Earlier this month, The Urbanist interviewed King County Councilmember Girmay Zahilay about his campaign for King County Executive, following Dow Constantine’s announcement he’s stepping aside after completion of his fourth term. Zahilay shared praise for Constantine, while also noting advantages he could bring to the office.
“I feel like I share a lot of the values that Dow has around prioritizing public transportation and housing,” Zahilay said. “I’m also very appreciative of the way Dow led us through historic challenges like the Covid-19 pandemic and the Great Recession. And so I have nothing but respect for Dow, and I think he was the right person for the right time. And I also think that the world that Dow inherited in 2009 is very different from the one that we have in 2024 so we do need something different.”
Zahilay is about to start his sixth year as a county councilmember winning reelection unopposed in 2023. In 2019, Zahilay challenged a long-time incumbent Larry Gossett, who is a local civil rights icon for his role in the Gang of Four. In his executive bid, Zahilay has already secured Gossett’s endorsement, along with a bevy of other top Democratic officials and labor unions, including Governor Bob Ferguson, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 3000, and the local chapters of Teamsters, IBEW, and Unite Here.
While his political career is shorter than fellow County Councilmember Claudia Balducci or King County Assessor John Wilson — the other contenders in the race — Zahilay pointed to the advantages of youth and diversity.
“For me, my election would number one represent a generational shift in leadership,” Zahilay said. “I don’t just mean that in terms of age or being the first millennial King County Executive, I mean it in that I would have a much more inclusive approach to leadership when I look at the things that I’ve done in my time on the King County Council, initiatives that built the bench, which are training the next generation of leaders to become civically engaged.”
After immigrating to the U.S. as refugees from Sudan when he was three years old, his family has lived many of the county’s biggest challenges first-hand, Zahilay said.
“A lot of the issues that we’re trying to solve for in King County, I’ve experienced in King County,” Zahilay said. “My family has gone through poverty and homelessness and displacement. A lot of people that I know and love and grew up around have been impacted by gun violence and behavioral health and so many of the issues that I’ve been focused on during my during my two terms on the King County Council. And I don’t mean that my lived experience would just be some symbolic thing. I think it helps me understand the issues better and gives me a sense of urgency around producing outcomes. My leadership would be grounded in real world impacts and real world outcomes of the policies that we are pursuing, and it would allow me to build relationships with impacted communities in a very different way.”
Urbanist champion
Zahilay was also clear he views himself as an urbanist and someone striving to bring more people of color into the urbanist movement and the work.
“I would want to work to expand the urbanist movement to be more inclusive of communities of color and underserved areas where the challenges of access safety and displacement and to be most acute,” Zahilay said. “I wanted to share that because when I think about the work that I’ve done, which is championing affordable housing and housing density and public transportation and pedestrian and transit rider safety through specific parts of our county — and working to transform pedestrian infrastructure and reduce speed limits in underserved areas where highways are cutting through residential neighborhoods that all to me, screams urbanist ideals. But I never see an urbanist branding on my candidacy or my work, and I do think that’s a worthy conversation to have about why that doesn’t happen.”
Zahilay has used his office to amplify local advocacy efforts in his district and engage with constituents in deeper ways than the norm. In early 2024, after Constantine tapped him to join the Sound Transit Board of Directors — a highly influential group of 18 officials that set agency policy — Zahilay co-hosted a town hall focused on the issue of traffic collisions on MLK Way S, which is exacerbated by Link light rail running at grade in the median through this section. He’s also sought to demystify the political process and engage a broader segment of the population than most stakeholder processes typically do.
“My civics 101 town halls and videos to expand who gets to understand the levers of power and how they can become masters of their own fate, participatory budgeting that I advocated for, innovative ways of using social media to bring in new voices,” Zahilay said. “I think when it comes to this new era that we’re going into in King County, we need to make government way more accessible and engaging, because our democracy becomes stronger when more people are involved.”
Dealing with Trumpism and threat of federal disinvestment
The election of Donald Trump could create headwinds and obstacles to many county initiatives. Federal grants for transit, traffic safety, and affordable housing projects were harder to come by under the previous Trump administration. Asked how Trump’s return to office will affect his plans, Zahilay outlined challenges and how families like his own could be imperiled.
