Katie Wilson's Transition Team Features Mix of Advocates and Insiders

On Wednesday, Seattle Mayor-Elect Katie Wilson announced the leaders of her transition team, who will aid her in selecting her cabinet and identifying the departmental leadership shakeups to carry out. To lead the transition, Wilson tapped Andrés Mantilla of the consulting firm Uncommon Bridges and announced four co-chairs who will all lay the groundwork ahead of her official swearing-in in early January.

Karen Estevenin, Executive Director of PROTEC17 — a labor union representing more than 10,000 public-sector workers across Washington and Oregon.

Tiffani McCoy, Co-Executive Director and Co-Founder of House Our Neighbors, a nonprofit which advocates for social housing, climate action and connected communities.

Quynh Pham, Executive Director of Friends of Little Saigon (FLS), a community development organization dedicated to preserving and enhancing Little Saigon’s cultural, economic, and historical vitality.

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https://www.theurbanist.org/2025/11/21/katie-wilsons-transition-team-features-mix-of-advocates-and-insiders/

Open Letter to Mayor Katie Wilson: ‘The Courage to Continue’

By Jean Godden

Congratulations. You are about to become the 58th mayor of Seattle. You bravely put yourself forward and won. Come January you will manage 14,000 city employees and administer a city budget of $8.9 billion. This is an awesome responsibility for anyone, most especially for someone who previously worked as the director of the Transit Riders Union, a small, volunteer group you helped create in 2011.

To persevere, you will need all the help and advice you can secure from your transition team and from others. In that spirit, I’d like to offer a few suggestions. These thoughts were acquired during my 12 years on the city council and observations as a journalist. Please know my only motive is wishing you success serving all Seattle – those who voted for you and the almost 50 percent who did not. Always remember you do not have a mandate.

As mayor-elect, your first and most important job will be to select experienced men and women to help run the city. It may sound heartless, but you should forget paying off campaign workers for their loyalty. You need to be pragmatic and choose people able to steer you in the right direction, people who can say “don’t do that” if you head in the wrong direction.

One of the most critical choices you’ll make is finding a veteran budget director. Unlike state and federal budgets, city budgets by law must balance. In Seattle, analysts have been projecting a $150-million mismatch between revenues and expenses. In the remaining weeks before you take office, Mayor Bruce Harrell and the council must deal with that shortfall, but the gap will continue to plague the city.

https://www.postalley.org/2025/11/22/open-letter-to-mayor-katie-wilson-the-courage-to-continue/