On a warm but overcast spring day, 300 people from across the region gathered at Holy Rosary Church in West Seattle to honor a remarkable politician and community activist. Charlie Chong passed away at age 80 from complications following heart surgery.
Actually it may be incorrect to call Chong a politician at all, even though he ran for mayor twice and served on the Seattle City Council for one year in the mid-90s. Call him the anti-politician, given his deep-rooted populist sentiments and his disdain for the groupthink among our local politicians who, once elected, quickly forget those who elected them. Chong never did.
During his brief stint on the council, he made a point of rising at meetings and offering verbatim comments from grassroots organizations with which he shared a common bond, then casting his vote in line with their sentiments. To his corporate-driven colleagues prone to burying their political biases in planner jargon, this was shocking behavior. Chong even answered his own office phone.
Chong was a lone neighborhood voice on the council and often on the losing end of 8-1 votes. But that did not deter him. When others might content themselves to politely eke out minor amendments to a bad bill crafted by big business, Chong stood on principle, and made sure the public knew when these interests warped the process.
By doing so, he changed the terms of the debate and galvanized others into motion. He paved the way for election of fellow anti-establishment activists Nick Licata, Judy Nicastro, and Peter Steinbrueck. While not necessarily adhering to Chong's values, all owe in part their tenure and their electability to the ground Chong broke.
In retirement, after years of work in government, Chong emerged in West Seattle in the early 90s to lead a neighborhood challenge to then mayor Norm Rice's plan for dense "urban villages." Hundreds mobilized at the grassroots level thanks to Chong's leadership and turned back this plan. This in turn spawned similar efforts across town and signaled the re-emergence of a strong neighborhood movement.
But for those of us fighting homelessness, his candor was not always well received. In fact, Chong's early comments occasionally tipped over into appeals to exclude tenants and people of color from more affluent homeowner communities, including West Seattle where he lived.
But, if we look carefully at Chong's overall record on key issues of equity and economic justice, hands down, he's one of the best local elected leaders we've seen. In his one-year tenure on the council, he vigorously opposed the no-sitting and parks exclusion laws and other anti-homeless measures. Few spoke so forcefully to protect the civil rights of the poor.
Chong also was one of the first to support the Seattle Displacement Coalition's call for controls on the demolition, conversion, and speculative sale of low-income housing. And he actively opposed the housing authority's HOPE VI redevelopments that destroyed 1,000 low-income housing units in our city.
And more than anyone of prominence on the Seattle political scene, Chong was willing to challenge head-on our city's love affair with high-rises that have wiped out thousands of low-income SRO (single room occupancy) units downtown in over two decades. He didn't buy the fashionable nostrum that runaway densities would avoid sprawl or preserve affordability. He always said that growth that was not sensitive to the existing character of communities simply served to drive prices up, eliminate existing lower priced units, and force working people out of the city. Today we are reaping the consequences of policy decisions that paid no heed to Chong's words.
Ah... what might have been had Chong been elected mayor. At the time, we weighed in for Chong, warning that the election of a Paul Schell would accelerate the globalization and corporatization of Seattle's - and the region's - economy and the continuing exportation of jobs.
Chong's belief in the right of small entrepreneurs and neighborhoods to control their own destiny is also a belief in the devolution of power and authority downward where ultimately there is a greater potential for poor people, working people, and low-income communities to shape their future. We know one thing for sure - there would have been no World Trade Organization meetings, no police riots, and no tear gas in Seattle. The revolution in Seattle would have been held in Amsterdam.
This is how we will remember Charlie Chong. Thomas More once said a person is defined by his conscience. And like Thomas More, Chong never bowed to the will of the proverbial king. He was our city's polite, ingratiating, outspoken, sometimes quirky but always honest, man for all seasons.
Towards the end of the funeral service Mary Pearson, Chong's wife of nearly 30 years, gave a brief but extraordinarily moving expression of gratitude to all of us. Just as Chong would have done, she thought first about friends and colleagues, thanking us for our work and for our friendship and love.
"Charlie," she said, "was not a rich man. He really wasn't. But he was rich and blessed in a way that really mattered" to be part of a caring community of friends and committed activists.
We will miss Charlie Chong.
The Seattle Displacement Coalition's John Fox and Carolee Colter may be reached via editor@sdistrictjournal.com. [[In-content Ad]]
