Councilmember Mike O’Brien announces he won’t run for re-election

Meghan Walker Ballard

Seattle City Councilmember Mike O’Brien announced today he won’t be running for re-election.

The longstanding District 6 representative has been in city council for about a decade, first elected in 2009. He becomes the fourth incumbent who plans to step down from city council — Rob Johnson, Sally Bagshaw, and Bruce Harrell have all announced their departure from office.

O’Brien’s work on city council has been considerable: he helped ban plastic bags in Seattle, worked to create the democracy voucher system, and worked to find housing situations for the homeless, including the former encampment on Market St.

However, O’Brien’s reputation in Ballard has been a mixed bag. He’s been criticized for his approaches to homelessness and his support of the city’s head tax. And just last May, he was shoved out of a party celebrating the Nordic Museum opening. Not long before that, he hosted a town hall meeting that erupted in an angry shoutfest.

As the Seattle Times reports, his resignation marks “the end of an era” — next year, the council will include no one elected earlier than 2013.

Three other candidates have so far announced their campaigns for District 6: Kate Martin, Jon Lisbin, and Jay Fathi.

39 thoughts to “Councilmember Mike O’Brien announces he won’t run for re-election”

  1. “O’Brien’s work on city council has been considerable: he helped ban plastic bags in Seattle, worked to create the democracy voucher system, and worked to find housing situations for the homeless”

    I’ll just let that soak in a for while.

        1. oh, i think your tiny brain must hurt from thinking too hard. i’ve called you out for being a troll a few times in the past, since you only come onto this neighborhood website to bitch about homeless and the crazy liberals. your alt elenchos2 got panties twisted and made it a mission to then call me a troll on a bunch of my posts. now i called out elenchos for doing precisely what you do (hench the alt comment) and lo and behold, you misunderstood. it’s perplexing how you can be so dense.

          1. “elenchos2 got panties twisted”
            What is this gay/woman shaming? Pathetic liberal bigotry.
            You guys act all upset about fake racism but insult people with size-ist, sexist, age-ist nonsense. Grow up

          2. “What is this gay/woman shaming?”
            Nope. Try again friend. Nice assumption though. Anyone can wear undergarments they wish. I was calling out elenchos2 for getting panties twisted. Are you saying only women and gay people can wear panties? Nice hypocrisy.

    2. ha! we’ll see if lil bucky is capable of finding something to complain about once his arch nemesis is no longer in office. odds are he’ll still be incoherently rambling about the same things.

  4. How many years will it take to repair the damage in Ballard this boob has initiated and caused?
    Hopefully, Sara Nelson will run and finally we will have someone to represent the people and businesses of Ballard and someone on our council who actually will bring some common sense to the table.

    1. “common sense” = finding housing for the homeless and increasing taxes to adequately provide mental health care for everyone?

      1. Why don’t YOU start by simply sending the local and federal governments more of YOUR money and leave the rest of us alone? After doing this YOU can take full responsibility for MOB and his antics, and then begin the clean-up. I guess you missed the information on the BILLION spent so far on said homeless? Perhaps listening to Dory Monson would help you with a few statistics; such as the raw numbers of $100K per homeless already being spent. We can soon put YOUR name on these stupid wet houses too, where people go TO drink and drug. Your incessant rants are a clue you don’t have 1.

          1. Are you here to mansplain to us about how the city council is very popular and will win again in a landslide?

        2. @Paintking
          We all know the answer to this: they use taxation and regulations as punitive measures against their ideological enemies. It has little to do with how much “help” is done. It is more important to “send a message” then to fix anything. This is why they import voters illegally and tolerate and encourage antisocial, destructive behavior among their entitlement vassals (welfare etc) to keep the whole thing grinding along. You Bigot.

    2. Umm, MOB did represent many area residents; the uber-liberal and out of touch residents who’s taxes skyrocketed, who’s homes + businesses were broken into, who’s streets had campers, who’s kids found needles, etc, etc. He did represent the liberals fantasy/dream, and it FAILED miserably. So, are we now going to simply re-arrange the deck chairs here or actually install a visionary with a clue that has perhaps even run something beside his mouth and a campaign, or rinse, lather, repeat? AOC is MOB on steroids too.

    1. centrist – do you mean someone who does nothing to fix the problem but instead hides it for a period of time while it gets worse?

      2. No, that’s the O’Brien approach. Except for the “hiding”, which he hasn’t done well. His legacy is visible everywhere in Ballard, alas.

      4. Flugger prefers giving zher entire paycheck to overpaid consultants and their junkie criminals and teen ghetto moms for retweets and likes, Bigot.

  7. O’Brien’s withdrawal increases the odds of a testicle-free City Council next year. All three male incumbents have pulled out!

    Will he be less responsive to his constituents now? Is that possible?

  8. Mike O’Brien in pilot suit, standing on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier filled with junkie hobos amid burning piles of tax dollars, a spray painted banner above reads “Mission Accomplished”.

    Gtfo Mike, and to his supporters: a hearty thanks for ruining Ballard ye high caliber Twitter victims, authoritarian intersectional tax thieves, and hydrocephalic imbecile sycophants.

    1. Can’t wait for another four years of our favorite delusional sockpuppet blog troll complaining our next District 6 councilmember!

    2. Mikey can stand tall and proud and declaim to anyone who might still want to listen to him-
      “I came,
      I saw
      and I screwed the pooch!”

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