NPI alum Michael Finkle swears in the City of Redmond’s new female governing majority

The City of Red­mond is begin­ning a new era under new management.

Last night, NPI’s home­town — a grow­ing and increas­ing­ly diverse sub­urb of Seat­tle — cel­e­brat­ed the inau­gu­ra­tion of its new may­or and city council.

NPI alum and King Coun­ty Dis­trict Court Judge Michael Fin­kle (who authored NPI’s Code of Ethics and served on NPI’s staff pri­or to join­ing the bench in 2020) admin­is­tered the oath of office to new­ly elect­ed May­or Angela Bir­ney and Coun­cilmem­bers David Car­son, Jes­si­ca Forsythe, Var­isha Khan, and Vanes­sa Kritzer.

Togeth­er with Coun­cilmem­bers Steve Fields, Jeralee Ander­son, and Tani­ka Pad­hye, they will gov­ern Red­mond for the next two years. (Their terms extend through 2023, while Fields, Ander­son, and Pad­hye’s terms extend through 2021.)

This is the first time in Red­mond’s his­to­ry that it has had a female may­or along with a female coun­cil supermajority.

It actu­al­ly was­n’t all that long ago that Red­mond’s elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives were almost entire­ly male, as new­ly elect­ed May­or Angela Bir­ney observed dur­ing her remarks fol­low­ing the swear­ing-in ceremonies.

Nine years ago, there was just one woman serv­ing on the city coun­cil: Kim Allen, one of NPI’s ear­li­est and strongest sup­port­ers. Now there are five.

As of nine years ago, Red­mond’s gov­ern­ment was:

Male-iden­ti­fy­ing

• May­or John Marchione
• Coun­cilmem­ber Richard Cole
• Coun­cilmem­ber David Carson
• Coun­cilmem­ber Hank Margeson
• Coun­cilmem­ber Hank Myers
• Coun­cilmem­ber John Stilin
• Coun­cilmem­ber Pat Vache

Female-iden­ti­fy­ing

• Coun­cilmem­ber Kim Allen

As of Decem­ber 2019, we almost have the inverse:

Male-iden­ti­fy­ing

• Coun­cilmem­ber Steve Fields
• Coun­cilmem­ber David Carson

Female-iden­ti­fy­ing

• May­or Angela Birney
• Coun­cilmem­ber Var­isha Khan
• Coun­cilmem­ber Jes­si­ca Forsythe
• Coun­cilmem­ber Tani­ka Padhye
• Coun­cilmem­ber Vanes­sa Kritzer
• Coun­cilmem­ber Jeralee Anderson

That’s a huge change for Red­mond — and a wel­come one.

When gov­ern­ment looks like the com­mu­ni­ty that it is sup­posed to rep­re­sent, we all ben­e­fit. Last night’s swear­ing-in saw incred­i­ble com­mu­ni­ty turnout, much of it for Var­isha Khan, who is now the youngest mem­ber of the city coun­cil. The coun­cil cham­bers were packed for the occa­sion, with every seat taken.

I worked on Var­isha’s cam­paign in a per­son­al capac­i­ty (NPI does­n’t endorse can­di­dates) and am very proud of her vic­to­ry. I was pleased to see so many peo­ple show up to hon­or her his­toric accom­plish­ment. Behind by around ten points on Elec­tion Night to incum­bent Hank Myers, Var­isha Khan over­came a huge deficit to take the lead and win by a mar­gin of only six­ty-six votes. She is one of two Islam­ic women to win city coun­cil races this year; the oth­er is Pas­co’s Zahra Roach.

Cour­tesy of the City of Red­mond, here is a bio­graph­i­cal sketch of each of the indi­vid­u­als who was sworn in last night for new terms.

May­or-elect Angela Bir­ney was elect­ed to City Coun­cil in 2015 and served as Coun­cil Pres­i­dent from 2018 to 2019. She cur­rent­ly rep­re­sents Red­mond on sev­er­al region­al boards and com­mit­tees and pre­vi­ous­ly served on the Parks and Trails Commission.

Angela grew up in East­ern Wash­ing­ton and moved to Red­mond in 1998. For­mer­ly a mid­dle school sci­ence teacher, she earned a Mas­ter of Edu­ca­tion from Her­itage Uni­ver­si­ty and a Bach­e­lor of Arts in Biol­o­gy Edu­ca­tion from East­ern Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty. She lives on Edu­ca­tion Hill with her hus­band and daughters.

Var­isha Khan’s back­ground is root­ed in local jour­nal­ism and non­prof­its. As a jour­nal­ist, she devel­oped a beat around issues per­tain­ing to race, immi­grants and com­mu­ni­ties of color.

In her non­prof­it work, she focused on mak­ing media and gov­ern­ment more rep­re­sen­ta­tive and inclu­sive. Born in Dal­las, Texas to a mid­dle-class Amer­i­can Mus­lim fam­i­ly, Var­isha received her Bach­e­lor of Arts degree from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton in Com­mu­ni­ca­tion, Jour­nal­ism and Polit­i­cal Science.

Jes­si­ca Forsythe is an award-win­ning Cre­ative Direc­tor and own­er of a small graph­ic design stu­dio which works pri­mar­i­ly with clients who seek to bet­ter their community.

Orig­i­nal­ly from North­east Ohio, Jes­si­ca grad­u­at­ed from Kent State Uni­ver­si­ty with a Bach­e­lor of Fine Arts in Visu­al Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Design with a con­cen­tra­tion in Envi­ron­men­tal Design. She has worked in envi­ron­men­tal design, archi­tec­ture, brand­ing, and was the Art Direc­tor for the Seat­tle Symphony.

Vanes­sa Kritzer has devot­ed her career to work­ing for social and envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice. She has expe­ri­ence in the non-prof­it, gov­ern­ment, and pri­vate sec­tors, most recent­ly at Microsoft.

Vanes­sa attend­ed under­grad at Vas­sar Col­lege, where she earned a Bach­e­lor of Arts in Latin Amer­i­can and Lat­inx Stud­ies and Polit­i­cal Sci­ence and obtained a Mas­ter of Busi­ness Admin­is­tra­tion from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton Fos­ter School of Busi­ness and a Mas­ter of Pub­lic Admin­is­tra­tion from the Evans School of Pub­lic Pol­i­cy and Gov­er­nance. She recent­ly served on the City of Redmond’s Plan­ning Com­mis­sion and lives in Down­town Red­mond with her hus­band and young daughter.

David Car­son, elect­ed to a fourth term on City Coun­cil, moved from South­ern Ore­gon to Red­mond to work for Microsoft in 1991. He grad­u­at­ed from Ore­gon State Uni­ver­si­ty with a Bach­e­lor of Sci­ence degree in Busi­ness Man­age­ment. He cur­rent­ly rep­re­sents the City on the Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Coun­cil (EDC) of Seat­tle and King Coun­ty, the Emer­gency Man­age­ment Advi­so­ry Com­mit­tee (EMAC), the East­side Trans­porta­tion Part­ner­ship (ETP), and as the chair of the Red­mond Lodg­ing Tax Advi­so­ry Com­mit­tee (LTAC).

Con­grat­u­la­tions to Red­mond’s new elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives. May you gov­ern NPI’s home­town wise­ly and well. We look for­ward to see­ing you in action!