Kshama Sawant council challenger Logan Bowers aspires for ‘world-class city’

As the race for Seattle City Council heats up, candidates are doing what they can to get their respective messages out. For District 3 candidate Logan Bowers, the hope is to emphasize his goal to be a part of city council for everything from glamorous, big-picture projects, to the boring, day-to-day minutiae of the job.

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“You’ll hear other people roll out some big, grand vision for the city, and and that’s great; we all need to talk about the vision for the future,” Bowers told KTTH’s Saul Spady. “But there’s another half to governance that is not glamorous at all.”

The daily life of a city council member is more than delivering fiery speeches and drafting groundbreaking legislation. It also involves what many would view as more boring aspects of the job, like going to meetings, answering emails, and connecting with constituents.

That’s not to say that Bowers doesn’t have a vision of his own should he beat incumbent Kshama Sawant for the District 3 seat. More than that, he’s looking to reverse what he views as significant damage the current council has done to Seattle’s housing availability.

“It’s really weird that in the middle of a housing and homelessness crisis, the city council has effectively outlawed some of the lowest cost housing options possible,” he noted, cited restrictions on single-room, dormitory-style housing.

That housing shortage comes as Seattle is in the midst of a period of unprecedented growth, that’s seen the number of downtown workers skyrocket.

“We’ve gone from 2011 to today, from having 196,000 workers downtown, to having 300,000 workers downtown — we’ve added over 100,00 workers in seven years to the downtown core,” he said.

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That’s left the city with more people than it has places to house them, sending rent prices skyward, and home prices even higher.

But still, Bowers remains optimistic about the future of Seattle.

“Seattle is in a one-in-a-lifetime period of growth economically as a city, and I really want our home to come out of this period a world-class city that’s welcoming to everyone, that is rich in opportunity and culture, and is affordable to people of all economic backgrounds.”

In addition to Sawant, Bowers is running against neighborhood activist Pat Murakami, Seattle Public Defender Ami Nguyen, and local activist Asukaa Jaxx. Former District 3 challenger Beto Yarce suspended his campaign Tuesday.