Twenty-two people applied to fill the District 5 Seattle City Council seat left vacant by Councilmember Cathy Moore’s early resignation.  

The most prominent name on the list: Debora Juarez, Moore’s predecessor. Juarez served two terms as District 5 Councilmember, representing north Seattle. During her final two years, Juarez led the body as Council President.  

In her application, Juarez said she would be honored to bring her “Elder Auntie” experience back to the Council as a “caretaker” for the position, meaning she would not run to stay in the seat beyond the appointment period.  

Nilu Jenks, political director with FairVote Washington and a former District 5 Council candidate, also applied to fill the vacancy. Jenks placed third in the 2023 primary behind Moore and ChrisTiana ObeySumner.  

The other applicants are: 

• Gregory Boldt, a software developer and consultant 
• Alan Bond, a Seattle Public Schools teacher 
• James Bourey, former city manager of Newport News, Va., and former director of Seattle’s Office of Planning 
• Jed Bradley, the University of Washington’s executive director of policy, planning & state operations 
• Brent Butler, former chief strategy officer for Port Townsend’s Community Development Department  
• Janice Clark, a podiatrist with the Seattle Indian Health Board 
• Nick Cunetta, a geologist 
• Katy Haima, a manager at Seattle’s Office of Planning and Community Development 
• Julie Kang, Seattle University’s director of professional learning and development 
• Lissa Latham, a project manager in UW’s radiology department  
• Shane Macomber, Real Change director of operations and another candidate for this seat in 2023 who lost in the primary  
• Mark Mendez, a recreation leader with Seattle’s Department of Parks and Recreation  
• Brandon Monson, the City of Kirkland’s special projects coordinator  
• Nic Rossouw, an architect and structural engineer 
• Ansel Sanger, a real estate broker 
• Nathan Schroeder, owner of Ballard Boxing 
• Justin Simmons, former event coordinator for UW’s alumni association 
• Eric Souder, vice president of business development at a technology security company  
• Chloe Tang, a partner at a climate tech startup and former Seattle Community Police Commission engagement manager 
• Robert Wilson, a senior product manager at Amazon 

Moore announced her resignation in June, citing health and personal reasons, and stepped down on July 7 with two and a half years remaining in her first term.  

Because Moore resigned after the filing deadline for the 2025 election, the City Charter dictates that the appointee will serve in the role until the next general election in 2026, when District 5 residents vote for someone to finish the final year of Moore’s term.  

The Council is expected to appoint her temporary replacement on July 28.  

Correction July 11, 2025: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated Robert Wilson's position at Amazon.

Washington could get $16 million in a recent round of settlements in lawsuits against opioid pill manufacturers over their role in worsening the opioid crisis, the Washington State Attorney General’s Office announced on Thursday.

Settlements with eight drug makers will bring in $720 million total nationwide. Of that, about $16 million is likely coming to Washington, depending on how many counties and cities join the settlement. Half of that will go to the state government and half to local governments to be used for opioid-abuse treatment and prevention efforts.

These funds are in addition to the $1.3 billion Washington has already received in opioid settlements over the past three years.

The eight companies involved in the settlements are Mylan, Hikma, Amneal, Apotex, Indivior, Sun, Alvogen and Zydus. The largest payer is Mylan, which is now part of Viatris, which will pay more than $284 million over the next nine years to the states involved in the settlement.

As part of the settlement, all the companies except Indivior agreed to stop promoting or marketing opioids nationwide. They must also limit the amount of oxycodone in each pill they sell to less than 40 milligrams and monitor and report suspicious orders, according to the Attorney General’s office.

Indivior cannot manufacture or sell opioid products over the next 10 years, but it can still market and sell medications to treat opioid-use disorder, according to the Attorney General’s office.

Of the $1.3 billion in settlement funds Washington’s received, state and local governments have set aside funds for things like treatment programs, increasing access to medications like naloxone, improving education in school or tribal settings and expanding crisis centers.

King County Assessor John Arthur Wilson announced that he will suspend his campaign for King County Executive, just over a week after he was arrested on investigation of stalking and harassing his former domestic partner.

“After thoughtful reflection, I have decided to suspend my campaign for King County Executive,” Wilson said in a statement. “In recent weeks, personal matters have drawn attention away from the critical issues that deserve the public’s full focus — issues like public safety, housing affordability, and fair taxation. I believe it is in the best interest of the community to remove any distractions from that conversation.”

He also thanked supporters and said he looked forward “to continuing to serve the residents of King County in my role as Assessor."

