In Tuesday night’s debate, Seattle mayoral candidate Cary Moon said she would like to hire former rival Jessyn Farrell. Her opponent, Jenny Durkan, said she’d hire Moon.
Remember Seattle’s mayoral primary, back when there were 21 candidates?
General-election opponents Cary Moon and Jenny Durkan were asked Tuesday night which of their former rivals they might hire to help run things at City Hall.
Moon praised Jessyn Farrell, Nikkita Oliver and others during a debate hosted by KING-TV, while Durkan name-checked Bob Hasegawa, Oliver, Farrell — and Moon.
2017 Seattle mayoral race
- Jenny Durkan defeats Cary Moon to become Seattle’s first woman mayor since the 1920s
- Seattle's next mayor, Jenny Durkan, names full transition team, deputy mayors
- Seattle’s millionaire mayoral candidates say they know what it’s like to struggle
- Beyond tent-camp ‘sweeps,’ big questions await next Seattle mayor
- Seattle mayoral candidates both say the future holds fewer cars. Here’s how they would ease the crunch
- Cary Moon: Urbanist, waterfront activist touts vision for city, faces questions about résumé, accomplishments
- Jenny Durkan: Former U.S. attorney brings experience, high-powered allies, but also draws scrutiny
- Seattle’s first — and only — female mayor was elected in 1926
“One of you will be in the mayor’s office at an accelerated timeline,” a moderator said, referring to the next mayor taking over in November, as soon as the election results are certified. “If you could pick two (candidates who didn’t advance past the primary), who would you offer a job in your administration and in what positions?”
Moon said she would ask Farrell, a former state representative, “to be in some kind of intergovernmental relations” role, calling her “very, very skilled at Olympia.”
She said she would tap Oliver, “if she’d be willing … either high up in the mayor’s office or maybe working in civil rights, because we need to do a much better job in our city of sharing power and building a more inclusive city government, and she raised these issues in her campaign.”
Durkan started with, “I’m not going to say which of them, because I think all of them have benefits and strengths and I haven’t had the chance to talk — whether they’d be interested or not.”
But the former U.S. attorney then mentioned Hasegawa, a state senator and labor leader who campaigned in the primary on the idea of starting a city bank.
“I would want to bring Bob in in some capacity, both as an adviser and also to talk about how do we get economic development,” Durkan said, adding, “I want to bring Nikkita Oliver in. I want to bring Jessyn Farrell.”
Then she brought up a pair of U.S. presidents.
“It’s kind of like Lincoln. He had to have the whole sense of, you know, bring your rivals in. And we saw that with President Obama. So I would hire Cary Moon, you know,” Durkan said.
“I think that she’s got some great ideas. I think I’m going to make the better mayor, but I think she’s got some great ideas, so I’m not going to limit it to just two. If I can bring ’em all, I’m going to bring ’em all.”
Some in the audience laughed when the moderator asked Moon whether she’d accept a job under Durkan.
“I don’t think so,” the former engineer and urban designer said. “There’s too much difference in really what future city we’re aiming for and how we intend to get there and how we govern, and I don’t think we’d be a good fit.”
Asked about a business tax proposed by two City Council members earlier this month, both Moon and Durkan expressed reservations.
Most Read Local Stories
To help pay for shelters and housing, Councilmembers Mike O’Brien and Kirsten Harris-Talley want to apply a tax of 5 cents per employee per hour on businesses with annual gross receipts of $5 million or more.
Moon said she supports taxing big businesses more but believes the O’Brien and Harris-Talley proposal would affect too many small businesses. Durkan also said the proposal would hurt small businesses. She expressed no support for a new business tax.