Is the Seattle City Council 'toxic' for progressives? Alexis Mercedes Rinck is about to find out

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hen Alexis Mercedes Rinck was elected to the Seattle City Council in November, progressives celebrated.

"I wanted to send a message," voter Jeff Paul said of his decision to support Rinck. "I do think that Alexis has some strong things in their platform that I really hope she'll be able to deliver on."

At 29 years old, Rinck will be the youngest member to serve on the Council, and she told KUOW that's an exciting opportunity for younger voters in the city.

"It's so exciting, because this is a moment where young people are really wondering, what does this city and the future of the city have in store for us," Rinck said.

RELATED: Seattle has a new (progressive) city councilmember

"I just see the incredible opportunity there to also lean in to show the world this is what a progressive city can look like," she added. "But that's going to take work and partnership, and I need also my colleagues on Council to want to live in that, too."

But her election — and the downfall of the incumbent — has renewed long-standing concerns among some voters, particularly those in the Chinatown-International District.

Rinck won the citywide Position 8 election over incumbent Tanya Woo, a CID business owner with deep ties to the community. Without Woo, the Council no longer includes a person of Asian descent. That's a wide-ranging group of people in census data that broadly makes up about 17% of Seattle's population.

"I am hopeful that she's going to be open minded and is willing to learn," voter Betty Lau said.

Still, Lau and others who spoke to KUOW worry about a lack of Asian representation.

"The Chinese American community, the Japanese American community, so many communities have really created what Seattle is to the world," Lau said. "And I am afraid we're going to lose that."

Rinck will have to navigate frustrations in every Seattle neighborhood — hers is a citywide seat after all. And how she manages voters' diverse needs could determine whether she'll keep her newly won seat.

She has to run again in 2025 to keep it.

The winding road to City Council

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inck's road to the Council was complicated. To get the complete picture, think back to the 2023 election.

Tanya Woo challenged incumbent Councilmember Tammy Morales to represent District 2, which stretches from Yesler Terrace to Rainier Beach, encompassing the CID. Morales won.

Also in 2023, City Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda ran for and won a spot on the King County Council. She left Position 8 on the City Council in January 2024, and the new moderate City Council majority appointed Woo to fill the vacancy. Woo then had to run in this year's special election, but she lost to Rinck.

Rinck really just won the ability to fulfill the rest of Mosqueda's term, though, which ends in December 2025. That's why Rinck will have to run again next year, to win a full term on the Council.

Things got even more complicated on Dec. 4, when Morales announced she was resigning in January, opening up the District 2 seat for an appointee and another special election next year.

Voters expected Rinck would be one of two progressives alongside Morales, forming a small cohort amid the moderate majority.

Morales was the only current member who even supported Rinck's bid for the citywide Position 8 seat. The other seven members supported Woo. That was already likely to create some friction between Rinck and her new Council colleagues. But Morales' resignation signaled she's in for more than a little tension.

RELATED: ‘Gaslighting and manipulation.’ Why Tammy Morales is leaving Seattle City Council

Rinck told KUOW she wants to move on from the election now.

"The most exciting thing about campaigning citywide has been not only seeing the differences across all of our communities but what are the common threads that unite different areas of the city," she said. "And I'm really excited to work with each of the district-specific Council members to figure out how we ensure that we're covering ground and having all parts of a district represented and heard."

Issues she consistently heard across Seattle: road safety, housing availability and affordability, and public safety.

In terms of public safety, Rinck said she was especially attuned to race and gender equity.

"It's really critical that we ensure that the officers that we do hire are not perpetuating racial bias, also gender discrimination," she said. "Unfortunately, we've seen a number of culture challenges within SPD. I'm hopeful that we can really address some of those by looking at who is the new chief that we're bringing in and what kind of culture."

She has some big ideas for the city, including things that aren't so popular with her new colleagues, like progressive revenue sources (aka new taxes).

Whatever Rinck's agenda may include, City Council President Sara Nelson said she isn't pre-judging her — even though she supported Woo in the election.

"I've reached out to [Rinck] already, offering my office's support as she gets acquainted and gets her bearing. I remember what it was like being the only new Council member when I was elected, and I want to make sure that that her transition is smooth and that we welcome her appropriately," Nelson said. "From her public messaging, she was focused on unity and and bringing people together, and that is this Council. We are a good team."

In a separate interview Thursday on KUOW's Soundside, Nelson specifically discussed Morales' allegations that the Council was "gaslighting" her and had become "undemocratic."

RELATED: Sara Nelson defends Seattle City Council against 'toxic' characterization

"This is a positive work environment," she said.

Only time will tell if that's Rinck's experience or if she'll echo Morales' sentiments in the end.

Progressive appeal

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hile all of this politicking goes on in the background, progressive voters who spoke to KUOW are eager for change.

Matt Bourque and his partner moved to Seattle from Minneapolis in August. They found an apartment just a week before they were set to move.

Amid the stress of finding a new job and securing a place to live, Bourque said he dove into local politics. He wanted to know what challenges his new city was facing — and chose the City Council candidate he felt was best equipped to handle them.

The 27-year-old voted for Rinck.

"Tanya Woo struck me more as a centrist who aligned herself with the conservative segment of City Council, which is a segment that is less supportive of the social housing initiatives that have been going through the city, less supportive of further densifying parts of the city," he said.

