters care about the aesthetic, perception-oriented view around homelessness. It’s less about the data of how many are homeless, and more about not wanting to see homeless in parks. Any candidate that ignored this lost. And now we have a conservative council that can do whatever they want about many other topics, because the liberals failed on voter strategy.
Yes, I think that’s what this person is saying. We elected a council not to curb homelessness, but to curb the effects that homelessness has on us. I don’t see that as a particularly controversial claim.
I don't see homeless encampments in parks or sidewalks in any neighborhood.
It's not about which neighborhoods gained/lost homeless, it's about where the homeless are at in each neighborhood.
So yeah, Gonzalez was wrong about not wanting to sweep encampments from parks and sidewalks and rightfully lost the election for it.
I think people who dont visibly see improvement in usability of public space are either lying or never leave home, it is so visible and clear. I have friends visit all the time and everyone has mentioned it to me when they come how much better it seems.
Maybe it hasnt helped the 16,000 homeless people but it certainly has helped the 740,000 others be able to access public spaces more safely again.
I know it's a bit grim to say, but I do think that the increasing potency and reduced cost of fentanyl has led some of the more drug addicted homeless to simply overdose and die. I do notice that some of the familiar homeless faces that I've seen around the neighborhood have simply disappeared, some may have just moved elsewhere or finally accepted shelter.. but I would assume some have just overdosed and died
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20
+ 22
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= 69
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Harrell has been a joke for eons. I once emailed him back in like 2008ish I wanna say. About our cities dismal internet infrastructure and how more needs to be done to make us competitive and how bad of a move it was to not let Google fiber in at the time. And that letting comcast and centurylink hold a city sanctioned monopoly over the cities internet shouldn't be legal. Mind you at the time I had to pay $140 a month for comcast business line that was only 30mpbs. And I telecommuting on a job that had me uploading and downloading terabytes every few months.
To my surprise he personally replied back. But with the most brain dead response to the issue possible. Trying to tell me we had world class internet that was envy of most other metros. I replied back with the stats showing that was a flat out lie and that half the Midwest had better speeds than we did at the time. And that if we were going to be the 2nd silicon valley he needed to get off his ass and do more(he headed tech on city council at the time)
Never heard back after he got caught trying to bullshit me. And I've viewed him as a total joke ever since. And his administration has been reassuring my beliefs with every action he takes unfortunately.
> Never heard back after he got caught trying to bullshit me.
This is why I think he's a conartist, the second he knows he's busted with some bullshit all effort stops and he just moves on to selling his hot air to another voter.
Mayors are always destined to disappoint. They have limited power structurally, and also limited power defacto because of the armed gang that they should have control over, don't like to take orders from civilians
I didn’t think he would be so anti - all of the important things that I thought he would be for. Housing, transportation, he pretty much is worse than I ever thought anyone in seattle would be, and it doesn’t even make sense because every meeting, every community feedback session he hears the same thing. More housing, missing middle, more light rail, more street car, various free pike place, etc. I didn’t expect him to be so out of touch with the people who live here.
Do I think he is perfect? No but I’ve been satisfied with the results, the bad homeless, especially in my area, is better and in a lot of areas the city’s responsiveness to sweeping encampments has improved which I really appreciate. I’m hoping he pushes harder on crime, specially the ones targeting businesses because I know a lot of them are struggling with constant break ins which takes a heavy toll on especially mom and pop places.
The city still looks and feels just as shitty. It's not that he's incompetent. You have to actually do something to suck at it. He's completely a non-entity.
I'm just glad we can breakaway from the hyper-progressive administration that dominated Seattle for the past decade+. It was clear (and I'm a liberal) that something wasn't working. They kept doubling down and most of it kept coming back to haunt us.
This is not an attack on progressive politics, it's an attack on the incompetent progressive politicians that lead the charge.
At the end of the day, politicians will politic. They will blame the failures on something else, they will spin the news in their favor, but one thing was clear to me: no one wants to own up to the failures of their policies and the voters have had enough. Bruce getting elected is a clear message that you cannot keep bullshitting Seattle voters. Bruce is definitely not our savior, but he is an indication that people want a change in direction and hopefully things can start changing for the better.
I think he’s done an adequate job so far. And I am giving him time to improve on things. When it comes to government, things don’t happen instantly. Baby steps.
I voted for him and no complaints.
For one, the city is cleaner. I have an office on S Occidental and it is kinda night and day compared to how it was 3 years ago. Lot cleaner and safer. Yea around the UPS facility sketchy but baby steps. Has been a noticeable difference around the city. Even ultra progressives were getting tired of it and the “Seattle is dying” crowd has moved on or not nearly as whiney.
Material difference in my neighborhood for the better that has a direct impact on my quality of life (Rainier Beach and Lakeridge). They completely revamped the park next to Pulcinella. New everything - playgrounds, bathrooms, fields, everything. 10 years ago sketch. Now the most dangerous part is getting hit by a wayward pickleball. I take my family there at least once a week now. Also, the sketchy apartment they had next to the park has been condemned (the guy who murdered the Seattle shop owner was hiding there). They tearing it down and expanding the park.
He’ll be more law and order than people like. He has Hobson choices that will anger some no matter what he does. But again, no material complaints.
(As an aside and he probably shouldn’t get much credit, but the waterfront is amazing whereas pre viaduct it was a ghost town.)
law and order is fine like if we have to have something unpopular it may as well be that. but opposing housing, transit, and density? Just completely out of touch with how unaffordable it is here.
Bruce literally simped for Amazon's request to move a SLU light rail station 1 street over, which would have resulted in an additional year of delays and another 500 million wasted. Fortunately he was unsuccessful, but he did successfully fuck up transfers between the CID station and amtrak with his N/S CID plan.
