by David Mendez

Shoreline City Councilmember Keith Scully told The Osprey straight away: He’s not looking to climb the ladder, but to join a group of state legislators who want to make change.

“None of us are looking at meteoric political careers. You just want to get stuff done,” he said. “Like, if I get voted out based upon fighting for progressive taxation, I’ll die happy…if I go there and I sit there for two or three terms and I don’t have anything to show for it, that’s a personal fail.”

The state budget is facing a shortfall, and the so-called millionaire’s tax won’t generate revenue until 2029. To fix that, Scully wants a total overhaul of the existing tax code.

“It’s regressive in every way. You think of property tax and sales tax, but [Business & Occupancy Tax] is also regressive,” he said of the business tax calculated on the total value of products sold. “That means high volume, low profit businesses pay more than they should.” The gas tax, sales tax and property tax also hurt lower-income folks most, he said.

“Job one is coming up with a state study for how we completely redo it — not little tiny fixes here and there, because that’s what’s got us into this problem in the first place. What a state income tax looks like, how that affects property tax rates, how that affects local funding options. What happens if we flip B&O to profit? Do we drive out Microsoft? We doubt it, but we need to know that,” Scully said. “If I win this thing, I’m going to be in the legislature for 10 years, and that’s what I’m going to push. It’s not going to happen overnight, but it’s time to get it done.”

Keith Scully began his adult life as a paramedic while he worked his way through law school at New York University. His legal career has taken him from prosecution (both in King County and at the Hague, where he prosecuted war criminals) to an environmental non-profit to his current practice in intellectual property law.

Scully has held office in Shoreline for 15 years, starting on the planning commission in the late 2000s, where he, along with two colleagues and a city staffer, put together a rough draft to rezone the city with little more than a map and markers. That, he said, was a “formative municipal experience,” as the city looked toward the development of its light rail stations.

Ten years on the Shoreline City Council has given Scully plenty of projects that he’s can put on his resume. He’s pleased to have approved the city’s new zoning map, setting a guide for the community’s future developments. He said that the Regional Crisis Response Agency, where mental health practitioners respond to crises alongside police and EMTs, calls back to his time as an emergency responder. He’s proud of his part in the city’s new and refurbished infrastructure, like repaved paths and sidewalks along Eighth Avenue in Richmond Beach, or the pedestrian bridge that crosses Interstate 5 at 148th Street and links to the nearby Sound Transit light rail station.

His ultimate selling point to voters, he said, is that he knows how to work with people, supporting their dreams so they’ll help him realize his, in Shoreline and beyond.

“Council members in other cities where my opponents are [from] have endorsed me because they’ve worked with me, and they know that I’m fairly easy to get along with and I want to get stuff done. I want to see regional cooperation, and I want to see al the good things we’re trying to achieve become a reality.”