Wilson will still appear on King County ballots in the race for King County Executive. The deadline to formally withdraw was May 12. Ballots have already been sent to military and overseas voters and are set to be mailed to other voters on Wednesday, according to the King County Elections office.

Wilson was arrested June 2. Seattle police reported that Wilson drove by his ex-partner Lee Keller’s home at least twice over several weeks and sent her a message at a court hearing while a no-contact order was in effect. Keller, who had filed several restraining orders against Wilson, spoke to reporters after last Thursday’s hearing.

Judge Jill Klinge found probable cause for felony domestic violence stalking and a misdemeanor violation of a protection order, and set Wilson’s bail at $50,000. The Snohomish County Prosecutor’s Office is handling the case, to avoid a conflict of interest with the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s office, which represents county offices, including the assessor, in civil matters. The Snohomish County Prosecutor's Office told Cascade PBS the investigation is ongoing and that no charging decision has yet been made.

Wilson, who is currently out on bail, was first elected to the King County assessor’s office in 2015. In June, the King County Council gave Wilson a unanimous vote of no confidence, and called for him to resign as assessor after reports emerged of Wilson’s second restraining order. The Council does not have the authority to remove an elected official. Wilson’s current position will next be on the ballot in 2026.

Gov. Bob Ferguson has committed to backfilling any Planned Parenthood funding cut in the federal spending plan approved by Congress last week.

At a press conference on Wednesday, Ferguson said he would divert state dollars toward Planned Parenthood clinics at risk of losing $11 million in federal funds as part of the “Big Beautiful Bill” signed by Trump on Friday.

The new law bans Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood for the next year, meaning clinics cannot be reimbursed for providing medical services to low-income patients insured under the federal health care program.

On Monday, a federal judge in Massachusetts blocked that ban, allowing payments to continue temporarily. The case is ongoing, but if the ban prevails, Ferguson said Washington is prepared to continue funding those services.

“We have to make sure that individuals in our state have access to the critical services provided by Planned Parenthood,” Ferguson said.

Planned Parenthood receives about $22 million in Medicaid funding each year, including $11 million from the federal government, according to the governor’s office.

The $11 million used to backfill the loss of federal dollars would come from the state Health Care Authority, Ferguson said, adding that the one-time cost makes up less than 1% of that agency’s budget.

Jennifer Allen, CEO of Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates, said the federal cuts were “politically motivated” and come at a time when the state’s budget for reproductive health is already strained.

The most recent state budget – signed by Ferguson in May – included a 50% funding cut for the Abortion Access Project, which supported clinics that saw an increase in out-of-state patients after the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health overturned national abortion access protections.

That funding reduction was among about $3 billion in cuts in the most recent state budget.  Lawmakers had to fill a $15 billion shortfall over the next four years.

Ferguson said Wednesday that he and legislators will try to restore the Abortion Access Project funding once they are back in session in January.

Although Washington will backfill the abortion cuts in the federal budget, Ferguson said the state does not have the funds to backfill other cuts to Medicaid, food assistance programs and social safety net programs slashed in the new law.

“We’re talking billions of dollars,” Ferguson said. “The state of Washington does not have billions of dollars lying around.”

The Seattle City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to approve a $2 million loan to the fledgling Seattle Social Housing Developer.  

The bridge loan will help the public development authority pay for staffing and operations costs, and potentially purchase property, while it awaits the proceeds from a new business tax approved by voters in February. The Social Housing Developer will repay Seattle with revenue from the tax, which the city began collecting on Jan. 1, 2025 and the developer will start receiving in 2026.  

The “excess compensation” tax levies a 5% tax on employer payroll expenses for each Seattle-based employee paid over $1 million in annual compensation. It is expected to generate about $50 million a year for the Seattle Social Housing Developer.  

Mayor Bruce Harrell proposed the loan in June despite endorsing a competing Chamber of Commerce-backed measure that would have instead drawn from the existing Jumpstart payroll tax instead of establishing a new one. The Council voted 6-1 to place the competing measure on the ballot.  

“While there were different strategies for how to fund the social housing developer, we share a vision for this model to be successful and add more housing options across our city,” said Harrell in a statement in June.  

Seattleites strongly support the idea of social housing, which is publicly owned, mixed-income affordable housing that’s meant to serve middle- and low-income residents. Voters backed the creation of the Seattle Social Housing Developer 57% to 43% in 2023. The social housing tax measure passed 63% to 37% in February.  

