The Seattle City Council has experienced a lot of churn lately, particularly with members whose last name begins with the letter M.
Since last year, Teresa Mosqueda, Tammy Morales and Cathy Moore all left office before their terms expired, leaving a vacancy to be temporarily filled by a vote of the council.
Next week, council members will name someone to replace Moore, who announced her resignation in June. Voters will elect a representative in November 2026.
Fortunately, several strong candidates stepped forward to represent Moore’s District 5, which encompasses North Seattle from North Beach to Wedgwood.
James Bourey, executive director of the Seattle Architecture Foundation, has 37 years of experience as a city manager and planning director around the country, including serving as the director of Seattle’s planning office in the 1980s. That’s good experience for taking the city’s Comprehensive Plan across the legislative finish line later this year.
Same could be said for Katy Haima. She is a manager at the city Office of Planning & Community Development. She also co-owns The Maple restaurant on Roosevelt Way Northeast. With a background in landscape architecture, she claims she would champion tree preservation, a big priority for many in the district.
Julie Kang served as a teacher, professor and director at the University of Washington and Seattle University. She lists her top priorities as public safety, support for small businesses and community engagement.
The six finalists for the position include Debora Juarez, who held the council seat for two terms, from 2016 to 2024. In explaining why she applied for the job, she says she was “called to serve.”
Juarez would be the safest choice but perhaps not the wisest. In 2019, the editorial board did not endorse her reelection bid, citing poor constituent services and her penchant for siding with the then-council majority on wrongheaded policies.
Oddly, she told the board she was sick of being a council member. “This is probably my last campaign,” she said during the endorsement process. “I’m kind of tired of it. I want to get back in the private sector.”
A constituent and former Juarez supporter penned a 2018 opinion piece in The Times saying he was leaving Seattle in part because of a poor interaction with her over his concerns about homelessness.
In appointing a new member, the council can move forward with fresh faces and new ideas, or slide backward. The board recommends that incumbents follow the sentiment of the voters who elected most of them: Break with the past and tackle the future with a smart approach.
The council is expected to vote on the appointment on Monday.
