The primary election for Seattle City Council candidates took place on August 6th, 2019. Andrew Lewis and Jim Pugel emerged as the two candidates who will be on the November 4th ballot for District 7. As a reminder, this is a four-year term -- it is vitally important that we elect a candidate who represents the interests of our community.

Through public forums and private conversations, we have developed an informed opinion on both of these candidates. A few weeks ago, the Seattle Times asked "What's the difference between Jim Pugel and Andrew Lewis?" and indeed, the two candidates are aligned on many topics. We believe that either candidate has the potential to do well for our community, and both are well versed in the District 7 challenges around downtown livability. Jim Pugel has a very thoughtful approach to the very real problems plaguing Seattle today, but Andrew Lewis's enthusiasm for bringing immediate change appeals to us even more.

We don't agree on all of Andrew's stances -- for example, we'd like to see him modify his stance on use of safe injection sites. However we think he shares our concerns about diminishing citizen rights to land use appeals and worsening downtown livability. We believe he will drive initiatives with a "test and learn" mentality that promotes action, therefore Andrew Lewis is our top candidate. We appreciate Jim Pugel’s experience working downtown as precinct commander but are concerned that he will over study issues and not act with the urgency we’d like. We’re also wary of his strong financial backing by the development community.

We are anxiously keeping an eye on other district races as well and have also selected our top candidates from the other districts for those Seattle voters outside of District 7:

District 1: Lisa Herbold

District 2: Mark Solomon

District 3: Egan Orion

District 4: Alex Pedersen

District 5: Debora Juarez

District 6: Heidi Wills

District 7: Andrew Lewis