The Social Housing Developer has struggled through a rocky start, however. The entity has just one staff member so far, CEO Roberto Jiménez. The Seattle Times reported that two of the board of directors’ 13 members quit recently, accusing Jiménez of “abuse, anti-Black racism, and bigotry.”  

Jiménez told the Times that discord is inevitable in a new organization, and chalked problems up to “growing pains.” The Social Housing Developer’s board of directors hired an outside investigator to look into the complaints.  

A longer version of this story originally appeared in the Washington State Standard.

The Oregon Legislature approved matching funds last week for Washington’s $125 million commitment to replace the 100-year-old Hood River-White Salmon Bridge. 

Combined, the state funding covers about a quarter of the project’s estimated $1.12 billion cost. 

“This project strengthens our entire region’s foundation for growth and prosperity. This isn’t just about new steel and concrete — we’re literally rebuilding the backbone of our communities,” Oregon state Rep. Jeff Helfrich, R-Hood River, said Thursday in a joint news release with Washington state Sen. Curtis King, R-Yakima. 

“The combined funding between our two states puts us in a stronger position when we approach the federal government for additional dollars to help pay for the bridge project,” King said. 

The Hood River-White Salmon Bridge Authority also has an outstanding $532 million request for funding from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bridge Investment Program. 

The current proposal is to replace the existing bridge, which is narrow and has steel decking, with a structure designed to meet modern traffic demands and safety standards. 

Design on the new bridge is expected to begin in September, with the opening targeted for 2030. 

The existing Hood River-White Salmon Bridge was built in 1924. ​​It spans the Columbia River between Interstate 84 in Oregon and State Route 14 in Washington, connecting the communities of Hood River on the Oregon side and White Salmon and Bingen in Washington.

The Port of Hood River, which manages the structure, reports that the bridge is a safety hazard for commuters and slows the movement of goods through the Columbia River Gorge.

While Port of Hood River officials say the bridge is “functionally obsolete” and cannot adequately accommodate large trucks, it is still a primary freight route listed on the National Highway System and is frequently used by trucks transporting fruit, wood products, locally manufactured unmanned aerial vehicles, and other cargo. 

And even though the Port of Hood River says the bridge is “one of the most challenging bridges on the Columbia River Gorge for barge operators,” barges frequently travel past it.

Earlier this year, the Washington Legislature approved $10 million in project funding for the 2025-27 biennium and $40 million in the 2027-29 biennium as part of its transportation budget. Washington previously promised $75 million in 2023. 

The legislation approved in Oregon added $45 million of lottery funds in the 2025-27 biennium, $30 million for the 2027-29 biennium and $30 million for the 2029-31 biennium, for a total of $105 million over six years. 

Oregon previously allocated $20 million in lottery funds to the project in 2023. 

Other funding sources include a $200 million grant from the federal Nationally Significant Multimodal Freight and Highway Projects program and $105 million through a federal Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation loan that will be repaid with tolling revenue. 

Tolls for the existing bridge increased in 2023 from $2 to $3.50 for cash customers and $1 to $1.75 for those with a prepaid Breezeby account. All new revenue from that increase was put into a restricted fund to be used only for the new bridge.

The Washington State Standard originally published this story on July 7, 2025. Cascade PBS has edited this story for length.

King County voters in November will decide on a six-year levy proposal to continue funding the Medic One/Emergency Medical Service program.

The Medic One system handles all 9-1-1 emergency calls throughout King County and provides emergency medical services countywide. The levy proposal would generate up to $1.4 billion through 2031. The current levy expires at the end of this year. The system has been supported by a property tax levy since 1979 and has passed nearly every time it has come up for renewal.

November’s ballot measure would set the maximum levy rate at $0.250 per $1,000 of assessed value, or $211 a year for a home assessed at the median of $844,000. The general election is Tuesday, Nov. 4.

You could be District 5’s next City Councilmember.  

The Seattle City Council opened its application window on July 2 to fill the coming vacancy when Councilmember Cathy Moore resigns from her post July 7. Moore is departing a year and a half into her first Council term, citing health and personal reasons.  

The Council is accepting applications through July 9 and is expected to choose an appointee on July 28.  

To qualify, you must be a U.S. citizen, a registered Washington voter, be able to read and write English and have lived and been registered to vote in north Seattle’s District 5 for at least 120 days.  

The appointed Councilmember will serve until the November 2026 election, at which point District 5 residents will elect someone to finish the remainder of Moore’s four-year term through 2027.  

