Former Councilmember Moore, who resigned from council on July 7th, emailed CMs Solomon, Saka, and Nelson asking them to delay appointing members to the Renters Commission.
From Publicola’s new reporting
On Tuesday, at 2:30 in the morning, Moore sent an email to Solomon, cc’ing Saka and Nelson, expressing apparent surprise that there was “a slew of appointments to the Renters’ Commission scheduled for a vote on Wednesday.”
“When we spoke several weeks ago, you mentioned you were interested in my proposal to revamp the commission into a rental housing commission composed of renters and housing providers,” Moore told Solomon.
Seattle Times reports that Solomon and Nelson didn’t see the email before the Wednesday meeting
The night before, however, former Councilmember Cathy Moore — who was the head of the housing committee before her recent resignation — sent an email to Solomon, Saka and Nelson, urging them to delay a vote on confirming commissioners, she said Wednesday. Her email to Solomon bounced back, she said.
Moore, who left the council in early July citing health issues, said she did not hear back from Solomon, Saka or Nelson and doesn’t know if her email contributed to the committee’s lack of quorum. Nelson said she had not seen it.
It seems strange that Moore is directly telling other CMs what to do after she decided to resign. She shouldn’t expect to be able to control any part of council, any more than any other non-elected citizen, after voluntarily choosing to leave.
Also it seems weird that Saka claims to have a personal matter come up just before the meeting. There’s currently no reporting on if he saw Moore’s email before the meeting.
Before Solomon adjourned the meeting (and re-convened the same gathering as an informal “community discussion” to avoid breaking council rules), Rinck went to Saka’s second-floor office to see if he was there. Saka’s staffer disappeared behind his closed inner-office door, emerged a few minutes later, and told Rinck that Saka wasn’t available because he was meeting with his chief of staff, Elaine Ko.
In a statement Wednesday, Saka told PubliCola, “This morning I was unable to attend the Housing & Human Services committee meeting due to unexpected personal conflicts. I understand this may have caused undue frustration and inconvenience for attendees and I will work with my colleagues to discuss next steps to carry out necessary committee business.”
submitted by /u/golf1052
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