(The Center Square) – King County Assessor John Wilson is running for the county executive position in 2025 with the intention of helping reduce costs for working-class families, ensuring public safety is sufficiently funded, and cutting wasteful spending amid a budget deficit.
Wilson has been the county’s assessor since 2015. Prior to that, he was a journalist for several news outlets in Seattle, including The Seattle Times, KING 5 and Seattle Weekly.
Wilson says his journalism background gave him the ability to ask tough questions and not accept the routine.
Whoever is elected to replace the departing-King County Executive Dow Constantine will be tasked with handling a $150 million budget deficit after 2026. This is the equivalent of about 400 full-time positions. Cuts to essential services are a possibility for King County as a result.
Wilson said county departments should look at ways to cut facility costs. He points to one example in which the King County Assessor’s Office was surplusing lightly-used vehicles that are used out in the field.
Wilson said his office bought five of those vehicles including a five-year-old Toyota Prius with only 20,000 miles for $18,000. The county’s preferred vehicle at the time was a hybrid Ford Escape that cost $34,000 a piece.
If need be, Wilson supports leaving it up to voters to decide if they want future tax levies in order to fund county services, but he does not believe progressive forms of taxes like payroll taxes work.
“We’ve got a tax system based on a resource extraction economy of the 1880s, not a 21st century economy that is driven by a large service sector,” Wilson told The Center Square in a phone call.
Amid budget concerns, King County residents are being priced-out of their own homes as inflation continues to be a factor in the Puget Sound region.
Wilson said he will continue to go down to Olympia with a package of proposals to provide tax relief for working-class families, renters and small businesses
Washington is one of a few states that does not have a homestead exemption. Wilson proposes the idea of taking $250,000 off the top of a property’s value and rebalancing it.
He notes that there has been a dramatic shift in commercial and residential taxes.
The Center Square previously reported on the county collecting $7.6 billion in property taxes across all of King County this year. Out of that total, residential taxpayers will pay 83% of the $7.6 billion in property taxes being collected this year. Normally, the ratio between residential and commercial is around 65% for residential and 35% for commercial.
“It’s time to get real and shift that and provide some real tax relief to the everyday folks who are the bread and butter of King County,” Wilson said.
In order to provide residents relief, Wilson also supports the construction of more affordable housing. However, he does not believe the county has done enough to help people afford to live in the region.
In 2015 Constantine and then-Seattle Mayor Ed Murray declared homelessness an emergency facing the region. Wilson said the county has failed to act like it is an emergency since then.
“There are powers that the executive has that could accelerate the time in which you can build housing and improve the permitting process,” Wilson said.
He added that his opponents, King County Councilmembers Claudia Balducci and Girmay Zahilay, could take a much more active role in accelerating the rate of housing construction in the county, but have not.
Wilson pointed to the county’s Health Through Housing Initiative, in which the county purchases hotels and apartments and converts them into permanent supportive housing.
Wilson said he spoke to experts who claim the county is purchasing the properties way over market-value, recklessly spending tax dollars.
Wilson’s campaign prioritizes public safety, as crime rates have grown to concerning levels after the COVID-19 pandemic. He believes the county’s criminal justice system should be adequately funded. As part of that, mental health and drug addiction services should be more available to help low-level crime offenders.
However, Wilson also believes some more major crime offenders should face justice.
King County and its cities have faced struggles and competition amongst one another in recruiting law enforcement officers. As a way to boost recruitment to King County, Wilson proposes the idea of providing first-responders a property tax incentive that would lower the cost of owning a home for them while working for a public entity or healthcare provider.
Wilson also wants to implement a two-term limit for the county executive position as a way to ensure the county leader works harder and faster to achieve their goals in a more reasonable time.
“This is not a job for on-the-job training and it’s not a job for somebody who simply thinks it’s their turn to be county executive,” Wilson said. “It’s a job for somebody who wants to get in, get stuff done and then get on and that’s where I’m at.”
The Center Square also interviewed Balducci on her campaign for King County executive. Zahilay’s campaign did not respond to The Center Square’s multiple attempts at an interview.