“I’m running for King County Executive because I believe this region can be a place of safety and opportunity for all, and that belief is absolutely rooted in my personal story,” Zahilay said. “Because when my family fled persecution and came to the US as refugees, King County gave us all the tools that we needed to rebuild our lives, from affordable public housing to good public schools to good jobs to a culture of tolerance and acceptance, and all those things will be threatened by a second Trump presidency, and they’re also threatened by the state of our economy, where things are just out of reach for too many working families.”
The economic ladder he was able to climb as a successful lawyer and elected official may be in danger of losing some rungs, but he said he wants to fight to keep providing those opportunities.
“Housing is unaffordable. Public safety feels uncertain, and too many working people are stretched to their to their economic limits, and especially immigrants and refugees are worrying that a new federal government will attack the very values that welcome people like my family here,” Zahilay said. “So I’m running to make sure King County remains a place where everyone can feel safe, find an affordable home and climb the ladder of opportunity through things like frequent, reliable public transportation. Yeah, this region gave me the tools to climb that ladder of opportunity and, and now I want to work to make sure that ladder is available to everyone.”
Zahilay laid out a plan to help ensure King County can keep delivering services despite the possibility of federal obstruction.
“The next Trump administration will absolutely challenge and threaten the values that we hold dear in King County, and the next King County executive is going to have to work to make our region a beacon of hope and progress for the rest of the nation,” Zahilay said. “We have to proactively work to protect our ideals and advance our ideals. I think step one is conducting risk analysis across all of our departments to identify which of our funding streams are will be at risk, which of our departments rely on federal investment. Whether it’s public transportation or road infrastructure or public health, we have to understand which ones are are going to lose funding, and then act proactively to secure new new investments into those areas.”
Beyond bolstering King County government operations, Zahilay also pointed to the need to collaborate with other levels of government to safeguard at-risk areas and populations.
“Number two, I think we have to do a risk analysis around different issue areas that will be at risk under a Trump presidency, and make sure that we’re proactively bolstering those areas I’m thinking about: free and fair elections, immigrant supports, public health and reliance on science, reproductive freedom, climate action, strong labor standards, just tax code, all of those things that we care about here as King County residents are going to be attacked,” Zahilay said. “So, we need to make clear in our communications, we need to make clear in our collaboration, and we need to make clear in our lobbying efforts to state that these issue areas will be at risk, and we need to collaborate proactively, right now to protect them.”
Housing and homelessness
Housing is likely to be a big issue in the coming election, and Zahilay outlined a four-part plan that expanded on his proposal for the County to issue up to a billion dollars in bonding to fund workforce housing construction. Zahilay’s motion passed in late October, requesting that the executive produce a feasibility study laying out next steps for his Regional Workforce Housing Initiative.
“We need to increase our public investment, and we can do that through innovative ways, like bonds. We can do it through levies. We can do it through federal and state grants,” Zahilay said. “That’s number one, increase our public investment. Number two, we need zoning reform and cutting other red tape, like long permitting timelines. Number three, we need better regional planning and coordination. And number four, we need a much more pro housing culture at government.”
Zahilay also said he would be open to a new dedicated source of annual revenue for housing to expand upon his bonding effort. Balducci voiced support for new dedicated revenue in order to ensure housing bonds have collateral that isn’t just the county’s general fund. Without such collateral, the bonding program could jeopardize other County programs if it goes sideways. New revenue may also allow a larger scale.
“I want to convey to the public exactly where such resources would go,” Zahilay said. “I think there is a strong feeling out in the community that our continual reliance on regressive sources like property taxes might have detrimental effects relative to what our actual goals of keeping people housed are, and I think that’s valid. At the same time, we definitely need as many tools as possible to address the housing crisis, and so I would absolutely be open to partnering with our community to pursue something like that.”
Bringing down housing prices and boosting the supply of affordable housing could ultimately be the key ingredient into curbing the county’s homelessness crisis, which has stubbornly persisted, despite numerous campaign and initiatives to bring it into check.
Launched to streamline the region’s homelessness response and service provision, King County’s Regional Homelessness Authority (RHA) has had a bumpy rollout and rocky first few years. However, Zahilay disagreed with proposal from fellow candidate Wilson to disband the agency, noting the underlying concept still has potential and that alternatives are poorly sketched out.
