Photo via Katie Wilson for Seattle Mayor
As she prepares to take office on January 1, Mayor-elect Katie Wilson named a 60-person transition team to begin to sort through policy options for her administration.
Wilson ran as a progressive challenger to Mayor Bruce Harrell, so it’s not surprising that non-profit organizations are well-represented. But she also included numerous people from the business community including Jon Scholes, President & CEO of the Downtown Seattle Association, and Richard de Sam Lazaro, senior director of government affairs for Expedia. As Wilson shared in a statement, “[m]y transition team brings people together from a wide range of backgrounds, perspectives and expertise.”
In an interview with The Seattle Times, Wilson stated that “I’ll meet with anyone,” promising that her administration would have an open-door policy. She also expressed the hope that she can help restore the public’s confidence in government, saying, “We’re in this moment where there’s an opportunity for people like me, coming from the left, coming into executive offices as a progressive, to show that we can govern and that people can have faith in government.”
The Mayor-elect says that she’s already had a productive meeting with representatives from Amazon, as well as local union leaders. According to Jon Scholes, her style is in sharp contrast to Seattle’s last “outsider” elected mayor, Mike McGinn. While Scholes viewed McGinn as taking office with his elbows up, he observed, “I don’t feel like Katie’s coming in with her elbows up by any means.”
