From third to first: Nicole Thomas-Kennedy leads for City Attorney; Pete Holmes concedes

After two decades of pub­lic ser­vice to Seat­tle – the last twelve as your City Attor­ney – it’s time to acknowl­edge that my oppo­nents will be advanc­ing to the gen­er­al elec­tion. While defeat is dif­fi­cult to accept, it’s incon­se­quen­tial com­pared to the col­lec­tive pain we’ve suf­fered as a City through­out this pandemic.

Look­ing for­ward, I have five months left as City Attor­ney, and I don’t intend to waste them. I’m already work­ing with Seat­tle City Coun­cil to estab­lish a pub­lic Vic­tim Com­pen­sa­tion Fund to help make crime vic­tims whole. I’ll con­tin­ue to build upon our proven Choose 180 pre-fil­ing diver­sion pro­gram, which has had a 92% non-recidi­vism rate since 2017. And ear­ly next week, I’ll appear before U.S. Dis­trict Court Judge James Robart to report on our con­tin­u­ing effort to reform and improve our police department.

The City Attorney’s Office is staffed with tal­ent­ed and ded­i­cat­ed pub­lic ser­vants, and I expect the next City Attor­ney will learn to rely on the exper­tise of the para­le­gals, recep­tion­ists, infor­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gists, legal assis­tants, vic­tim advo­cates, and lawyers who made serv­ing in this posi­tion the high­light of my pro­fes­sion­al career.

It’s with their knowl­edge and skills that my suc­ces­sor will be queued up for tri­al against Mon­san­to for pol­lut­ing the Duwamish Riv­er next year, to con­tin­ue defend­ing the Jump­Start tax to aid the unshel­tered, and to cut the rib­bon on a new crim­i­nal diver­sion pro­gram for old­er adults.

As atten­tion turns to the Gen­er­al Elec­tion, can­di­dates can and should levy crit­i­cisms – but I hope the pub­lic holds them account­able to mak­ing accu­rate claims. The City Attorney’s Office does not have juris­dic­tion over felonies like mur­ders, bur­glar­ies, drug offens­es, or auto theft. Low-lev­el cas­es like shoplift­ing and tres­pass are referred to the new­ly-estab­lished Com­mu­ni­ty Court where inter­ven­tion and restora­tion are the out­come, not jail. If we keep things hon­est, Seat­tleites will be reward­ed with a fruit­ful and dynam­ic debate that will help define Seattle’s future for the next four years.

Jour­nal­ists play a key role in this process, too, and I hope that they will be true to their core respon­si­bil­i­ty to help ful­ly inform the voters.

After fac­ing one can­di­date who con­sid­ered my crim­i­nal poli­cies too lax and anoth­er who con­sid­ered them too dra­con­ian, it’s clear Seattle’s a city with frac­tured views, sad­ly reflec­tive of the polar­ized pol­i­tics that grips our nation. Whether the Repub­li­can can­di­date or the Abo­li­tion­ist can­di­date pre­vails in Novem­ber, they’ll face a tru­ly daunt­ing set of chal­lenges, not least of which includes pro­tect­ing the City from an avalanche of lit­i­ga­tion aris­ing out of the Durkan admin­is­tra­tion, and a thou­sands-deep crim­i­nal case back­log wrought by the pan­dem­ic clo­sure of our courts.

I’m beyond thank­ful to my sup­port­ers, donors, Democ­ra­cy Vouch­er hold­ers, cam­paign team, and most impor­tant­ly to the vot­ers who select­ed me to rep­re­sent them in three city­wide elec­tions. Last­ly, I want to thank my wife and fel­low lawyer for tol­er­at­ing life with an elect­ed offi­cial. This Sun­day we’ll cel­e­brate our 40th Wed­ding Anniver­sary – an apt time to con­sid­er our next chap­ters together!

So, con­grat­u­la­tions, can­di­dates, and best of luck in the Gen­er­al Elec­tion. With a city so ide­o­log­i­cal­ly splin­tered, who­ev­er wins will cer­tain­ly need it.

Four years ago, Holmes won reelec­tion with three-fourths of the vote and did not face elim­i­na­tion in the Top Two round at all. What a dif­fer­ence four years makes. It’s a reminder that vot­ers like to pun­ish com­pla­cen­cy when least expect­ed to.

The Top Two elec­tion is slat­ed to be cer­ti­fied on Tues­day, August 17th, 2021.