“It’s absolutely true that the Regional Homelessness Authority has not met its primary objective, and its primary objective is to centralize the region’s homelessness response and get people off the ground effectively, efficiently and get them into their next step,” Zahilay said. “That doesn’t mean that they haven’t had positive results. Let’s be clear. They have gotten thousands of people off the street and into a stable next step, but they haven’t done so well enough, and so my position is that we have to continue advancing a regional solution to our biggest regional problem, and that is homelessness. So when I hear people say that they want to disband the regional homelessness authority, that’s fine as a concept, if they’re proposing something to replace it that’s better. Of course, we should be open to that, but I haven’t heard what that thing is from those proponents.”
Zahilay argued the pre-RHA reality was worse, describing it as a time when “many different agencies were doing the same work in a silo, when we were duplicating efforts, when we had bureaucratic redundancy, when you had the same service providers responding to many different contracts for the same work.” He concluded to operate this way is “inefficient and it’s a waste of taxpayer dollars.”
Incremental fixes at Sound Transit
Largely, Zahilay charted a similar course for Sound Transit as it’s already on, with hopes that tighter oversight and process improvements could avert future issues with project delays, route selection, and ballooning costs that have plagued the agency. He commended Deputy CEO Terri Mestas, who was hired in early 2024 to lead efforts around megaproject delivery and cost control.
“Sound Transit is a super popular service for our constituents,” Zahilay said. “People love Sound Transit when it’s working right, and I want to make sure that we’re delivering projects on time and increasing mobility options for as many people as possible. So I have many things that I would want to implement to make sure that we’re staying on time and delivering projects and opening as many stations as possible. Number one, I want us to strengthen our accountability and oversight. We have to push for regular public updates on project costs, timelines, potential delays, and that, to me, ensures accountability to the public. We’re all human beings. When we have more report outs and more checkpoints and more eyes on our work, I think that makes us deliver a better project product in a more timely way.”
Cross-jurisdiction collaboration is another area where Zahilay pledged to tighten things up.
“We need to introduce stricter cost controls and contingency plans,” Zahilay said. “That also connects to another item, which is enhancing our regional collaboration, the sooner we can coordinate across local agencies and get aligned and be on the same page, the more our costs will be in control as well. That helps us avoid redundancy. It helps us avoid delays when different local agencies are not on the same page. It helps us be in better partnership with our construction partners. It also helps us with streamlining the permitting process. This is an issue that we face in the housing realm, and it’s also an issue that we face in the transportation realm. So, we need to work with cities, counties, other local governments to expedite permitting and utility relocations, and those are things that often delay projects. I also think we need to secure as much additional funding and resources as possible.”
The fate of the nine-station Ballard Link project will fall to the next County Executive, as the new environmental study will not be finalized until 2026. The agency does not anticipate opening the full Ballard Link extension until 2039. Zahilay granted that the 4th Avenue hub station in Chinatown would be ideal from a transit perspective, but he deferred to agency experts, who recently declared it technically infeasible to build due to close proximity to BNSF rail line.
“For me, there is no question that the 4th Avenue alignment is the better transportation decision,” Zahilay said. “Like if we’re only looking at this from what is the best option for connecting our entire region? It is absolutely having one central mega-hub. There’s no question about that. In my mind, I don’t buy the arguments that the splintered approach of the [CID] north south stops are better for transportation reasons that being said, one of the issues that I’m grappling with is, how do I as a policymaker make a good decision when the engineers and transportation experts themselves are telling me that the Fourth Avenue stop is infeasible for many reasons that are outside my technical expertise, if that makes sense.”
Next to Constantine (who pushed for the North and South of CID alternative), Zahilay appeared more interested in exploring 4th Avenue, but that might not be enough to save the option this late in the game.
“So it’s not necessarily just the costs that I’m trying to grapple with when it comes to the Fourth Avenue station, it is the technical engineering aspects of proximity to the viaduct and proximity to the railroad and all those types of issues,” Zahilay said. “So, my stance right now is let me learn as much as possible, while making it clear that if there is a feasible path to get to the Fourth Avenue mega-hub, that would be my preference.”
