Government
[Editor's note: This Candidate Statement was published without edits from The Highline Journal]
My name is Nick Duda and I’m a West Seattle resident, the husband to my incredible wife Katie, and the father of two young, precocious children. My parents recently moved here to be closer to our kids, who are fortunate to have all four grandparents in their lives.
We’ve built a wonderful life in a beautiful region. I’ve had a successful career spending nearly two decades building and leading businesses both big and small, making difficult decisions about people and budgets, and being accountable for results. So why run for office? Because I worry that too few people willing to make those same difficult decisions are stepping into government.
Good governance means telling hard truths and weighing tradeoffs. It isn’t, as a local journalist recently put it to me, an “everyone gets a pony” approach.
I’m a liberal who believes government can do extraordinary things for people, but believing in government also means expecting it to work. And right now, King County government is filled with aspirations and short on outcomes.
Budgets keep growing even as serious failures in financial controls and oversight come to light. My opponent, Teresa Mosqueda, failed to demand meaningful accountability first at KCRHA in her role as a city councilmember, and more recently at DCHS, until her colleagues led the charge. This is a major reason I entered this race. Every dollar spent without results is a dollar we can’t use to help someone else, or leave in the pockets of families already struggling with affordability.
Public safety is another example. From retail theft and open-air drug markets to trafficking and youth gun violence, residents and small businesses are bearing the cost of systems that too often fail to intervene. Diversion should help people change course, not become an endless cycle. Jail intake procedures should not routinely undermine arrests. And young people engaging in dangerous behavior need both opportunities to change and clear consequences.
We’re also failing people living with severe addiction. Calling it compassion while someone deteriorates on a sidewalk or in a park doesn’t make it compassionate. We should lead with treatment, offer real pathways to recovery, and intervene when repeated refusals and dangerous behavior put individuals and communities at risk, with appropriate legal and clinical safeguards.
We should aggressively pursue violent offenders, organized retail theft, and those dealing deadly drugs. We should make diversion work by measuring outcomes and responding when it fails. And we should hold every publicly funded program to clear performance standards, rather than celebrate the passage of another tax as though that alone represents progress.
I want all our children to grow up in a region that’s safe, affordable, compassionate, and full of opportunity. Achieving that won’t come from promising everyone a pony. It will come from making hard decisions, measuring what works, and having the courage to change what doesn’t.
DUDA FOR KING COUNTY COUNCIL
Nick Duda is running against incumbent Teresa Mosqueda.
The Highline Journal extended the same invitation to both candidates. Publication is provided at no charge and does not constitute an endorsement.
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