(The Center Square) – Seattle Mayor-elect Katie Wilson recently announced her full transition team, a slate of people that includes advocates of the progressive policies she campaigned on, as well as some moderates.
The 60-member transition team is made up of established community leaders, nonprofit executives and policy experts. They will focus on seven policy areas:
Housing Affordability and Community NeedsEconomic Development and Workers RightsTransportation and EnvironmentArts, Culture and Creative EconomyCivic Narrative and Major InitiativesStanding Up for Our ValuesPublic Safety, Parks and Wellbeing
“We have assembled a team of community builders and leaders in affordable housing, homelessness, civil rights, and many other areas who are going to help to turn my campaign platform into reality for Seattle residents,” Wilson said in a video posted on social media.
Wilson – a self-described Democratic socialist – made several notable picks, including Jesse Hagopian, a Seattle educator, author and blues musician. A longtime advocate for antiracist education in schools, Hagopian has written multiple education-focused op-eds for The Seattle Times supporting instruction on structural racism, and, in 2020, calling for defunding the Seattle Police Department and redirecting revenue toward education and health care.
Hagopian is also a prominent pro-Palestine activist and a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions, or BDS, movement.
He will serve on the transition team’s arts, culture and creative economy group.
Hagopian did not respond to The Center Square’s request for comment.
“We’re seeing something powerful: when we unapologetically defend the interests of the multiracial working class — and unabashedly demand taxing the rich to meet those needs — people respond,” Hagopian said in a social media post. “They’re hungry for politics that tells the truth about inequality and fights to transform it.”
The public safety, parks, and well-being team will be led by Lisa Daugaard, the co-executive director of Purpose Dignity Action. Daugaard helped launch the Let Everyone Advance with Dignity, or LEAD program, a post-arrest and pre-booking program that allows law enforcement to redirect people engaged in low-level offenses to community-based services instead of jail and prosecution.
Wilson also brought in more moderate voices, including Downtown Seattle Association President and CEO Jon Scholes, who focuses on economic development in the city’s core. Scholes previously called the voter-approved business and occupation tax restructuring initiative “boneheaded” when it was first proposed in June. He believed the proposal was rushed and would raise costs to residents. The initiative passed in November’s general election.
Scholes will co-lead the housing affordability and community needs focus group alongside Community Roots Housing CEO Colleen Echohawk.
Wilson acknowledged that some transition team members disagree with her politically and may have supported Mayor Bruce Harrell over her in this year’s general election.
“I don’t expect everyone on the transition team to agree with me on every issue, and it doesn’t matter who they supported in the election,” Wilson said. “I have sought out their input and invited them to join my transition team because being a successful mayor means being a mayor for everyone.”
Over the next six weeks, members of Wilson’s transition team will engage with community members to gather a wide range of perspectives on the city’s most pressing issues.
Wilson will publish a full list of all the community advisors at the end of January along with a report ahead of her first State of the City address.