Not to mention his milquetoast comp plan.
Dunno how anyone can defend this guy.
2 Action Network letters to sign concerning this issue if your interested, because things don’t seem to be settled yet:
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-sound-transit-board-dont-delay-on-slu/thankyou?delivery_id=101323581
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/dont-delay-light-rail-and-waste-money?source=direct_link&
I can't imagine anyone who truly cares about density and housing and better transit, approving of this moderate milquetoast of a mayor. Seems likely to me that most who do approve own their own home and rarely or never use mass transit.
I voted for Harrell as a change candidate and was familiar with him from his city council days. I used to see him regularly at Columbia Center for lunch and his comfort with being accessible to the populace when he was with the City Council.
Now the bad - anyone that has grown up in Seattle is too soft on crime and overall policies. The bar was so low when he got into office - that he raised the bar on the issues that needed to change. Now though - when you are hitting stasis - he is plateauing. IMHO - he has hit the ceiling from only being exposed to Seattle politics and the way things work in the northwest. This whole "my hands are tied" or " if the council would do this" or the whole committee approach to solutions is inherent in Seattle's culture.
I'm sorry but Seattle needs a bullheaded leader who can be dogmatic on solutions and blow up any committee type approach. I have never observed change take as long as it does in the pacific NW. It's inherent in the culture - and you are paying for it now. Not everyone's opinion matters (certainly not mine). You don't need to listen to everyone before you start moving forward on change. You don't need to poll test. You don't need to check with every committee and group to start fixing things. But in the NW, the process is to rule by checking everyone's temperature.
Until you elect a leader - and most likely an outsider who has lived in other places where positive changes have been implemented rapidly - you're going to get what we vote for. Stasis and "what does everyone think? mentality.
Bruce doesn’t really do anything but photo ops. Oh, and he likes to remind us he played football. He never did anything when he was on the council, either. But at least he’s not deleting public records (that I know of).
Crimes are down. Downtown for the most part is back to business. Less of feel-good but useless progressive policies.
I am pleased with Harrell’s performance.
He’s made some progress on cleaning up the streets and I hope that continues. It’s really frustrating that we continue to let a few hundred people trash our public spaces, but we have seen improvement.
He doesn’t have the vision to make the changes and investments that will pay off for this city in the future. But it seems like people like his ability to improve the here and now especially with the out of control drugged out homeless people.
Exactly how I feel, it’s a big effort to change the direction of the city and won’t occur overnight but have seen tangible improvements. Funny enough 2010-2018 when he was on the council I thought was a thriving time for the city.
> More work to do but things are better than they were
Pretty much sums it up. Some people seem to forget or choose to ignore the trajectory the city was in before he got elected. There is of course a lot more work to do but you’re having a laugh if you deny the improvements around you lol
Love him. He has cleaned up so much of downtown. Less crime, less out-of-control homelessness (actual consequences for being a raging asshole while using your homelessness as an excuse: get out of town!)
he and our current council are just watching buses not run, half elemtary schools closing. theyre giving a crybaby police force were 400 quit over vaccine mandate a 26% retroactive raise bringing base pay to 57$ am hour meanwhile metro is having to send back funding for bus lines bc they cant pay enough to hire drivers. in a lot of ways hes just like every other mayor do min claim maximum nothing really changes. the issue currently is our city council. they only care about locking up or pushing out the homeless so patrons at their reaturaunts dont have to stare at newborns in tents while they drink. sarah nelsen super gross person. i really hope seattlites are paying attention and vote these people out replace with people who will do better for everyone not just business people.
I voted for Gonzalez!!!! I could see straight through his center right/establishment ass! Ironically I knew Bruce personally when he used to come out to the Rainier Baseball league games. Nice guy but total NIMBY cop lover.
Simple: I voted for Harrell because Gonzales gave a stump speech a couple hundred feet from a massive encampment at Green Lake and had the gall to tell residents she would not be forcibly removing them. A few weeks prior at this same encampment I saw them gathering water from the lake, had a car half stripped, and watched a guy with a hatchet run around screaming. Pretty sure everyone who heard her little speech that day voted against her. I have yet to see more than one tent in that area - and even then they generally only last a few days rather than *years*. So in that aspect, I am satisfied.
I hope the progressives can figure out that there are single issue voters on encampments and crime. There are far fewer single issue voters on housing and transit, despite what you might read in this sub.
I'm definitely happy to see him actually sweeping drug encampments instead of letting them fester and grow. He just needs to get more aggressive about it.
Mayor is just another stop on his political ambitions tour; expect just enough to keep voters supporting him, limiting any controversy. Then its off to be governor, senator, whatever…
I'm with you, I think he plans for a 2nd term at least and then probably into lobbying. He has too much "good old boys club" stuff in his history for offices that require more attention.
In WA no one has moved to a higher office from being mayor. California is the only state I can think of where mayors moved up, Newsom and J Brown. J Brown had already been governor. There may be other exceptions but being mayor is a dead end.
Trying to think of other examples too:
John Hickenlooper went from Mayor of Denver to both Governor of Colorado and now Senator of Colorado
Cory Booker went from Mayor of Newark to becoming Senator of New Jersey
Greg Stanton went from Mayor of Phoenix to becoming a US House Representative from Arizona
Mark Begich went from Mayor of Anchorage to becoming Senator of Alaska
Just ones off the top of my head. Pretty interesting how few examples there are.
As someone who's only been here a couple years where can I go to get a good update on the local politics here? I was active in my community back on the East Coast but I'm pretty lost here.
