(The Center Square) – Seattle City Council Public Safety Chairman Bob Kettle is making it clear that the city’s next police chief will also have to live up to the expectations of the council, not just Mayor Katie Wilson.
In the latest escalation between Kettle and Wilson, with the Public Safety Chairman objecting to the way Wilson is characterizing the search for a new Seattle police chief.
Wilson said in a press release Wednesday that the next chief of police will lead development of SPD’s goals that align with the mayor’s public safety vision.
However, the new chief would need the city council’s approval to be appointed, a point Kettle made clear in his own press release on Thursday.
“The next chief of police, in order to get confirmation, will also need to align with the council’s public safety goals as outlined in its Strategic Framework Plan for a Safer Seattle,” he said.
Kettle said in his press release that the city council is a co-equal branch of government that Wilson must work with.
Kettle has become a strong critic of Wilson on the city council, going so far as to say last week that the mayor lacks a public safety plan, and has also criticized her efforts at fighting crime.
Kettle also mentioned in the press release one of the key issues that has fueled contention between him and Wilson for months; the mayor’s pause on expanding the technology-based surveillance camera program connected to the city’s real-time crime center.
“We need the mayor to utilize all the tools in the city’s public safety toolbox, including the use of our technology-assisted crime prevention, among other tools,” his press release said.
Wilson’s office did not respond to a request for comment from The Center Square.
With most of the nine-member council pushing for Wilson to relent and allow more surveillance cameras, Kettle’s statement raises the possibility that the city council won’t confirm a new police chief without buy-in for more cameras.
However, as the city’s chief executive, Wilson controls whether the cameras will be installed, putting a potential new police chief in a difficult situation.
But it’s also possible the controversy could be over by early fall, after the New York University law school policing project completes a study of Seattle’s surveillance camera program.
Wilson has said the results of that study will help her determine whether the camera program should be expanded.
She has raised questions about privacy issues revolving around the cameras and questioned whether federal immigrant agents could use the cameras to capture people for deportation.
Surveillance cameras connected to the real-time crime center were first put into effect in 2025 in Seattle. The council had approved expanding the program before Wilson was elected mayor in November 2025.
Former Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes had been a supporter of the surveillance camera program, but stopped speaking publicly about it after Wilson put the program’s scheduled expansion on hold in March.
Wilson asked for Barnes’ resignation on July 30, following fallout from the Bite of Seattle shooting days before that left three dead and several wounded.
It’s not clear if the camera issue entered into Wilson’s decision to seek Barnes’ resignation. Wilson has not offered specific reasons for wanting him out.
Recent polls have shown support for reactivating and expanding cameras in the city, and venue operators near the Bite of Seattle shooting location and beyond recently wrote a letter to the mayor seeking more cameras in the area.
Wilson’s timetable is for a new police chief to be named by early 2027.