David Moseley Joins Race For City Council

David Moseley, a political adviser and community activist, yesterday announced he is a candidate for the Seattle City Council seat now held by Sue Donaldson.

Moseley officially declared his candidacy late yesterday morning, ending weeks of speculation about whether he would enter the race for Mayor Norm Rice's old council seat. He said he will run on his 16-year record in Seattle of working with neighborhood and community groups on such issues as crime prevention and low-cost housing.

``I've helped set up community-based juvenile justice programs in Seattle,'' Moseley said. ``Housing and human services are areas I've worked hard in. There won't be a lot of rancor in this campaign. I'm going to run on my record.''

Moseley, 43, is a native of Mobile, Ala. The son of a Baptist minister, he intended to pursue the same career until he discovered Democratic politics.

With an undergraduate degree in political science and a master's of theology, Moseley moved to Seattle in 1974. Since then he's been active in housing and human service programs, and politics.

He organized Mike Lowry's successful 1978 congressional campaign and ran Lowry's unsuccessful Senate campaign in 1983. In between those two races, Moseley was a candidate himself, losing a 1981 bid for a seat on the City Council.

After running Lowry's 1983 campaign, Moseley was hired in 1984 by the Democrat Lowry beat for the nomination, former Mayor Charles

Royer, to run the city's Department of Community Development. He held that job until last spring, when he resigned and was appointed by Mayor Rice to work out problems between the city and the Goodwill Games.

In this race, Moseley will be challenging a relative newcomer to politics. Donaldson was appointed to the council in January to fill the first of the two years remaining in Rice's term. At the time of her appointment, one of the people who was passed over for the job, state Sen. George Fleming, promised to challenge her when the seat came up for election this year. But in June Fleming announced he was leaving politics and wouldn't be a candidate for the council.

Official filing for the office opens next week. Two months remain before the September primary and less than four months before the general election.

``The general consensus is she's (Donaldson) unbeatable, but this just feels like the right time to do it,'' Moseley said.