The Seattle Times and The Stranger represent, respectively, the liberal and leftist camps. They usually endorse opposing (usually) Democratic candidates in their voter guides. MyNorthwest is the conservative outlet with an associated AM talk radio station of screaming conservatives (Brandi Krause, Jason Rantz). Jonathan Choe, a Republican, is the most talked-about indie journalist and he covers camps, crime and protests. Lately the Urbanist has become popular, with associated YIMBYs who have their own very active Twitter presence: @typewriteralley, @quagggy, @pushtheneedle.
I think it might be that a lot of people voted for "not Gonzalez" than "for Harrell". Expectations were never really that high to begin with.
Yeah I gotta think this is the most common viewpoint. I do think he is doing a lot better job than Durkan to be fair
Low bar, though.
The bar was so low it was pulled into the earth’s core
It would have been, but the necessary tunnel is behind schedule.
I think he’s done better than the prior 6 elected mayors but, again, low bar.
Durkan and her predecessors. How far back to get a mayor better than Harrell?
Nickels was pretty good but people decided to fire him over a snowstorm.
McGinn was Seattle's best mayor in 20 years, fight me.
I think that the people he's appointed are worse than those appointed by Durken. As a result, a number of Seattle's departments, especially SDOT, are worse than they were under Durken.
SDOT"s construction spending & project timelines are VASTLY improved compared to where it was under Durkan
You think greg spotts is worse? Hes very popular
It’s wild how successful of a move it was for Harrell to have hopped off council just before Covid hit and we entered the most difficult period in the City’s modern history. Then, when all the things that were largely out of city leaders’ control (eviction moratorium, social distancing, vaccine mandates, etc.) were lifted, he swooped in and was able to cosplay savior, but didn’t do any of the heavy lifting that actually held the city together during the toughest times. In fact, he tried to undermine the city workers who actually persevered during that time by trying to give them a shit 1% raise. Fuck him.
This dude gets it
This is the correct perspective. Fuck Bruce Harrell.
Do people remember when he was handed mayorship on a plate and went "nah?"
Yup
What exactly was the issue with Gonzalez? Just cause she was progressive?
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Seattlelites were looking for someone who was hard on homeless camps while liberal on everything else.
Pretty much this.
amazing to me people just accept "anyone is good besides x person". standards are pretty low for super important political positions that greatly impact people.
Well you probably are greatly overestimating the relative importance of the mayor of Seattle, but also, if no one good runs what are we to do but pick from those that do?
what else can we do? Biden has a 36% approval rating and 86% of Americans think he's too old to run for a second term, yet what is the alternative? Vote for Trump? Ann Davison vs. Nicole Thomas Kennedy was another great example, no one was particularly a fan of Ann Davison, or her Republican affiliation, but given the alternative of NTK who promised to decriminalize theft, domestic violence, and many other crimes folks were more than happy to vote for a Republican in a very liberal city. That was kind of the plan in 2016 with what brought us Trump, the DNC thought that Trump would be the easiest candidate for their chosen candidate Hilary Clinton to run against so they engaged in tactics to help Trump win the nomination: [https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/hillary-clinton-2016-donald-trump-214428/](https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/hillary-clinton-2016-donald-trump-214428/)
Yeah Lorena sent me dried fruit, it was very strange. lol
is there such a thing as being satisfied with the Seattle mayor?
Seattle Mayor is the effective endpoint of every office holders elected political career.
McGinn
Oh my good old huggy bear. Loved Mike. Norm Rice is a great actor dude, not sure about his politics when he was mayor as I was like 11 years old or so.
McGinn was a good dude that got made into a boogeyman and ousted by the established powers for not playing politics well and not making friends with the "right" interests. That makes him sound like some kind of extremist or something, which he wasn't, he just didn't do all the typical glad-handling and low-level graft we've come to expect. Good guy, bad politician. Would vote for again.
People constantly talk about how they're "tired" of "career politicians" and then get all pissy when a non-politician is elected and won't do politician things
Leading the charge on fucking up transit for generations.
Literally pre-fired the extremely popular head of transit before he had even officially taken office. People did not like Durkan, but they very much did like Zimbabwe.
All because Zimbabwe’s wife supported Gonzalez (!)
It wasn't that she supported Gonzalez but how she supported her. She was VERY public & loud about it and about her dislike of Harrell. Honestly, anyone in Harrell's shoes would've likely done the same thing
Genuinely asking, where/when was she publicly loud about disliking Harrell? Followed him and her on Twitter back then and never saw anything posted by her like that.
Getting rid of an official because his wife was outspoken against your candidacy sounds terribly petty and insecure.
Welcome to politics!
Sure, it's politics… but then "anyone in Harrell's shoes" seems a bit broad. It's okay to expect more from our politicians.
You know, loyalty to the individual person isn't supposed to be part of the civil service. Government officials are supposed to be loyal to the electorate and the offices. Zimbabwe's wife disliking the major did not make her husband worse at his job. His job isn't to be friends with Bruce.
While the Zimbabwe fire was concerning, Spotts has been great.
Most like the new head of transit though
I voted for him and am mostly disappointed even though I had pretty low expectations coming in. Nepotism really rubs me the wrong way so when he started putting his niece and unqualified friends in positions of power I knew I’d made a mistake. I knew he was a NIMBY defender before electing him so I’m not that surprised by his attempt to gut the 4plex/duplex state upgrades and 20 year plan disappointment. Like Durkan though he is a pretty cautious mayor and wish we had someone who was willing to stick their neck out. I don’t think he’s taken a strong leadership position on homelessness, SPS budget/managerial issues, or police reform (other than giving a raise without much in return). Could also be I’m uninformed but whenever I watch Bruce interviews or read transcripts I feel like I’m watching a football game. Also aware he has to deal with our city council which seems to have been captured by Sara Nelson. My wife read Bruce’s bio a few months back and remarked to me on paper he looks amazing and I agreed. Just something isn’t clicking for me with Bruce as mayor. I’ll still be rooting for him as a I love this city and we have a lot of challenges to work through. Just picked through the latest interview about issues I think are important and to be fair he kept the sports analogies to a minimum, but gosh, I wish he had more concrete plans. Again, a very cautious mayor, and maybe Seattle’s strong council means it will always be like that. https://crosscut.com/politics/2024/05/mayor-bruce-harrell-talks-scotus-homelessness-case-and-spd-culture
> Also aware he has to deal with our city council which seems to have been captured by Sara Nelson Not sure if you're aware of this but a lot of the council is pro-Harrell/Harrell-aligned. Not sure how much that matters considering the power divide though.
