A Tale of Two Councils

They were the best of electeds, and the worst of electeds

Sara Nelson promised good governance and instead gave us this:

Let’s do a little comparison. 

We’ll start with the King County Council and the County Executive Dow Constantine. Unlike Conservative Sara Nelson, Dow Constantine is a genuine centrist. 

Yesterday, King County announced $1M in funding to help with sheltering and supporting asylum-seekers in the area. This follows $3M from the County earlier this year. 

Constantine said, “While this additional $1 million in funding will help in the near term, the full-scale response and infrastructure needed for this ongoing situation requires additional federal leadership and partnership with the state.”

Council members Jorge Baron, Teresa Mosqueda, and Girmay Zahilay all publicly praised or shared the news on social media. 

These officials serve as a reminder that good governance and good government can serve people and genuinely improve the world.

Meanwhile, a few blocks away, the Seattle City Council was in session.

There, the refugee issue was also raised. Nelson resisted discussing the matter. “I don’t really want to participate in a conversation that should be had with county leaders, state leaders, federal leaders,” she said. 

This ignored the fact that the city has already been involved in helping out asylum seekers from South King County.  

As is common in council meetings, people were there to give public comment. As David Kroman reports, “Many of those waiting to speak were there to urge council members to help fund housing for asylum-seekers camped outside a Tukwila church. Some also were there in favor of a new minimum wage for gig workers and in opposition to new police technology for detecting gunshots.”

City Council meetings like this one normally start with a default 20 minutes for public comment. But, according to Kroman’s Seattle Times writeup, this time is “nearly always extended when more people are queued up to speak.” 

Before the comment period got going, Nelson enflamed the crowd with divisive remarks. The Times reports she “accused activists in the crowd of ‘exploiting vulnerable people for their own political ends.’” 

As you can imagine, this upset some of the people there who were seeking help. Multiple speakers complained. One said she was "offended" by Nelson calling her demands for dignified housing "craven political opportunism."

Then Nelson escalated by making the rare decision to cut off public comment after 20 minutes.

Again, according to the Times: “After cutting off the comment period, protesters in the room began chanting, a not unfamiliar sight in City Hall but one that Nelson and her colleagues sought to shut down. Nelson called security to clear the room and went into recess several times, including for more than an hour at one point.” 

Some of the ejected protestors banged on the windows. Several council members felt threatened by this. They called for arrests. 

Six people were ultimately arrested. 

The simple fact here is that one council was ready to aid refugees. The other Council’s President—Sara Nelson, started with callous and contemptuous comments about those seeking aid, cut off discussion, and managed to spark a protest in the process.  

Whatever your feelings about the people who chanted after they were baited and cut off, or the more ardent ones who were arrested, Nelson led with divisive comments, cut off discussion prematurely, overreacted to chants, and was clumsy and foolish in how she handled the results. 

Not a steady hand at the wheel.