Kettle and Saka speaking on proposal by CM Moore to allow Councilmembers to vote when they have a conflict of interest

Following up on my most recent update — Councilmembers Saka and Kettle appeared on a Seattle Channel show today and both spoke briefly (and somewhat cryptically) about their position on the proposal. (Starts about 19:38 here , transcript below.)

Quick summary: they both mention concerns and questions. Neither says what those are. Not super clear where they might land. Good reason to contact them now and urge them to reject Moore’s proposal to rollback the city’s strong ethics rules.

———-

Kettle: “I’m going to be meeting with the commission, you know, the chair, also the Executive Director, Mr. Barnett, of Ethics and Elections, and our central staff, our Legislative Counsel as well, to go through the different pieces.

It’s really important to do so, because, as I said on the dais, I do have concerns and questions. Part is: What are the impacts? How has this come about? There are many pieces to this, and I think this is local too.

I understand the point raised with the Trump administration—and clearly that is a problem at the federal level; we’ve seen it even now with this Qatari Air Force One offer, right? There’s a whole host of things there. But for this, this is about again looking at it locally, looking at the issues, and I want to engage with those three individuals on this topic.”

———-

Saka: “So, first of all, the premise of the question assumes there’s some sort of grand conspiracy or a cabal to unwind or undo or impose some new—I don’t know.With respect to the underlying proposed legislation on ethics: That is an issue. I no longer sit on the Governance Committee where that’s currently being heard, but my office is paying close attention. I do have my own questions and concerns.

I think at a high level it serves a valid purpose, especially if the underlying recommendation is coming directly from the commission itself and the director of the commission. But all is to say: we’ll be tracking and monitoring that going forward. I’m right now focused on advancing my own public-safety- and transportation-focused agenda. I don’t know about these tinfoil hats and grand conspiracies, but it does make good click-bait, I’ll say that.”

———-

Kettle: “Can I add one thing, too, because we get a lot of heat and there are a lot of statements made, and they’re not really grounded in reality, because the nine of us are all basically average Seattleites to one degree or another, and we’re not going to be leveraging this to get rich or whatever.

Just because the King County Assessor increased the value of my home by a good amount or the stock market’s been inflated—our net worth and our financial backgrounds are pretty straightforward.

Obviously the rental-property piece is really the hang-up, but in general we’re not that kind, we’re not Trump or anything close to that. We are much closer to the average Seattleite who also has a lot of inflated house values and, sure, 401(k) values, although that may be coming down now.

So this idea of a cabal—like, oh, we’re machinating all these different pieces—is wrong for all nine of us. I’ll speak for myself.

And to directly answer your question, it’s very clean for me: I used to be a landlord; I don’t anymore—seven, eight years ago—and everything’s been cleaned up. Very simple.”