King County Metro
Zahilay stressed the need to provide reliable transit for all, and portrayed Metro’s looming fiscal cliff as a challenge he’d tackle head on.
“Public transportation should be accessible, affordable and reliable for everyone, and that is a guiding principle for me,” Zahilay said. “It’s absolutely true that King County Metro is about to hit a fiscal cliff, and that’s because our policy commitments have outpaced our revenue. We had federal dollars for the past couple years that we’re keeping our policy priorities afloat, but those federal dollars are drying up, and so we absolutely do need to make the case to the public and give the public the option of funding regional public transportation.”
In 2023, Zahilay had been skeptical of the idea of a countywide transit funding measure, rating it as a low priority compared to other more pressing needs when The Urbanist asked in our candidate questionnaire. However, he’s come around to the idea since, as Metro has neared a fiscal crisis.
“My position that public transportation is a top priority and needs to be funded has not changed, but the level of emergency has changed, and that is that Metro is about to hit a fiscal cliff,” Zahilay said. “There might be many people around the region who won’t be able to access public transportation, and I would want to give voters that chance of saying, ‘hey, we do want to fund Metro.’ And so I would give voters that option.”
The County Council shelved an earlier countywide measure proposal in 2020 amid the pandemic crisis. Seattle instead went it alone later that year to renew its transportation benefit district, which passed in a landslide vote — perhaps suggesting the county would have had the votes for a transit package as well.
Public safety and transit security
Our interview with Zahilay took place before Metro bus operator Shawn Yim was tragically stabbed to death in an altercation with a passenger on December 18. But Zahilay did stress the issue of transit safety in his remarks, all the same.
“I want to prioritize the safety of riders and operators,” Zahilay said. “We cannot have a narrative that public transportation is unsafe. That is counter to our goal of getting more people on public transit. So we do have to prioritize safety. I think we also need to develop and invest invest in the workforce. We need more operators, we need more engineers, we need more other transit staff, and that means investing in career pipelines. That means having quicker training timelines, that means having a stronger relationship with our labor partners.”
Following Yim’s death, Zahilay proposed a list of potential interventions to prevent future tragedies and promote safety on buses, with Balducci issuing a similar list.
Civic Campus
Zahilay has pledged to follow through on Constantine’s plans to redevelop the county’s Seattle campus in South Downtown, incorporating upwards of 8,000 homes on the campus, along with new retail and renovated office space. That said, Zahilay emphasized he sees the vision as separate from the issue of selecting a Chinatown-International District (CID) station alignment.
“My support for the Civic Campus Master Plan is not a chip in favor of the North South [of CID] preferred alternative,” Zahilay said. “So, I would separate those two issues. In my mind, if there’s a feasible path to getting to Fourth Avenue, from a technical, engineering standpoint, that that would be my preference. Separate from that, I think it is a great idea to transform a relatively beleaguered and desolate Pioneer Square South Downtown neighborhood from into a walkable 24/7 neighborhood with much more housing, much more retail, much more foot traffic, much more safety and vibrancy.”
The Civic Campus plan, which Constantine released in fleshed-out form this summer, also calls for relocating county offices to SoDo, integrated with Metro’s SoDo bus bases, which will eventually need to be overhauled to support the County’s bus electrification plans. The early plans do not lay out exactly how this shuffling of space would work, but the King County Council is poised to give a vote of confidence for continuing to advance the vision.
“I think this is a wonderful idea that’s going to take a whole lot of coordinating across jurisdictions, from the City to the County to the state, across agencies, Sound Transit, Metro, Department of Transportation, and many other departments, and they and we would need to all get in a room and create a long range plan. I think it’s in everyone’s interest for us to have a vibrant Pioneer Square and a vibrant South Downtown neighborhood,” Zahilay said. “Moving and relocating county facilities as a vehicle to for accomplishing that is a really good thing.”
Doug Trumm is publisher of The Urbanist. An Urbanist writer since 2015, he dreams of pedestrianizing streets, blanketing the city in bus lanes, and unleashing a mass timber building spree to end the affordable housing shortage and avert our coming climate catastrophe. He graduated from the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Washington in 2019. He lives in East Fremont and loves to explore the city on his bike.