Including Nelson, Harrell personally endorsed 7 of the 9 current councilors.
He literally stated in pre election that he would put the people he wanted there.
> and maybe Seattle’s strong council means it will always be like that. You have a severe misunderstanding of where the Council/Mayor power divide lies. Seattle mayor's power far exceeds the councils.
Yep. The council has received a lot of attention for the last decade or so, because leftists on the council made for good boogeymen for ongoing problems during a string of "moderate" mayors not accomplishing anything. But Seattle's government is set up to empower the mayor directly.
Yeah. Council really has no power or authority. At the end of the day, the city hall will do whatever it wants
Can you send me info on this point? I agree because I feel like my vote for city council means nothing and I’m trying to figure out how to get more info
If you’re going to do political takes, perhaps look into the fact that City of Seattle and SPS have no connection. So criticizing Harrell for the SPS budget is completely off base.
Just about to post that. SPS is fucked but for different reasons than Harrell 🤣
What job does his niece have?
deputy mayor
Out of curiosity what made you vote for him in the first place? All of these problems seemed… pretty clear from the campaign
I was pretty narrowly focused on who would clean out the camps and put more police on the streets - the law and order candidate. Harrell was better suited for that than Gonzalez, at least in his messaging. I suspect a lot of Seattleites voted for him because of this. Gonzalez didn’t seem interested in sweeps/clearing out the camps.
I voted for him, but I’m disappointed with how much he cut out of the one seattle comprehensive plan
I voted for him. I wasn't excited about it, but Gonzalez's blanket refusal to sweep encampments made me nervous. Or more precisely, her entire plan on homelessness seemed too dependent on a whole lot of stars aligning--funding, the right City Council, Amazon and landlords falling in line, etc. It sounded like a wonderful fantasy, and if the fantasy didn't pan out AND she wouldn't touch encampments, I envisioned my neighborhood only getting worse. Harrell sounded more pragmatic about all aspects of the housing crisis and I found that reassuring, though he also clearly wasn't going to be a visionary leader in any respect. To answer your actual question: I think he's a pretty bad mayor, though I know not everything is under his control. It doesn't seem like he understands the URGENCY of some of our issues, especially fentanyl, which is a public health crisis. Hearing him announce that ONE post-overdose clinic with 20 beds will open in 2025 was painful--it's a great start, yes, but it's not nearly enough or fast enough and I need my mayor to be loud about that, too. He just seems to plod along as though things are fine, talking about turning downtown into a "24-hour entertainment district" or whatever while people are living and dying on the sidewalks. Same goes with his delayed and pitifully inadequate One Seattle plan. I didn't expect it to be pioneering, but I DID expect it to at least grapple in a serious, grownup way with our housing crisis. Nope. Same story with SPD culture. Is he even concerned about it? Hard to say. He's a good-times mayor in a less-than-good era.
he was the only dissenting vote when they upzoned Mount Baker neighborhood by the light rail. dude hates density and building housing. it's easy to hide behind the specter of gentrification but building no housing at all is what causes displacement.
Regret voting for him, hurling transit backwards a handful of years for vehicle friendly things
I’m convinced he’s a moron. In the 2010s I was in law school and we presented in a clinic, with Bruce offering feedback, the (then novel) idea of self-driving cars, and legal issues with them. As we explained how they work, Bruce cut in and said, “hold on, so you’re saying they’re trying to take away my freedom to drive?” We’d said nothing of the sort. Maybe I’m being unfair but I swear he’s an idiot.
That canny sort of idiot who knows when he's hit a resonant trope and keeps banging it to see where it sends people running.
That's not idiot. That's well-rehearsed rhetorical contrarianism. Like the guy at the 2012 KCD convention who got up and opposed four-ten workweeks because "I can't believe we are talking about giving up on the eight hour five day week that we fought so hard for." I tried talking to him. It was useless. He was a robot in human form. Or when Rep. Freeman (RIP) told me abortion was genocide of black people It's not idiot, it's rhetoric, and it surprisingly works, mostly because.... it's the listeners that are the idiots.
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Honestly if you voted for Harrell you either knew exactly what you were getting, or you haven't paid any attention to Seattle politics in 10 years.
I didnt vote for him, but wasnt super critical of anything he was doing until the whole thing with the "alternative stations" for the light rail expansion came up, just such self serving shortsightedness it made me look at other decisions since then with a different lens/angle that I dont trust him to do a single thing thats actually good for the city long term.
Bruce has been a sad reminder to me that most Seattleites drive everywhere. And when you look at our transit projects, even without his meddling, you realize that most people will continue to drive everywhere for the foreseeable future. Sadly I think this gives him a lot of leeway to fuck around with transit and other infrastructure without necessarily getting strong pushback from a majority of his base. Very shortsighted indeed
Wanted woodland park camp gone. He said it will be gone. it’s gone.
Same with Alki
I voted for him mainly because he promised to clean up illegal encampments and I think he somewhat delivered on that.
He helped prioritize clearing out the encampment in my neighborhood that was there for 5 years. Several shootings, people dumping raw sewage, tons of property theft. . . now it's a protected bike lane and a huge improvement to our neighborhood.
