It’s been ten years since Seattle adopted a district-based city council. And for almost that whole time, District 5, which spans Greenwood to Bitterlake and North Beach to Lake City, has been stuck with Councilmember Debora Juarez. After Juarez stepped down, former King County Superior Court j udge Cathy Moore was elected in the 2023 conservative backlash election, then she resigned for her health and Juarez clambered back onto the dais as “unpredictable” (conservative) as ever. But she pinky-swore she wouldn’t run again and told the truth.  So, District 5 will now decide whether it’s ready to pick someone who isn’t her and possibly tip the council in a progressive direction in the process. Nilu Jenks, the political and partnerships director at FairVote Washington, an entity pushing for ranked choice voting in the state, wants to be that progressive choice.  This is Jenks’s third try for D5. Jenks entered the political fray in 2023 as a stay-at-home mom motivated to do something about climate change. She finished third in the primary behind Moore (who the Seattle Times endorsed) and ChrisTiana ObeySumner (who The Stranger endorsed), winning 18 percent of the vote as a relative unknown. She took the job at FairVote after her loss and, a year later, applied to Moore’s seat when she stepped down. The Sara Nelson-led conservative council went with Juarez. Alexis Mercedes Rinck, then the only progressive on council, cast the sole vote for Jenks. Holding onto a desire to “flip” the council, Jenks is running again. This time, her opponents are health care educator and disability advocate Silas James and former bank chair Julie Kang, who also sought the D5 appointment. “My values and my platform and what I’ve said I believe in hasn’t changed from three years ago to last summer to this run,” Jenks told The Stranger. She ran on a climate-friendly pro-density platform last time, supporting pedestrian and transportation improvements. Those still exist, but she’s added ranked choice voting and eliminating the D5 food desert to the list of priorities. “Not everybody can say that in this race.” “Care to name names?” I asked.  “Only one other person applied for that [District 5] appointment,” Jenks answered. Ah, Julie Kang. “So, are you the true progressive candidate?” I asked.  “I have not had Tanya Woo and Sara Nelson or Linda Pruitt contribute to my campaign,” Jenks says.  According to Public Disclosure Commission filings, former City Council President Nelson donated $200 to Kang’s campaign. Real-estate developer and anti-homeless warrior Pruitt gave Kang $250. Woo did not donate to Kang, according to records from the PDC. Jenks clarified that she misspoke—Woo had endorsed Kang. “I’m pretty clearly the progressive leader with the experience necessary to jump in and immediately do the work,” Jenks says.  Seattle progressives like Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck, Rep. Nicole Macri, Sen. Rebecca Saldaña, and Port Commissioner Toshiko Hasegawa have endorsed Jenks. Jenks’s day job centers around ranked choice voting. It’s what she knows, and it’s one of her primary motivations to run. Voters approved it in 2022, but the first election under the new system will be 2027’s primary election.  “You want to do something right? Do it yourself,” she says.  She thinks having an expert on the policy on the council will make sure ranked choice voting is a success. She’ll be an advocate, she’ll cheerlead information campaigns to low-income and minority communities. It sounds good, but is it really a city council thing? Isn’t she doing that work with her current employer? Yes, but Jenks still thinks having an expert on council is pivotal.  King County Elections is responsible for implementing the new system. Spokesperson Kendall LeVan Hodson declined to comment on Jenks specifically, but said KCE has “partnered with the City of Seattle” since the beginning of the RCV process and “the importance of that partnership is only going to grow.” The national organization, the Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center, did not respond. “While our team is excellent at voter outreach and education, the City knows how to best reach its constituents and communities,” LeVan Hodson wrote in an email. “That’s going to be essential to ensure everyone is able to easily and accessibly cast an RCV ballot.” The rest of Jenks’s platform is district-specific.  Jenks opposes the Seattle Police Department CCTV surveillance cameras installed in her district along Aurora Avenue as part of a two-year pilot for the department’s Real Time Crime Center, a $1.025 million plan from former Mayor Bruce Harrell. Jenks would  rather the city spend that money on prevention and diversion programs like Community Passageways or LEAD.  “We can invest in other programs and have this conversation [about cameras] when we’re not moving towards fascism so rapidly as a nation,” Jenks says.  Jenks’s other priority is fixing the food desert in Lake City. Last fall, Kroger closed the Lake City Fred Meyer, which parent company Kroger blamed on “a steady rise in theft and a challenging regulatory environment.” The decision robbed Lake City of its only grocery store; the closest is now over a mile away.  “It’s not because of theft,” Jenks says, “I think it has to do with Washington State blocking the [Kroger] and Albertsons merger. Part of the problem is about property taxes, Jenks says. UFCW 3000, the grocery workers union, blamed underinvestment in stores, understaffing, and spending money on Wall Street instead of on workers, KNKX reported. She believes mixed-use development is the path forward. Grocery stores underneath dense apartments could survive in these areas. Jenks dreams of adding a land value tax to the mix in Seattle (though, that’s still illegal under state law). In theory, it would spur urban development on land such as the Lake City Fred Meyer site, and across the city. (She described herself as generally “pro-taxation,” and envisions a “token tax” which would add a surcharge to AI usage and wants it to pay for electricity grid upgrades.) To lessen the pain on the neighborhood, wants to make it easier for small shops and bodegas to exist in Seattle neighborhoods and will push for those changes on council. Earlier this year, Seattle passed zoning changes to allow those mixed-used buildings to exist in residential zones. It’s unclear what further changes Jenks envisions making. She has said she’ll push for changes to zoning and permitting laws in the Comprehensive Plan to make building affordable housing easier and to expand neighborhood business districts. “You can’t just leave people without access to groceries,” Jenks says. She adds: “We don’t have a pharmacy either.” (Before Fred Meyer left, the neighborhood had already lost its Walgreens and Bartell Drugs.) After the Lake City Fred Meyer closed last fall, Seattle City Council passed legislation prohibiting grocery store chains from blocking other stores from occupying their old locations, which was previously allowed. Harrell also added $12 million to the city budget to address food insecurity. On the campaign trail last summer, Mayor Katie Wilson said she would create a public grocery store in Seattle. She mentioned the goal again in her February state of the city address. There’s no sign we’re any closer to that happening. Jenks thinks more needs to be done.  “If I’m on council I will never forget that I live in a grocery desert because I have to live it every week,” she says. The post Nilu Jenks Says She’s the Progressive in the District 5 City Council Race appeared first on The Stranger. ...read more read less