‘We have gone backwards’: KIRO host warns Mayor Katie Wilson is losing trust with Seattle’s biggest players

Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson has faced mounting criticism on multiple fronts, from her decision to push out then-Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes over the objections of the Seattle City Council, to her refusal to reactivate CCTV cameras in the Stadium District and Pioneer Square despite pressure from the city’s largest event organizers and business leaders.

KIRO fill-in host Angela Poe Russell warned on “The John Curley Show” on KIRO Newsradio that Wilson is losing trust with the city’s biggest players, saying the public nature of the disputes signals that behind-the-scenes relationships aren’t working.

“We have gone backwards, in my opinion, as a longtime city resident for years,” she said.

Angela said the city had made progress in changing how elected officials talk about major employers, but that progress has slipped under Wilson.

“This is something as the leader, you should be calling them and saying, ‘Hey, let’s sit down and talk about these issues. We have differences, but we’re going to work them out. We’re glad that they’re here,'” she said. “And I think Mayor Wilson has, after the whole Starbucks kerfuffle, realized that and kind of changed her tenor. So I feel like we’ve gone a little bit backwards in terms of relationship building with everybody who makes Seattle, Seattle.”

Public letter to Katie Wilson signals broken lines of communication, Angela says

Angela pointed out the fact that the city’s top business organizations felt compelled to make their appeal through a public letter, rather than resolving it behind the scenes, is telling.

“The fact that they’re having to do this open, public letter, kind of as an appeal or protest, tells me they don’t feel like they have a voice,” she said. “Well, this is what I wonder: maybe they don’t have a voice or a seat at the table, so they’re trying to get on the side and have public opinion behind them.”

Angela said her hope would be that every stakeholder has a seat at the mayor’s table, and that the coalition’s public letter “feels like an act of desperation.”

“Whether it’s Anne on Walnut Street, Mr. Kravitz, or whether you’re the head of Seafair, or the head of the Seattle Sports Commission, that you all have a voice in that,” she said. “And so this makes me feel like this is their plea because it’s not working behind the scenes.”

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

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