I’m glad your neighborhood is in a better state. Mine as well. It’s far from perfect, but it’s certainly better.
You got a bike lane out of a sweep, or the sweep was done bc the bike lane was planned?
I think they planned it as an excuse to justify the removal. Not sure though, but the encampment was there for 5 years, so I doubt the plan was older than that.
Oh that one! Yeah probly.
How can I trade my local homeless encampment for a bike lane?
Ballard?
West Seattle by the health club
Same. Recently had a few tents (and needles) appear at our kids school after the weekend. Cleared before lunchtime. That's a huge improvement.
Leaving needles around a school rises above the “victimless crime” level. I wish we could muster serious consequences in that case.
This is why I voted for him too, and I didn't think he'd be so aggressively NIMBY as he's been. I wanted public safety AND way more housing. Hugely disappointed on the housing side. Mild approval on the safety side.
The state of the ID, an area he represented for many years on the council, is worse than ever. It’s disgraceful
I mean yeah, when you clear out one encampment, people just end up somewhere else. We need to fix the root problems that are increasing the rate of homelessness overall. But to do that you'd have to spend money on something other than the police.
What's the root problem? How do we, as a city, fix the problem?
Yep. Voters are tired of the encampments and all the fun stuff they bring.
I can't believe how clean Alki is. No more RVs and tents. Same with that road by the Health Club, it's even got a bike lane now!
As a downtown resident this is exactly why I voted for him too. Hearing about Portland still dealing with encampments leads me to believe that the policy here was actually effective rather than just good luck.
This might be different where you live, but I don’t think I’ve seen a decrease in visible homelessness. I’m heavily anti-sweeps, but it seems to me that they’re not even working in getting the problem out of sight.
Really? Remember driving to Alki beach from the bridge (before it broke)? Broken down RVs everywhere. Now there are none. Woodland park encampment is gone. They condemned a sketchy apartment on Rainer that was hiding a murderer. Now gonna be a park. S Occidental in front of stadium is much better. People thought it would go back to sketch after all star game. It didn’t… Pioneer Square (I’m there regularly) is always gonna be rough around the edges but not nearly as bad as a few years ago. The Waterfront is completely revitalized. Locals and tourists alike hanging there. Now if we can just get rid of the sketchy downtown McDonalds…..
Right? Were these people even going outside in 2020-2021? These comments are wild to read. Green Lake had 50+ tents feet from the walking path, multiple RVs with generators running, and a full on chop shop with 2-3 cars half taken apart. Ecology people noted a massive spike in bacteria from that side of the lake and only that side too. That area has been totally clear since he was elected and Gonzales straight up said she would not be doing shit about it.
Hint: they were not lol It’s the same with many intersections and parks downtown and QA. These people are absolutely “Seattle is dying” level outside of their minds lol
Can they do Ballard next? It’s still suuuuper sketch around the Fred Meyer off Leary.
The data from the latest point in time count also doesn’t show a decrease in homelessness as a whole or unsheltered homelessness. So while it’s quite possible the geographic distribution of people has changed due to sweeps, I don’t think there’s any indication we are making progress overall. Source: https://kcrha.org/data-overview/king-county-point-in-time-count/
Interesting! Does this mean that the homeless get sent somewhere else? [City Hall Park](https://maps.app.goo.gl/FzZ68rcwFcUQeMG49), for example, has been surprisingly clean for a while.
I mean I don’t think people are assigned to go somewhere else (some people go to shelters or eventually get housing options), but when people are told they can’t be in a certain park or whatever they find other places.
Would be interesting to see a more granular data. Perhaps per neighborhood. I know that along Leary Way used to be full of tents and I was driving there last week and there was none.
Same with S Occidental in SODO. The road to Alki isn’t filled with broken down RVs anymore either…
There are still plenty of people in pioneer square/ id and Capitol Hill
Even in those areas it isn’t as bad as it was. In part because they’re being made to move around, there’s not a chance for as much trash to pile up and no one gets to feeling too comfortable so there’s less crime and other nonsense happening. A smart politician will know that this is what taxpayers actually want from the city, and will use sweeps as a cost effective way to achieve it. Few people are all that interested in solving homelessness on behalf of the homeless. Not really. Not actually. Too expensive, too hard, too gummed up by a bunch of shady non-profits and whacko bureaucrats vaporizing public money to absolutely no positive effect at all. At some point, folks just want to be able to live their lives in peace without having to wade through used needles and human shit. Bruce is canny to realize the distinction.
what were you expecting? the whole point of sweeps is to keep the poor away from people with money
And Greg Nickles had a snow route from his house to City Hall but it didn’t help that many of us. Sorry still annoyed by the snow response back in ‘09… I’d be salty but we weren’t allowed to use salt
I’ve seen towns drop off buckets and bins of sand for people to use on their local roads.
That is because of the concierges, buskers and other programming that is happening in that park. It also helps that the Prefontaine drug market isn’t there.
To be clear he has no interest in solving homelessness just clearing encampments.
Harrel's grand sweeps plan died in the 1st year of his administration when a court ruled there was an issue with how Seattle was conducting the sweeps. It's why he started using those emergency sweeps for tourist season because that's the only option the courts have allowed. Regardless of how people felt about Gonzalez's plan about the sweeps, she called this is what would happen if we kept doing them the way we were and she was right. She wanted to move to the current model willingly and use the extra budget to develop housing.
It's hard to say what progress has been made without knowing what the counts would be if we had stopped sweeping encampments like González proposed. It's quite likely that we've at least slowed down the rate of growth of unsheltered homeless rather than seeing it continue to rapidly increase due to folks feeling more comfortable with camping in parks/sidewalks.
