Seattle city attorney candidate focuses message on ‘making sure people are safe’

Seattle City Attorney candidate Ann Davison is on her third campaign trail in as many years, but as she tells it, her priorities have remained largely the same.

Seattle City Attorney candidate Ann Davison: ‘Society is screaming at us’

Both Davison and her opponent, Nicole Thomas-Kennedy, would represent newcomers to the public office, with 12-year incumbent Pete Holmes having exited the race after placing third in the August primary. And while Davison has previously run for city council and lieutenant governor, for her, the conversation has always been about one thing.

“Public safety has always been an aspect of what I’ve talked about,” she told MyNorthwest. “It seems to be the conversation is about public safety, and this really is the place to have a positive impact.”

In this particular race, she sees it as “specifically not anything related to policy,” and more about “making sure people are safe regardless of their situation.”

Achieving that goal, she says, is largely about focusing on what she calls “high impact” cases.

“We need to be talking about making sure that we’re using the resources that we have to be focused on the (offenders) that are causing a high impact to public safety,” she described.

To that end, she proposes the formation of a unit within the city attorney’s office “that has top level eyes” on cases where a suspect has cycled in and out of the justice system repeatedly. Davison’s focus would then be on addressing those cases “at a point where we can provide the most intervention.”

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“We want to make sure that we are intervening appropriately in cases like that,” she noted.

That could take the form of more than one outcome, too.

“There are going to be people who are responsive to diversionary programs where someone can rejoin society,” Davison said. “There are also going to be some we just have to have in custody.”

Once they do leave custody, her hope is to have “a reentry place” available to ease the transition back into society and, ideally, “have that set up so we’re not cycling people in and out.”

And as the city attorney race plays out leading into November, Davison’s message continues to boil down to one centered on public safety, and “the things really affecting the daily quality of life in Seattle.”

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