Immigrant and advocate Julie Kang thinks she's the best City Council candidate for Seattle's "neglected child," District 5. But can she make up her mind on how she'd handle surveillance, homelessness and policing? by Micah Yip Julie Kang slid a small plastic bag across the table at the downtown library coffee shop. It was an ICE alert kit containing a whistle and a short pamphlet, the kind she helps assemble with Common Power every Friday.  “It’s one thing to share information,” she says. “But I really think it’s important for us to be leaders and not just be bystanders.” Kang, a Korean American immigrant and the cochair of the King County Immigrant and Refugee Commission, is running for Seattle City Council District 5, which stretches from the bay west of Broadview to Lake Washington on the east, with I-5 running down the middle, and hasn’t had an elected representative since Cathy Moore resigned last year, one year into her term. Longtime District 5 councilmember Debora Juarez stepped in to take Moore’s place. Just when we thought she was gone for good. Where Kang fits in on the spectrum of Juarez and Moore isn’t totally clear. She’s never held elected office before. She’s resting on the laurels of her decades of education work, advocacy, and community organizing, as well as her lived experience and “take action” spirit—that all makes her the best candidate to lead what she called the “neglected child” district. But it didn’t seem like she could make up her mind. In our interview, Kang saw both sides so often I couldn’t always tell where she stood on surveillance cameras, homelessness, and law enforcement. She insisted councilmembers must take in all sides, all data, and all stories before making a decision. Really, Kang, all sides? So far, two other people have filed in this race: Silas James, an unknown, and Nilu Jenks, who ran for the position in 2023 and is Kang’s biggest competition so far. But Kang’s betting her behind-the-scenes civic work will matter more than Jenks’s name recognition. To go from community organizer to councilmember, Kang will have to adapt and work hard. She’s no stranger to either.  Kang and her mother came to the US from Korea when she was 7 years old. They were poor. Her mother made ends meet making computer chips on assembly lines in Los Angeles. They never left the city, but hopped from apartment to apartment 23 times in 11 years. In college, Kang became her family’s breadwinner. She entered a career in education—first as a paraeducator, then as a classroom teacher. She was 20. “I couldn’t get a glass of wine or a beer, but I was given 32 children to teach Spanish,” she jokes.  Kang kept learning. She earned a masters in education, a doctorate in philosophy. Most recently, she held directorial roles at Seattle University and the University of Washington. And she’s had her fingers in lots of advocacy pies like leading the Korean American Coalition of Washington or being on the King County Citizens’ Election Oversight Committee. She’s smart and determined, but does that mean she’d be good on the city council? Great question.  Kang’s priorities are what you’d expect: more housing, better transit, public safety, community engagement, and protection against ICE. That’s all well and good if she can back it up.  For instance, Kang wants to figure out how to manage the intersection of homelessness, public safety, and small business ownership, that familiar throuple from hell. So, when it comes to something like the tent city in Lake City, Kang says she supports it, but she’s also weighing the perspectives of small business owners who don’t want unhoused folks outside their storefronts.  “I think humans, our unhoused neighbors, have to be the center of decision-making,” Kang says. “But I am working out who is working in the best interest of unhoused and small business owners.” She didn’t know how she’d manage that. Kang says she’s excited about the recent expansion of the Community Assisted Response and Engagement (CARE) Department, the city’s alternative public safety response. She says homeless people shouldn’t be swept without the city connecting them to resources and a place to go, which the city already often does. Her other worries include empty storefronts in North Seattle and grocery stores packing up and leaving the area a food desert. She’s floated ideas like small-business rental vouchers to help retailers with startup costs. She believes mixed-use development, with stores on the ground floor and housing above, should be easier to build.  That housing? She wants more of it. “As an immigrant, we aspire to have secure housing, and that’s what we should aim for for everyone,” Kang says. “We all should have a roof over our head and not worry about, ‘Do we have to move next year because my rent is going to increase?’” She didn’t have a plan to manage that, either. But housing is nothing without solid transit infrastructure. District 5 doesn’t have that, she says. The district has two light rail stations—Northgate and 148th Street—and a third planned station at 130th Street. But neither side of the district has an easy route to get to them; she’s led walking groups to test them. Parking is limited. Bus routes don’t line up. “How can we not get rid of bus lines, but add to the bus lines, so we can all get there?” she asks. She doesn’t yet have an answer. On the topic of Aurora Avenue—mainly the Seattle Police Department’s CCTV surveillance program—Kang has opinions, but is cautious, again, of both sides. The CCTV is a growing concern among Seattleites, immigrant rights organizations, and public officials who know the Feds could subpoena the data for immigration enforcement. Kang agrees: expanding data collection at a moment when ICE is unleashing terror across the US isn’t safe.  “At this point, I’m not interested in collecting data for it to be available or forcibly handed over. I’m not,” Kang says firmly.  But she also won’t dismiss the concerns of small business owners who say the cameras make the streets feel safer.  “People wanted it, so I think at the same time, we do have to consider the input and desires of our constituents,” she says. It’s a similar story for her on SOAP and SODA, the “Stay Out of Areas of Prostitution” and “Stay Out of Drug Areas” zones put forward by Republican City Attorney Ann Davison. Kang says she was hesitant when council first passed the zones in 2024, and still leans toward opposing them. But then again, she says that as a councilmember, she’d have to consider other perspectives and data that might conflict with her opinion. That includes “positive” data, like from the Chinatown International District, where SOAP/SODA have been implemented as well. If Kang becomes a councilmember, constituents can expect her to collect data, see all sides, and consider the “sociopolitical context” ad nauseum before making a decision. Expect to hear from the dais, “I think XYZ, but at the same time, XYZ” a lot. Expecting her to take a hard stance, however, could take time. For now, she insists she’s a “doer.”  ...read more read less