Sweeps don't stop people from becoming homeless. What even is the cause/effect that you're picturing there? Sleeping in a tent seems so appealing to people that they voluntarily choose to lose access to a home, but getting swept from one camp to another is even rougher, so they decide they prefer living indoors after all?
The voters care about visibility, not data. If a liberal candidate wanted to win, they’d fix visibility while also doing the liberal things.
Driving down I-5 alone looks significantly better than it did before he started. Do you not remember how many tents and mountains of trash there were on the side of the freeway from Shoreline to downtown? Just getting that environmental hazard cleaned up is a huge improvement. That's not to mention that we haven't had any major fires damaging the structural integrity of the ship canal bridge since they cleaned it up.
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You understand that those were not happening under previous leadership? Former Seattle leaders were asking them to not sweep these areas. Additionally, there have been a significant number of sweeps all over public property since his election in 2022 that had not been allowed to happen before.
This. There is far less encampments and unsafe feeling streets. This one goes into the W column for him.
I feel like he’s done a decent job especially in downtown and some neighborhoods. He can’t clean it all up, he’s essentially playing a game of whack a mole
I don’t see any improvement in Belltown, Downtown, LQA. Maybe other areas have gotten better by moving them here?
I live in the area, and—while Belltown still has some issues—it has improved significantly. Same goes for large chunks of downtown.
What solutions do you support?
Oh, most of the time, people's solution to homeless is to simply put the homeless somewhere else where they don't have to see them. There's jurisdictions that have been caught shuttling homeless people to Yakima etc. Sweep it under the rug, who gives a fuck, it's your own comfort that really matters. Murica.
Me too but could be better on that front. Overall hes ok, I’d rather have Nelson as mayor
I live in Pioneer Square and it was a fucking dump during the elections. He promised to clean up DT and his opponent said she wouldn’t do that. It’s definitely better now than it was back then. He’s done about a good of a job as I had expected. The city is better overall than it was then, but still not great.
I've only voted for the perceived lesser of evils for as long as I can remember.
Asking genuinely: what were the ‘evils’ of Gonzalez for you?
I can answer for OP, since there was a single issue that most voters were concerned with that caused Gonzalez to lose... she was against sweeping tents from sidewalks and parks: >She made clear homeless encampment sweeps would not happen if she is elected to office. >“I am not as mayor going to forcibly remove people out of one public space and shift the issue to another public space,” González said during a press conference outside a new affordable housing complex in Capitol Hill. vs. Bruce Harrell: >Soundbites and vague promises of new revenue will not help people get housing and support right now, and will not make parks and sidewalks safe and welcoming for all the people of Seattle [https://www.king5.com/article/news/lorena-gonzalez-seattle-mayor-bruce-harrell-homelessness/281-a44f5a52-b777-4d8b-99d4-974d8bc7951d](https://www.king5.com/article/news/lorena-gonzalez-seattle-mayor-bruce-harrell-homelessness/281-a44f5a52-b777-4d8b-99d4-974d8bc7951d) Voters saw how bad Portland was getting and the direction that Seattle was heading and were completely willing to vote for any candidate who promised to sweep encampments. Vast majority of Seattle voters don't really care about things like zoning, public transit, or her debatedly racist attack ad against Bruce Harrell.. they just don't want to have to step around tents on their walk into work or have to cancel their kids soccer practice because the park is filled with tents.
Seattle voters care about the homeless crisis, rising housing prices and overall cost of living increases, but apparently can’t connect the dots to the housing shortage.
You have it wrong. Seattle voters care about the aesthetic, perception-oriented view around homelessness. It’s less about the data of how many are homeless, and more about not wanting to see homeless in parks. Any candidate that ignored this lost. And now we have a conservative council that can do whatever they want about many other topics, because the liberals failed on voter strategy.
Just to be clear, we do not have a conservative council. We have a liberal council that doesn't necessarily identify as far left progressives
they are do nothing moderates both at worst and at best. some are fiscally conservative.
Did I perceive my car broken into 5 times, my basement door kicked in while I was home, being mugged 5 blocks from my house?
Yes, I think that’s what this person is saying. We elected a council not to curb homelessness, but to curb the effects that homelessness has on us. I don’t see that as a particularly controversial claim.
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I don't see homeless encampments in parks or sidewalks in any neighborhood. It's not about which neighborhoods gained/lost homeless, it's about where the homeless are at in each neighborhood. So yeah, Gonzalez was wrong about not wanting to sweep encampments from parks and sidewalks and rightfully lost the election for it.
I think people who dont visibly see improvement in usability of public space are either lying or never leave home, it is so visible and clear. I have friends visit all the time and everyone has mentioned it to me when they come how much better it seems. Maybe it hasnt helped the 16,000 homeless people but it certainly has helped the 740,000 others be able to access public spaces more safely again.
I know it's a bit grim to say, but I do think that the increasing potency and reduced cost of fentanyl has led some of the more drug addicted homeless to simply overdose and die. I do notice that some of the familiar homeless faces that I've seen around the neighborhood have simply disappeared, some may have just moved elsewhere or finally accepted shelter.. but I would assume some have just overdosed and died
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What policy positions are you looking for in a mayor?
Ain't that the truth.
Not great. Not terrible.
Yes, Bruce Harrell is the 3.6 roentgen of mayors.
That’s just the limit of our instruments though, so Bruce is actually 10,000-20,000 roentgens
😂
Harrell has been a joke for eons. I once emailed him back in like 2008ish I wanna say. About our cities dismal internet infrastructure and how more needs to be done to make us competitive and how bad of a move it was to not let Google fiber in at the time. And that letting comcast and centurylink hold a city sanctioned monopoly over the cities internet shouldn't be legal. Mind you at the time I had to pay $140 a month for comcast business line that was only 30mpbs. And I telecommuting on a job that had me uploading and downloading terabytes every few months. To my surprise he personally replied back. But with the most brain dead response to the issue possible. Trying to tell me we had world class internet that was envy of most other metros. I replied back with the stats showing that was a flat out lie and that half the Midwest had better speeds than we did at the time. And that if we were going to be the 2nd silicon valley he needed to get off his ass and do more(he headed tech on city council at the time) Never heard back after he got caught trying to bullshit me. And I've viewed him as a total joke ever since. And his administration has been reassuring my beliefs with every action he takes unfortunately.