Council vacancies are now familiar territory for Seattleites. Former Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda left her citywide Position 8 seat at the start of 2024 after being elected to the King County Council.  

The Seattle Council appointed Tanya Woo to the Position 8 seat, then Seattleites elected Alexis Mercedes Rinck last November to finish Mosqueda’s term. Rinck is running to remain in the seat this year.  

Former District 2 Councilmember Tammy Morales resigned from her position one year after being reelected, alleging that her colleagues had “eroded our checks and balances as a Legislative department and undermined my work as a policymaker.” 

The Council appointed Mark Solomon to the D2 position. Solomon is not among the four candidates running in D2 to represent the district for the remaining two years of Morales’ term.   

A longer version of this story appeared on the Washington State Standard.

For the first time in more than 50 years, Washington State Ferries will contract with an out-of-state shipyard to build new vessels. 

Democratic Gov. Bob Ferguson made the final call to accept the low bid from Florida-based Eastern Shipbuilding Group to build three new hybrid electric ferries, each capable of carrying up to 160 cars and 1,500 passengers. The vessels will replace aging boats in the state fleet.

Ferguson passed over a considerably more expensive bid from in-state shipyard Nichols Brothers Boat Builders. Whidbey Island-based Nichols Brothers and a range of allies from around the north Puget Sound region lobbied the governor unsuccessfully to split the contract for the new ferries to secure local jobs and boost the region’s shipbuilding industry.

The state accepted Eastern Shipbuilding’s bid of $714.5 million for three new ferries, with deliveries estimated to begin in 2029. 

However, the total cost to taxpayers will be much higher because the state plans to purchase the hybrid electric powertrain separately and made allowances for construction oversight, early delivery incentives and change orders. Ferguson’s office said this brings the cost of the first vessel to approximately $405 million, the second to $360 million, and the third to $325 million. The cost and risks decrease with lessons learned from each previous build.

Civic and business leaders in Washington urged the governor to choose Nichols Brothers and its sister yard, Everett Ship Repair, arguing that Ferguson should consider the jobs that would be created and economic benefits derived from using an in-state contractor. 

The Washington Legislature previously set aside about $1.3 billion to build new ferries over the next six to eight years. Money is not the only consideration. The ferry system and the state’s Democratic leadership also want to reduce the ferries’ air pollution footprint by switching to battery propulsion as much as possible.

The Panama City, Florida-based Eastern Shipbuilding Group has experience building car ferries for numerous other governments, including in North Carolina and Florida and for the Staten Island line in New York.

Nichols Brothers submitted a competing bid that was considerably higher, even after including a 13% credit authorized by the Legislature to incentivize home state construction.

Nichols Brothers CEO Gavin Higgins said his company would not appeal the contract award to his Florida competitor. But he made it clear in an interview Tuesday that he felt “real disappointment” that the state missed the boat to grow its shipbuilding industry and invest in the next generation of apprentice builders.

“We’ve lost the opportunity to hire over 1,300 people and bring them to work. Who’s going to do it now?” Higgins said.

Jerry Cornfield contributed to this story. The Washington State Standard published a longer version of this story on July 1, 2025. Cascade PBS edited this article for length.

Washington is leading a coalition of 16 states in a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education over cuts to mental health programs at K-12 schools.

Attorney General Nick Brown and 15 other attorneys general signed onto a lawsuit on Monday alleging that the Trump administration’s cuts to Congressionally approved funding for mental health professionals in schools violate the U.S. Constitution.

“School-based mental health programs can be a literal life-saver for our students,” Brown said in a statement. “The Department of Education’s decision threatens the safety and well-being of our youth.”

California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island and Wisconsin all signed onto the lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington.

In 2022, a bipartisan Congress approved about $1 billion in funding for mental health resources after the mass school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. That funding helped hire nearly 1,300 school mental health professionals to serve 775,000 students across the country, according to the Attorney General’s Office.

In April, the U.S. Department of Education announced it was discontinuing that funding, which it said conflicted with the Trump administration’s priorities.

In Washington, those cuts mean that 90 school districts might have to reduce mental health services this fall, according to the Attorney General’s Office.

The lawsuit alleges that the cuts and the generic notices announcing the cuts to grantees violate the Administrative Procedure Act and the U.S. Constitution. The attorneys general are asking the court to rescind the department’s decision to discontinue funds.

“These discontinuances threaten the very purpose of these Programs — to protect the safety of our children by permanently increasing the number of mental health professionals providing mental health services to students in low-income and rural schools,” according to the lawsuit.