Jenks and Kang Offer Differing Views at D5 Seattle Council Forum

On June 23, the four candidates for Seattle City Council’s District 5 seat faced off in a forum in the Akin Building in Lake City, moderated by Chris Leverson, the executive director of the Lake City Business Alliance. Representing the usual Seattle spectrum of business moderate through progressive to democratic socialist, candidates Dimitri Georgakopoulos, Julie Kang, Nilu Jenks, and Silas James made their cases for why they’d do the best job representing D5 on the city council.

Jenks and Kang are the clear frontrunners to win the primary. Both have received high profile endorsements, and the two candidates are neck-in-neck in their fundraising, with Jenks having raised $108,000 and Kang having raised $106,000. Both are also participating in the city’s democracy voucher program, along with James. (Yesterday, The Urbanist Elections Committee announced its endorsement of Jenks.)

The Urbanist interviewed frontrunners Jenks and Kang at the beginning of the year. While Jenks has remained consistent since that time, Kang has done a complete reversal on a few of her stances about public safety in the district. Kang appears to have waffled during her initial interview with The Stranger at around the same time, but in her interview with The Urbanist, she clearly expressed an opposition both to the Stay Out of Area Prostitution (SOAP) ordinance passed by her predecessor and to surveillance cameras.

“As a first-time candidate, I don't believe I have all the answers on day one,” Kang told The Urbanist. “My PhD training taught me to ask questions, gather evidence, analyze data, and be willing to change my views when the facts support doing so. That's exactly what I did on both CCTV and SOAP.”

https://www.theurbanist.org/jenks-and-kang-offer-differing-views-at-d5-seattle-council-forum/