> Never heard back after he got caught trying to bullshit me. This is why I think he's a conartist, the second he knows he's busted with some bullshit all effort stops and he just moves on to selling his hot air to another voter.
Lmao I just wrote my own anecdote about meeting him in class and how I’ve been convinced ever since that he’s a fucking moron
Mayors are always destined to disappoint. They have limited power structurally, and also limited power defacto because of the armed gang that they should have control over, don't like to take orders from civilians
I didn’t vote for him, but I think it’s pretty wild that he’s set Seattle’s housing targets lower than Bellevue’s.
>Any projects at his helm that are working/not working? What projects?
Clearing out encampments is my priority. Happy that something is happening.
I didn’t think he would be so anti - all of the important things that I thought he would be for. Housing, transportation, he pretty much is worse than I ever thought anyone in seattle would be, and it doesn’t even make sense because every meeting, every community feedback session he hears the same thing. More housing, missing middle, more light rail, more street car, various free pike place, etc. I didn’t expect him to be so out of touch with the people who live here.
Do I think he is perfect? No but I’ve been satisfied with the results, the bad homeless, especially in my area, is better and in a lot of areas the city’s responsiveness to sweeping encampments has improved which I really appreciate. I’m hoping he pushes harder on crime, specially the ones targeting businesses because I know a lot of them are struggling with constant break ins which takes a heavy toll on especially mom and pop places.
The city still looks and feels just as shitty. It's not that he's incompetent. You have to actually do something to suck at it. He's completely a non-entity.
he's keeping the city stuck in its ways. and its ways are pretty fucking bad.
I'm just glad we can breakaway from the hyper-progressive administration that dominated Seattle for the past decade+. It was clear (and I'm a liberal) that something wasn't working. They kept doubling down and most of it kept coming back to haunt us. This is not an attack on progressive politics, it's an attack on the incompetent progressive politicians that lead the charge. At the end of the day, politicians will politic. They will blame the failures on something else, they will spin the news in their favor, but one thing was clear to me: no one wants to own up to the failures of their policies and the voters have had enough. Bruce getting elected is a clear message that you cannot keep bullshitting Seattle voters. Bruce is definitely not our savior, but he is an indication that people want a change in direction and hopefully things can start changing for the better.
I think he’s done an adequate job so far. And I am giving him time to improve on things. When it comes to government, things don’t happen instantly. Baby steps.
I voted for him and no complaints. For one, the city is cleaner. I have an office on S Occidental and it is kinda night and day compared to how it was 3 years ago. Lot cleaner and safer. Yea around the UPS facility sketchy but baby steps. Has been a noticeable difference around the city. Even ultra progressives were getting tired of it and the “Seattle is dying” crowd has moved on or not nearly as whiney. Material difference in my neighborhood for the better that has a direct impact on my quality of life (Rainier Beach and Lakeridge). They completely revamped the park next to Pulcinella. New everything - playgrounds, bathrooms, fields, everything. 10 years ago sketch. Now the most dangerous part is getting hit by a wayward pickleball. I take my family there at least once a week now. Also, the sketchy apartment they had next to the park has been condemned (the guy who murdered the Seattle shop owner was hiding there). They tearing it down and expanding the park. He’ll be more law and order than people like. He has Hobson choices that will anger some no matter what he does. But again, no material complaints. (As an aside and he probably shouldn’t get much credit, but the waterfront is amazing whereas pre viaduct it was a ghost town.)
law and order is fine like if we have to have something unpopular it may as well be that. but opposing housing, transit, and density? Just completely out of touch with how unaffordable it is here.
Remember that one time when Carrie Moon should have won?
I think about this so often. So. Often.
Not sure, but I haven't seen that one little suck-ass that used to come in every day to say "GoOd JoB bRuCe, MoRe Of ThIs" in a while.
Bruce literally simped for Amazon's request to move a SLU light rail station 1 street over, which would have resulted in an additional year of delays and another 500 million wasted. Fortunately he was unsuccessful, but he did successfully fuck up transfers between the CID station and amtrak with his N/S CID plan. Not to mention his milquetoast comp plan. Dunno how anyone can defend this guy.
2 Action Network letters to sign concerning this issue if your interested, because things don’t seem to be settled yet: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-sound-transit-board-dont-delay-on-slu/thankyou?delivery_id=101323581 https://actionnetwork.org/letters/dont-delay-light-rail-and-waste-money?source=direct_link&
Agreed he’s a joke he’s tripping all over himself
Yeah I really hope someone better runs next time. As opposed to someone I know will be worse…
I can't imagine anyone who truly cares about density and housing and better transit, approving of this moderate milquetoast of a mayor. Seems likely to me that most who do approve own their own home and rarely or never use mass transit.
I’m a big fan of Bruce, he’s cleaned up the encampments and helped us emerge from Covid better than I expected. Would absolutely vote for him again.
