Rant: The Terrible Trio: Prospective City Attorney Candidates Don’t Get It
The crop of three challengers to incumbent Ann Davison are pushing the same old failed policies in their quests for Seattle's City Attorney's Office (CAO).
They all want to repeal, or ignore Stay Out of Drug Area (SODA) and Stay Out of Area of Prostitution (SOAP) zones. These are tools meant to keep bad actors out of areas of concentrated crime.
Rory O’Sullivan’s approach is described in a December 19, 2024 interview for The Urbanist,
“O’Sullivan talked about how other cities have addressed problems of open air drug markets by engaging in a deep and extended on-the-ground effort that includes getting to know all the people involved and impacted, getting the community involved, and offering better opportunities to people.”
"Long-term engagement", means letting crime areas fester. Indeed, let’s help people, but not go back to policies fashionable in 2022 — rock bottom of Seattle’s public safety crisis. “Other cities” get it and have turned away ideologues.
DEA Seattle Overdose Deaths
5000 people have died from drug overdoses in King County since 2020.
We have already thrown massive financial resources at policy proposals advocated by Seattle ideologues — here they go again, asking for more money — and time!
Another backward-looking candidate for leading the CAO is Nathan Rouse. In a February 4, 2025 The Stranger article, see too pledges to not enforce SODA and SOAP.
And speaking of allowing absolutely anyone to dominate our public spaces, Rouse thinks parks should be funded and maintained so people can squat them.
Erika Evans is another ideologue pushing tired ideas. In a March 27, 2025 piece in the Urbanist, Evans called the SODA and SOAP zones “ridiculous” and “not effective.”
The article states Evans “thinks the City Attorney’s Office should be working more with its federal partners and local federal prosecutors to pursue high-level traffickers.”
So now, according to Evans, we work with the Trump Administration?!
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Activist city attorneys — in “other cities” — are no longer en vogue. Look at how "other" major West Coast cities have ultimately dealt with crime such as open air drug markets. Voters in California and Oregon have recently replaced incumbent, crusading prosecutors with moderates.
Crusader ideologue prosecutors voted out of office:
❌ Multnomah County Prosecutor Mike Schmidt
❌ Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón
❌ San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin (Recalled)
❌ Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price (Recalled).
Voters in these jurisdictions simply got tired of the gaslighting. Let’s not go back to bad ideas driving public safety.