In particular, Bourque wants to see the city move toward denser housing — a policy he said worked well in in his previous home under the Minneapolis 2040 plan.

"[It] pretty much allowed multi-family, dense housing throughout the entire city," Bourque explained. "And during the pandemic and the housing crisis that we've been having, Minneapolis, rents only went up like 2%, which was really nice, especially coming right out of college. Like, yes, things were expensive, but they didn't really increase that much."

He hopes a similar plan in Seattle could help stabilize increasing rents and lower the overall cost of living.

But Bourque knows those policies won't happen overnight, and that Rinck will not be able to make big changes on her own.

"I think, unfortunately, with this very status quo City Council in place, we're not going to see a lot of changes that could positively impact people's lives," he said.

Jeff Paul, 31, put it more bluntly.

"I think they took that and ran with it in a way that was not actually responding to what the voters wanted," they said. "People have feelings about homelessness and crime and all that stuff. Those are the main reasons they voted for those candidates. I disagree with those people, but I understand why people voted that way. But I think because this Council got this strong majority of, like, corporate-backed, real-estate-backed folks, now they're doing things like coming after renters' protections and going after minimum wage and all these different things that were not issues in their races."

Paul generally swings "pretty far left," and he does not feel the Council represents those values — despite outside views of Seattle's perceived political leanings.

"I describe Seattle as faux-gressive a lot," Paul said. "It postures as being progressive, but when it comes to enacting progressive policies — even back before this Council was voted in and we had a more progressive Council, I still had a lot of critiques."

Even that more progressive bunch failed, in Paul's eyes, to meaningfully address key issues in the city, especially housing and homelessness. And while he voted for Rinck in November, he's worried she could turn out to be just another "faux-gressive," too.

"I'm curious where she'll stand on pushing meaningful legislation forward on things like the sweeping of homeless encampments or crackdowns on minor drug use," Paul said. "I would like to see Seattle shift away from that and really direct resources into treatment services, mental health support, health care support, things that will actually get people off the street, get people into housing, help them work through addiction, and get to a life that is more satisfying."

Those sentiments are much the same across the city, though some voters saw the results of the City Council election in a less promising light.

Skepticism in the CID

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enry Ku, owner of Henry's Taiwan Kitchen in the CID, was sitting alone inside his restaurant on a recent Friday afternoon. The sign on the door said his place was open, but the door was locked. Ku beckoned from behind the glass door and opened up for Tanya Woo and a reporter.

He keeps the door locked, he said, to protect the business.

A series of stabbings happened near the restaurant in November.

RELATED: Seattle police arrest suspect following 'arbitrary' stabbings of 10 people in Chinatown-International District

The week before he spoke to KUOW, Ku said someone walked in and went straight to the bathroom where they overdosed. Police and paramedics showed up, but they weren't able to save the man. It was the second time someone overdosed in Ku's restaurant.

"I really don’t know what I can do, right?" Ku said. "Why we don’t have business? Because everybody say, 'Don’t go to Chinatown.'"

He scoffed, throwing up his hands in frustration. "It hurts a lot."

From Ku's perspective, the city takes businesses like his for granted. When they close, employees lose jobs. Life gets harder in the CID.

"You think the chicken always has [an] egg, but then you kill the chicken," he said. "Where [is] the egg coming from?"

The 70-year-old supported Woo in November, and he said he wants her to run again — though he smiles a little mischievously when Woo suggests he's the one who should run.

Woo said she's not sure she'll run for the District 2 seat, or any position, on the City Council. She knows some people viewed her as "illegitimate" when she was appointed to the Council, and she said she was penalized for that during this year's campaign.

"The stereotype of the model minority was really evident, and I was being held to that at all times," she said. "And I felt like there were a lot of stereotypes and a lot of racist comments, especially regarding the Chinatown-International District. A lot of people not realizing this is a district of refugees and immigrants, a lot of people who do not speak English. This is also one of the most low-income areas in the city. ... It's a very complicated neighborhood."

A complicated neighborhood with complicated problems.

Betty Lau, 77, said that's why representation on the Council is so important for the CID.

"It's always easier to communicate the needs of people whose voices aren't often heard, such as immigrants, refugees, non-English speakers, if there is an elected official who understands that perspective already," Lau said.

When the city has lacked that perspective, she said development has encroached on Chinatown, changing its face irrevocably.

"That is what I tell the people who accuse us of nimbyism: We don't have a backyard anymore," Lau said. "It's been taken from us, and what little we have left is being eroded away."

Rinck acknowledged the gap in Asian representation as she prepares to take Woo’s place. She knows how important those perspectives can be from her own life experience. She said she was born to "gang-involved youth" and raised by her grandparents. She sought "safe, enriching spaces" after school, often at the public library or Boys & Girls Clubs.

"I stand here today living testament to when we invest in young people and working families, regardless of their beginnings," she said.

As a citywide representative, she said she's gearing up to "be everywhere, do everything, and do it all at once," but she said she will also uphold Woo's commitment to the CID.

"I hope that someday many neighbors of that community could see me as their champion as well," Rinck said, "because the needs are great, and I'm committed to finding ways to resource and bring resources to the community."