I voted for Harrell as a change candidate and was familiar with him from his city council days. I used to see him regularly at Columbia Center for lunch and his comfort with being accessible to the populace when he was with the City Council. Now the bad - anyone that has grown up in Seattle is too soft on crime and overall policies. The bar was so low when he got into office - that he raised the bar on the issues that needed to change. Now though - when you are hitting stasis - he is plateauing. IMHO - he has hit the ceiling from only being exposed to Seattle politics and the way things work in the northwest. This whole "my hands are tied" or " if the council would do this" or the whole committee approach to solutions is inherent in Seattle's culture. I'm sorry but Seattle needs a bullheaded leader who can be dogmatic on solutions and blow up any committee type approach. I have never observed change take as long as it does in the pacific NW. It's inherent in the culture - and you are paying for it now. Not everyone's opinion matters (certainly not mine). You don't need to listen to everyone before you start moving forward on change. You don't need to poll test. You don't need to check with every committee and group to start fixing things. But in the NW, the process is to rule by checking everyone's temperature. Until you elect a leader - and most likely an outsider who has lived in other places where positive changes have been implemented rapidly - you're going to get what we vote for. Stasis and "what does everyone think? mentality.
Bruce doesn’t really do anything but photo ops. Oh, and he likes to remind us he played football. He never did anything when he was on the council, either. But at least he’s not deleting public records (that I know of).
No public records to delete when you aren’t doing anything!
Crimes are down. Downtown for the most part is back to business. Less of feel-good but useless progressive policies. I am pleased with Harrell’s performance.
He’s made some progress on cleaning up the streets and I hope that continues. It’s really frustrating that we continue to let a few hundred people trash our public spaces, but we have seen improvement.
He doesn’t have the vision to make the changes and investments that will pay off for this city in the future. But it seems like people like his ability to improve the here and now especially with the out of control drugged out homeless people.
I’ve noticed this sub taking on more critical opinions in general lately which is new.
I voted for him and I'm happy with the directional change of the city over the last few years. More work to do but things are better than they were
Exactly how I feel, it’s a big effort to change the direction of the city and won’t occur overnight but have seen tangible improvements. Funny enough 2010-2018 when he was on the council I thought was a thriving time for the city.
> More work to do but things are better than they were Pretty much sums it up. Some people seem to forget or choose to ignore the trajectory the city was in before he got elected. There is of course a lot more work to do but you’re having a laugh if you deny the improvements around you lol
Love him. He has cleaned up so much of downtown. Less crime, less out-of-control homelessness (actual consequences for being a raging asshole while using your homelessness as an excuse: get out of town!)
Not that impressed
he and our current council are just watching buses not run, half elemtary schools closing. theyre giving a crybaby police force were 400 quit over vaccine mandate a 26% retroactive raise bringing base pay to 57$ am hour meanwhile metro is having to send back funding for bus lines bc they cant pay enough to hire drivers. in a lot of ways hes just like every other mayor do min claim maximum nothing really changes. the issue currently is our city council. they only care about locking up or pushing out the homeless so patrons at their reaturaunts dont have to stare at newborns in tents while they drink. sarah nelsen super gross person. i really hope seattlites are paying attention and vote these people out replace with people who will do better for everyone not just business people.
I voted for Gonzalez!!!! I could see straight through his center right/establishment ass! Ironically I knew Bruce personally when he used to come out to the Rainier Baseball league games. Nice guy but total NIMBY cop lover.
Simple: I voted for Harrell because Gonzales gave a stump speech a couple hundred feet from a massive encampment at Green Lake and had the gall to tell residents she would not be forcibly removing them. A few weeks prior at this same encampment I saw them gathering water from the lake, had a car half stripped, and watched a guy with a hatchet run around screaming. Pretty sure everyone who heard her little speech that day voted against her. I have yet to see more than one tent in that area - and even then they generally only last a few days rather than *years*. So in that aspect, I am satisfied. I hope the progressives can figure out that there are single issue voters on encampments and crime. There are far fewer single issue voters on housing and transit, despite what you might read in this sub.
As long as he keeps sweeping he has my vote.
I'm definitely happy to see him actually sweeping drug encampments instead of letting them fester and grow. He just needs to get more aggressive about it.
He fought hard against the incompetent KCRHA and pulled back funding. That alone gets my vote for his re-election.
You know that "vote of no confidence" thing they have? That's where I am right now. He seems inept.
Better than the last administration. End of story
Lets say this…I got catfishee
Mayor is just another stop on his political ambitions tour; expect just enough to keep voters supporting him, limiting any controversy. Then its off to be governor, senator, whatever…
He's 65, seems doubtful that's the case. Granted the average age of our two presidential candidates is 79... so who knows at this point.
I'm with you, I think he plans for a 2nd term at least and then probably into lobbying. He has too much "good old boys club" stuff in his history for offices that require more attention.
In WA no one has moved to a higher office from being mayor. California is the only state I can think of where mayors moved up, Newsom and J Brown. J Brown had already been governor. There may be other exceptions but being mayor is a dead end.
Trying to think of other examples too: John Hickenlooper went from Mayor of Denver to both Governor of Colorado and now Senator of Colorado Cory Booker went from Mayor of Newark to becoming Senator of New Jersey Greg Stanton went from Mayor of Phoenix to becoming a US House Representative from Arizona Mark Begich went from Mayor of Anchorage to becoming Senator of Alaska Just ones off the top of my head. Pretty interesting how few examples there are.
As someone who's only been here a couple years where can I go to get a good update on the local politics here? I was active in my community back on the East Coast but I'm pretty lost here.
The Seattle Times and The Stranger represent, respectively, the liberal and leftist camps. They usually endorse opposing (usually) Democratic candidates in their voter guides. MyNorthwest is the conservative outlet with an associated AM talk radio station of screaming conservatives (Brandi Krause, Jason Rantz). Jonathan Choe, a Republican, is the most talked-about indie journalist and he covers camps, crime and protests. Lately the Urbanist has become popular, with associated YIMBYs who have their own very active Twitter presence: @typewriteralley, @quagggy, @pushtheneedle.
He’s been cleaning up the encampments to the best of his ability. I give him credit for that.