Dear Chamber Members and Partners,
Spend enough time talking to people trying to build something in Seattle, whether it is opening a business, developing housing, or simply keeping a storefront alive, and you hear the same thing.
It’s not politics. It’s fatigue.
“I’ve been trying to get permits for months and there is nobody at the permit office I can actually talk to.”
“We’re doing everything we can to get it right, but the rules keep changing.”
“I’m dealing with fines over signage and sidewalk use while there is a bigger problem outside my door that keeps getting worse.”
“I don’t even know who to call anymore.”
This frustration is not rare. It is the norm.
At the center of it is something we all know, talk about quietly, and almost never confront directly: the Seattle Process.
The intention is to be thoughtful, inclusive, and make sure every voice is heard. But for people trying to actually get something done, it feels like something else entirely.
It feels like delay.
It feels like a system where problems that are already well understood get discussed endlessly instead of solved, even when the data is clear, and the consequences are obvious. We do not make decisions; we hold another meeting. We do not solve problems; we create another task force, or report.
That is the Seattle Process and candidly, the Washington Process.
Start with housing.
Everyone agrees we need more of it. Affordable housing, workforce housing, market-rate housing. And yet, we have built a system that makes it incredibly hard to deliver any of it.
A project can pencil. Financing can be lined up. Demand can be obvious. Then the process begins: design review, appeals, redesigns, parking debates, and community meetings.
Months turn into years. Costs rise. Projects shrink or disappear entirely.
Then we ask why housing is unaffordable.
The Washington Roundtable has shown Washington ranks among the least affordable states when housing costs are measured against income.
That is not a mystery. That is process.
You see the same pattern with small businesses.
Owners are navigating different departments, different interpretations, and different timelines. Sometimes they get different answers from the same office depending on who answers the phone, assuming anyone answers at all.
They invest in security and training to keep employees and customers safe. They follow the rules. And still, they find themselves caught in compliance issues over outdoor seating, sign placement, or trash enclosure rules, while the larger challenges everyone sees every day remain unresolved.
Meanwhile, theft, vandalism, and visible crisis continue right outside the front door.
Nothing makes people feel more divided from their government than being told their sandwich board is the priority, while their employees are walking past neighbors in desperate need of support who are experiencing homelessness, addiction, and crisis.
There is a short story by Kurt Vonnegut called “Harrison Bergeron.”
In it, equality is enforced so aggressively that everyone is held back. Strength is weighed down. Intelligence is interrupted. Talent is suppressed.
It is supposed to be absurd, but parts of it feel familiar.
Because sometimes, in our effort to solve real issues around equity and fairness, we create systems that do not expand opportunity. They simply make frustration universal. We do not remove barriers; we distribute them.
I saw this firsthand in the public sector.
Bill after bill that sounded urgent and important, often had the same thing underneath them: a workgroup.
Because we did not know how to get to the outcome, we studied it, and studied it again, while the people who actually needed the solution kept waiting.
Delay has a cost.
It lands on the entrepreneur who runs out of money before opening. The family that cannot find housing they can afford. The worker waiting for the job that never gets created.
At the Seattle Metro Chamber, we hear these stories every day. We push for a system that works better. Clear timelines, real accountability, and a bias toward action. A system that makes it easier, not harder, for people to invest, hire, and build here.
We cannot fix the Seattle Process overnight. It is too embedded in how we operate. But patience runs out.
There is a growing consensus that this is not working. We have to get better at getting things done.
Not talking about them. Not studying them. Doing them.
The Seattle Process was supposed to help us make better decisions. Right now, it is preventing us from making them at all.
Until we are willing to say that clearly, the people trying to live, invest, and create opportunity in our region will keep paying the price.
We need more urgency. We need more accountability.
And we need a system that remembers what it was supposed to do in the first place.
Get things done.
Joe Nguyễn
President and CEO, Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce