Community Forum on Council Vacancy Position 8

Good evening, everyone, and welcome to City Hall, and thank you for joining us for this Council Vacancy Public Forum.

My name is Alicia Crank, the Executive Director of Seattle City Club, and I'm here with my colleagues, Jeff and Andrew, who are in the room and will be helping out tonight.

We appreciate you taking the time out to be a part of this forum, whether you're here with us in person or watching us on the Seattle channel.

We do have a two-hour time block for this forum, and eight finalists for the council position eight.

We will get in as many questions as possible and we are requesting that any audience questions be submitted through our Slido link that some of you may have already used.

The QR code can also access that page and should be on the screens of those watching at home right now as well as QR codes throughout the room.

If you prefer to handwrite your question, please do so and hand it to one of my colleagues during the break we will take and they will enter it into the portal as well.

All of the questions submitted, whether we run out of time or not, will be forwarded on to the city council tomorrow in time for their special council meeting on January the 22nd.

So please do not panic if we do not get to your question.

Council will get it and have an opportunity to ask it on Monday.

For tonight's forum, we're keeping it pretty simple.

We'll do 60-second introductions from each of our candidates.

Then we will start asking questions that were compiled from community groups that submitted them.

Once we get through that chunk of questions, we will take a short break and then come back and answer audience questions.

There will also be a six question lightning round, which is where those fun little paddles that are in front of our candidates will come in handy.

And then we'll end with closing remarks that will also be 60 seconds.

So with that, who's ready to begin?

OK.

So I will start with the person that's closest to me and ask them to go down the line.

So Vivian, if you would go first.

Hi, good evening.

I'm Vivian Song and I am seeking the appointment to the vacancy on Seattle City Council.

I am a school board director for Seattle Public Schools and a mom to four current and future Seattle Public School students.

I'm also a private sector professional with over 15 years of experience in finance and operations.

I'll be bringing a collaborative approach to public service, relevant finance and public budget skills, and firsthand experience in serving residents of Seattle in a citywide elected office.

My motivation to serve on the City Council comes from my dedication to making Seattle the best city in the world in which to learn, work, and raise a family.

As an elected school board director, I see how many of our city's challenges intersect in our school buildings and inhibit them from reaching their fullest potential.

I believe the areas that we need to make the most progress on in a city are public safety, homelessness, and affordable housing, and economic vitality.

and that's why I'm seeking this appointment to work on these issues more directly.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Neha Naria and I'm here today because, sorry, because I love the city and see the challenges that Seattle currently faces.

I want to be a part of addressing those challenges in a meaningful way.

I believe that this is a turning point for us to establish a better foundation to support and foster our next round of growth while being inclusive of all the people that are already calling Seattle their home and still preparing to welcome all the people that are yet to make our beautiful city their home.

My family owns a small hotel near the Space Needle between South Lake Union and Queen Anne, which we have converted into an emergency shelter to help unhoused.

It is with such partnerships we are able to find novel solutions to our problems.

I take pride in the fact that not only did we step up when asked, but it's an example of how public-private partnerships can be successful in addressing some of our most vital issues and needs.

I believe my unique experiences as a resident of Seattle, running my family business, serving and volunteering on various nonprofits within the city, and being a member of the greater Asian community give me a unique perspective to bring us together.

That's time.

Sorry.

Sorry.

Thank you.

Good evening, everyone.

I want to thank you for coming out and participating tonight.

My name is Mark Solomon, and I seek to represent you on Seattle City Council in position number eight.

I am a native Seattleite, born and raised on Beacon Hill.

I actually live in my childhood home, the home my grandparents built on Beacon Hill, a home I'm fortunate enough that has been kept in the family.

and keeping homes and families and building generational wealth is something that's very important to me.

My reason for wanting to run and serve is very simple.

Seattle's my home, and I wanna take care of my home.

But just like all of our homes every now and then, Seattle's gonna need us a little bit of home repair, right?

We have public safety challenges, homelessness crisis, affordability issues, infrastructure needs, budgetary constraints, I mean, the list goes on.

But I feel that by working together, by working collaboratively, by working in relationship and partnership side by side, we can address those challenges.

I'm honored to be among the people who are on this panel.

I'm sorry, that's time.

And I'll stop talking.

All right, good evening.

I'm Steve Strand and I'm honored to be here among these eight finalists for the open citywide city council seat position number eight.

I appreciate the opportunity to come out and answer questions directly from the public.

I believe it's very important that we answer the public's questions in a transparent way because that's ultimately who we work for is the public.

I'm a lifelong Seattleite and I'm raising my family in the city.

I am deeply concerned about affordability, safety, and the environment, and what we're going to leave for our future generations.

I've spent my entire adult life in public service with civic engagement and seeking justice.

My current job has allowed me to achieve improvements throughout the downtown core by collaborating across city departments with nonprofits, community-based organizations and business.

The voters in this last election were clear about what they wanted and I heard that call and I am responding.

I'm very hopeful the city will make progress with this upcoming council agenda and that real change.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening.

My name is Mari Sugiyama.

I use she, her pronouns.

I am here as a fourth generation Japanese American born and raised on Beacon Hill seeking appointment to the City Council seat for position eight.

The reason why I want to do that is because I have a commitment to serving the community.

My work at the City of Seattle for the last eight and a half years has really given me a strong skill set that can really add to the value of the City Council.

In my experience working with budgets with multiple departments, and I feel that this will really help us as we move into some of these larger issues such as public safety, housing instability, economic revitalization, and especially our upcoming budget deficit.

My experience with direct service providers through our contracts that we manage is a skill that I, feel the council would benefit from as we look at addressing this budget deficit because there will be very real impacts on the citizens of our city if we start looking at programs without having some good background information.

I'm a hard worker.

I can multitask.

I collaborate really well with people even if we may disagree on policy differences.

I really feel that my core beliefs are rooted in how I was raised and that is why I'm seeking this appointment.

Thank you.

Thank you and hi everyone.

My name is Lin Tai.

My motivation is very simple.

I'm here because my whole life has been about dedication to a lifetime of service, service of others more than myself.

I'm here simple.

The city asked me to.

The council member asked me to submit a name to help whether or not I'm the best fit to join them to serve the city.

I don't have any fancy agenda.

I don't have any incredible lofty goals.

I'm here to serve you.

I'm here to make sure that the council members succeed.

When they succeed, we all succeed.

And, you know, but if you ask me, I love neighborhoods.

I've grown up in neighborhoods.

I love everything about neighborhoods.

And so if there's a priority that you want to put a pin onto it, that I want to help the council to do a better outreach to all the neighborhoods to learn from you and fix all small problems.

That's how we've been big victories.

Thank you very much.

Hi, my name is Tanya Wu.

I grew up in Beacon Hill.

I worked in my family business in Wallingford in Queen Anne U District and now the Chinatown International District.

And I now live in Rainier Valley.

So I've seen the changes throughout the years in Seattle.

And I've seen what happens in neighborhoods who don't have a voice.

And I want to change that.

So I know how to achieve better public safety.

I run a group that is considered an alternative to policing.

We go out to escalate fights.

At the same time, we provide mutual aid to our unhoused neighbors.

I also know how to build affordable housing.

My family renovated the Louisa Hotel into workforce apartments.

That only charges our residents a percentage of their income, so no one's forced to pay a rent they cannot afford.

I also have fought against city discrimination on one of the most endangered neighborhoods in the nation.

I have learned that in order to be heard, we have to make people in power listen.

And so I know that we need to work together and together we can make our neighborhoods and our cities safer and affordable for everybody.

Thank you.

Thank you, Alicia.

My name is Juan Cotto.

I'm born and raised right here in Seattle.

Also grew up on Beacon Hill in the south end of Seattle.

Three things I want to leave with the audience to understand.

Number one, I can win this election citywide.

This is a momentous opportunity that we're going to take on, a momentous challenge.

In 1996, I worked for a King County executive who wanted to run for governor of the state of Washington.

In the midst, we had complex policy challenges in King County that we were working on, and we were able to balance that and manage that and also work with him, including land use and a variety of different challenges.

Oh, we even saved a football team, for crying out loud.

But we were able to get that man elected governor at the same time managing the office and doing the most important thing, which is to get back to constituents, the Second thing is the experience that I gained from that and also from the work that I've done in the last decade in terms of civic engagement.

I've worked on many different issues in this community and with many leaders, including El Centro de la Raza and the Urban League to provide that structure.

And then the other thing about me and by my reputation, I play nice in the sandbox.

I'm motivated by this incredible city council that we all work to elect with collaboration and innovation.

And I would love to be a part of that because I think my personality resonates with this group and I'm excited to be a part of that.

if selected.

Thank you.

I didn't mean to have to cut you off.

Great.

All right.

But we're going to start our first question with you, Juan, if you don't mind.

So the first set of questions that we are going to ask before the break are the questions that were collected from numerous community groups throughout the city.

So this first question comes from the Pioneer Square Residence Council.

And it's a simple question.

What experience do you have with large budgets?

I'm from the Pioneer Square Development Council.

What experience do I have with large budgets?

Yes.

I have been working with large budgets since I was a college student body president at Western Oregon State College when I was elected.

We had a $500,000 back in...

I don't want to go into what year that was because I was only about...

But seriously, we had a $500,000 budget that we had to make decisions on at King County.

I worked with multiple departments and groups on large budget experience and challenges to deal with county budget.

I've worked currently at Bloodworks Northwest, where I am the government affairs director, and I've been able to raise money for our awareness on the blood supply.

I was able to get and secure money down in Olympia to make sure that we can amplify the message that we need to promote blood donation.

So from the city level, the municipal level, to the federal level, and also at the state level, I have more than enough, I think, budget experience.

Thank you.

And we'll come down this way.

And I did neglect to say 60 seconds for each answer.

Was I under 60 seconds?

No, you were good.

Thank you.

You're good.

So I also run a small business.

That's how I grew up, working in my family business.

With the redevelopment of the Louisa Hotel, when the building caught on fire, we immediately had to get a $2 million emergency stabilization loan from the bank and that was folded into a 30 million dollar loan to rebuild to the louisa and we just finished construction in 2019 and we have 84 people who call that building home i've worked in a lot of non-profits charities and you know i've also helped conserve a jazz mural from the prohibition era and working trying to find grants and so far have been able to put two $100,000 into help conserving that mural for generations to come.

With the CID Community Watch Group, we had to fund that entirely on our own.

We don't have much help from the city.

And so we've been working on crowdfunding and trying to apply for grants that we can find.

And so I do have experience in small and big budgets.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I have an extensive experience working and dealing with large budget.

I served on executive board for a large nonprofit organization in education here in South Seattle.

I helped my family run a strip mall, a couple of strip malls in King County.

You know, by the time I served as a staff for Congressman Adam Smith, I helped him in the work in oversight in the areas of finance, helped the region to acquire federal grant of 40, The top one, $40 million raised to the top for the regional education application to the federal government.

The mission continues.

I was a regional operations manager and then director operating a multimillion-dollar budget, operational budget, as well as a staff budget.

So I have an extensive background in large budget issues.

Thank you.

And then before we go to the next person, if I can ask everyone to silence their phones.

I forgot to say that at the beginning.

My colleague told me to say it, and I forgot.

But if you would silence your phones, we'd greatly appreciate it.

I have about 10 years of experience from the nonprofit sector.

When I worked at Girl Scouts of Western Washington, I managed a small team.

It was small but mighty of three individuals, and we had a budget around $300,000.

That included both private funding and other general funds that we got through the organization.

But fast forward to my experience working here at the city, I currently manage a portfolio of contracts, over $20 million of 50 different service providers.

And that experience is something that comes directly out of the the city budget process and so my experience in city government i think is probably the best answer for this question in terms of my experience with budgets is what does that process when the mayor puts forward his speech what does that process look like when the city council then has to review it and approve the budget but then also how does it impact our communities directly and so that process is is something that goes through very quickly in terms of their contracts But the technical assistance that we have to provide all 50 of these agencies when it comes to doing their invoices, when it comes to managing their budgets, and those budgets can range from $50,000 to $1.5 million.

And some of these agencies aren't familiar with that level of funds.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So currently I'm the post commander of a nonprofit in West Seattle as the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and we have a meager budget.

So that is not where I have most of my budget experience.

But in the Washington Army National Guard in 2015, I was responsible for the building of a multi billion or excuse me, million dollar building that had a skiff involved, a separate compartmental information facility.

It was called the Information Operations Resource Center, IORC.

And along with that, we had over 800 soldiers that I was responsible for, all of the equipment, the high-tech equipment that we were responsible for and maintaining all of that.

Along with that came the training and the salaries of all of those different entities involved.

Then here at the city, I run a downtown precinct where we have over 100 officers and a budget that I manage there as well.

Thank you.

Well, like Captain Strand, having experience in the military, I was also responsible for being a good steward of the resources that we had in my particular unit.

I didn't get to write the budgets.

I was responsible for making sure that the money we had was spent well.

Again, being responsible for being a good steward of those resources.

In terms of other budgetary experience, at one point I ran a small business, a security consulting business, where I had to secure clients, secure...

the contractors to serve those clients, be responsible for payroll and bookkeeping and accounting.

I've also been on the board of organizations that have $20 million budgets and making sure that we are being financially responsible with the resources that we've got.

Have I dealt with multi-billion dollar budgets?

No.

But have I been a good steward of the budgets that I have had oversight of?

Yes.

And one of the things I look at is when we are spending your money, we need to be asking ourselves, what are we spending?

What are we spending it on?

And what are our measurable results so that we're making sure that we're getting the best return on investment for your money?

Thank you.

Running my family business, I've navigated it through multiple economic downturns.

And I've also went through a multi-million dollar renovation in 2019. And then came the pandemic.

And I had to pivot and realize if we didn't pivot, we could lose everything.

And I had a direct fiduciary duty to the business.

pivot we did.

And I was also treasurer of legal voice and during that time I served on a committee during COVID to kind of hedge the budget in case things dried up or the world ended as we all thought it would.

And instead of having a deficit, we actually came in with an increase in revenue.

In all my experiences, I had a direct fiduciary duty and I would take the same approach to the city budget and make sure that we were looking at the budget, reviewing it, cutting costs where we can, and then looking at other ways of funding it before raising taxes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

As a school board director, your primary responsibility is overseeing and approving the school district's budget.

Seattle Public Schools has a $1.2 billion operating budget, which is quite comparable to the city's operating budget of $1.6 billion.

The school district also has been running a budget deficit in recent years.

The last two years, I had to close a $100 million budget deficit and go through a very difficult public process of identifying which cuts we were going to be making and understanding what trade-offs we would be choosing and in every effort to protect the best possible experience for our students.

And the way that we did that was to identify what are our three top academic goals and go line by line and ensure that the budget matches and is directly driving those goals.

And we were also making sure that we were making progress and measuring results on those goals.

And so I have experience working in a small legislative body of seven people to approve and oversee a large public budget.

Thank you.

All right, so the next question, I would like to start with Mark and then have everyone go to the right, if that makes sense till we circle back around.

Yes.

Yeah, you're right.

Okay, so.

So this question comes from the Transit Riders Union.

And so I'm gonna ask you to restrict yourself to one answer on this.

which is if the city has to make cuts, what would you propose cutting and why?

I'm sure it is a lot, but I'm gonna ask you to pick one thing and why.

Yeah, if I had to make a decision about what to cut and why, just one thing.

or whatever you can squeeze in the next 45 seconds.

Okay, yeah.

I'm gonna need 35 to think of it.

That really is a tough question.

It's a tough one to answer and if I had to come up with just one thing, I'm having difficulty thinking about what it is that we cut.

Because again, it gets back to What are we spending our money on and what is our return on investment for that expenditures?

And if we're doing something that doesn't work, let's stop doing that and put the funds where it actually needs to be where we can have a better result.

Okay.

Thanks for going first, Mark.

It was random, I promise.

I would try to cut programming that was redundant, that we were doing the same stuff across departments, costing us more money when we could probably bring it under one umbrella and serve the city.

But again, I would look through the budget and analyze our return on investment.

I mean, we have a lot of needs, and so we need to make sure we're achieving those needs and serving our community.

I think this is a nearly impossible question to answer, but the approach that I would have is to think about what are our three priorities.

And I think what the ones I have articulated are very similar to some of what the other people on this panel have articulated, which is addressing public safety, addressing our homelessness and affordable housing crisis, and ensuring that we have economic vitality in Seattle.

Through that lens, I would go department to department and ask them, what is the constituent service that you are delivering and how does it relate to these three objectives?

What are the redundant services that you have and are they available for cutting.

I know from my experience at the school district that it's really hard to cut one thing.

A better approach is instead to set a percentage target for the department and have the department heads make a determination to get a total amount that way.

Thank you.

Thank you, Alicia.

For 12 years, I was a community engagement manager at Fred Hutch Cancer Research Center.

And I think about the late Dr. Beverly Torok Storb.

There was a young man about his age.

And Dr. Storb made this unbelievable presentation on cancer research.

And the young person asked her this complex question.

And she looked him right in the eye, this little, I would say, eight-year-old young person, and said, I don't know.

And I thought that was one of the most powerful answers from a nationally distinguished scientist.

I don't know.

So to answer the question, and I know there's council members who've been here for certain amounts of time, and I know there's council members who are just starting, they probably researched some of these things.

I would just sit down and the question in a minute, I don't know.

I have been through budget cuts before at King County and in a variety of different places.

The impacts that those have on families, I'm just not going to be able to sit here and tell you in a 30-second answer what I would cut without having to do some serious study and analysis on it.

So I would have to say I don't know.

I think there needs to be more accountability and transparency in our budgeting process.

But we need to go through the exercise of going to each city department, agency, and trying to find metrics of success.

We need to be seeing results.

We need to be looking at everything from a whole and making sure that what we're doing is working before we can go ahead and look at what could possibly be cut.

And it should be results-based.

Thank you, the best answer is that I agree with Juan.

I don't know.

The I don't know is not because I don't care.

The I don't know is not because I, it's just simply I do not have the information available in front of me.

It's not because I'm indecisive.

I can be very decisive, but I need to know before I can decide.

And any responsible leader must exercise that thoughtful process.

And some folks said cut redundancy.

Some redundancy is a good thing.

How do we know that it's not a good thing?

Some redundancy matters so that we can have data points to point to success or not.

So I agree with Juan on this issue.

It's going to be a collaborative process with other council members, and if it's going to be growing pains, we all need to experience the same thing together, and we need to be transparent.

We need to communicate that to the residents so that we can grow.

We have a shared experience.

As a city, we need to experience together.

Thank you.

This is a great question.

And just like everyone else, I don't think it can be answered in one word or one statement in this setting.

I think it's kind of a setup to ask us what we would cut to see if someone could catch us in something.

But what I would say is from a department perspective and from working within the city, I know that the budget deficit is something that we've already talked about.

What are the cuts that are going to come down through our department?

Is it going to cut services to community?

And for me, I think what some people have already mentioned is going to these departments and seeing where their budgets are at, seeing where their spending is at, and also asking those questions about why there might be underspend or why there might be overspend on other things is getting that true answer from them so we can make an informed decision on how we could potentially cut budget.

It's a $250 million deficit, so doing a million here and a million there is not really going to get us very far, and that's going to have great impact on a community-based organization if their total budget is only $5 million.

So how can we look at things more holistically and know, okay, this is where we're going to have to make some big decisions, but it has to be really informed, and I don't think we have enough information at this point to sit up here and give you maybe the answer that you really wanted.

Thank you.

I like our city council's approach and what I've heard from council member Saka about starting this cycle with an audit to see what we're spending our money on.

The city is projected to have a $250 million shortfall.

And so we need to look at what is working and what is not.

And we need to look at the data behind that and find out exactly where our money is going and where are we duplicating our efforts.

For me, public safety is number one, so I can tell you that's one place I would not like to see any cuts.

I've been responsible for the emphasis that we have up at 12th and Jackson, and it's vitally critical for the neighborhood up there that we continue with our efforts.

And we do that through a lot of community organizations, nonprofits, and other city departments.

And same thing at 3rd and Pine.

We have a crime hotspot down there.

And when we're talking about the number of homicides and reducing those, those are where I would put my priorities.

Thank you.

So before we go to the next question, this is great so far.

If I could have you guys bring your microphones a little closer.

Some of you speak really soft, which I like, but not everyone can hear you.

So the next one, I'm going to start with Tanya on this one.

This one's a little long, so I will repeat it if necessary.

Still to the right from that person.

Good clarification question.

So this question is from FutureWise.

State law enacted under House Bill 1110 allows cities to preserve limited amounts of single family residential land.

The question is, which neighborhoods in Seattle, if any, should not be up zoned?

And please explain your answer.

we have to build more housing and we have to build more affordable housing.

And I don't know the answer to that, but I know that we have to consider displacement and gentrification, especially in decisions going forward, especially in places like South Seattle where people are being forced out.

And so I think we really need to examine this by a neighborhood by neighborhood basis with the realization that we do have to build more housing, we do have to share in trying to diverse the kinds of housing that we have, especially for families and for people to be able to age in place and to be able to work here and live here.

To me, this issue is a matter of equity.

I am a renter, and there are many residents in the city that are more renters than homeowners.

So that's just a matter of fact.

And so this impact me, these questions impact me and impact other people too.

So because this is a matter of equity, every neighborhood must up zone.

But how, that is going to be a matter that we're going to have to discuss around equity issues, how to address that.

But, you know, we benefit and we share the burdens and we grow and we benefit from each other.

This is how we move together as a city.

This is the vision that Mayor Harrow is talking about.

It's one city, one Seattle.

And so if it's one Seattle, then we all must share the burden.

Thank you.

Similar to the last question I think to ask us, what area should not be up zoned is sort of ignoring the nuance in this type of question.

When we talk about single family homes or single family zoning, we have to think about families where that home might be their only form of generational wealth.

And so if you're up zoning in that area and they are being pushed out, what sort of impact are you having for their generations to come or what sort of, What sort of part are you playing in gentrification?

I think we can also look at some of these housing alternatives that are cropping up through entities like Africatown.

We have SCIPTA developing the north lot of PacMed.

There's also the discussion around Fort Lawton.

So there's all these other possibilities that could address the housing needs without just sort of making a grand sweeping statement that this area should not be up zoned or that every single area should be up zoned and then not really thinking about what those impacts could be on those people where that single family home might be their only form of generational wealth.

Thank you.

As I look at position eight and the committee that that candidate will be chairing and the sustainability and the comprehensive plan that will need to be updated this year, this question falls right in line with those issues.

It's important that we make intelligent decisions and well thought out and we don't have unintended consequences.

It has to be up zoned along transit lines.

We have to look at developing affordable housing, our urban villages as mentioned in that, and then the mayor's One Seattle plan as well and how that's going to feed into that planned development of Seattle.

One of the things I'm very concerned about is the displacement of communities, especially in District 2. I was the captain at the South Precinct.

And I know that underserved communities sometimes take the brunt of these decisions.

And if you look at our sound transit line and where it runs along surface streets, it is right through that neighborhood.

And I think that is not equitable.

Thanks.

Like some of the other panelists, it's difficult to answer this question.

And I come at it from a different perspective.

And that's one of...

having benefited from a home that was passed down to me so that I have generational wealth.

Whereas a lot of the folks I grew up with, they don't have those family homes.

They lost out on that generational wealth.

And if any of you read the Seattle Times piece this past weekend about black legacy home ownership and how much generational wealth has been lost over the years because of housing policies.

We're talking billions that affect families like mine, neighbors like mine.

Yes, I agree that if we're going to be doing any kind of up-zoning, it needs to be equity, but at the same time, I'm concerned about gentrification and I'm so concerned about displacement because I've seen that displacement.

I've lived that displacement.

Thank you.

Ty.

Thank you, I don't think anyone disagrees with the fact that we need more housing across the spectrum market rate affordable transitional All of the above and if we can actually get our housing Supply to meet the demand it will automatically become more affordable And so yes, we don't want to disproportionately displace communities in different neighborhoods But we do need to be proactive the city is continues to grow and we cannot continue to advocate for a housing policy that has not served us well and has led to this affordability crisis that we are all feeling that our belts tightening and kind of the frustration of.

So I support building housing in all the neighborhoods.

Thank you.

I think that if we as a city are serious about addressing our affordable housing crisis, this exception to HB 1110 doesn't really make sense in a city that's growing like Seattle.

I would not be in favor of adopting this exemption and I don't have a preference for a neighborhood therefore.

And the reality is that this kind of upzoning change really would not happen overnight.

And therefore, it's incumbent on us as elected leaders to engage community stakeholders to ensure that gentrification and displacement doesn't disproportionately harm neighborhoods.

We've already observed those changes.

we will have opportunity to mitigate the negative impacts of that.

But I think this is tremendous opportunity.

We have the resources to bring amenities like public transportation, schools, libraries, community centers to more parts of our community.

And I think that the upzoning will really help drive that.

Thank you.

I serve on the board of Homesite, and the point that Mark made about generational wealth and creating opportunities for people to live in housing is a real one and very important in terms of how we do that, especially for underrepresented and minority communities.

And that's an area that one of the things that we have been looking at.

As far as the upzoning, and I think one of the candidates touched on it, it's a market issue.

The more that we can build, we need to give opportunities to develop that, to develop options.

We also have to take a look at what this means to cities outside of our jurisdictions.

For example, Renton and different places, Kent, Federal Way, where younger transitional families and single people who are working in the city have to get into the city, so transit's got to play a role with that.

There's much more into this in regards to how we work to develop those types of opportunities, and I think we need to just sit down and we will work to come up with ways to create those levels of zoning so we can get the housing and also keep it affordable.

I'm still a renter, and I've unfortunately been able to keep our rent affordable, and that's what this will do.

Thank you.

And so this next question is actually piggybacking off of what many of you have talked about.

So it's another housing question and this one is from Habitat for Humanity.

What policies would you support to promote BIPOC ownership in the city?

And let's start with Steven on that one.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thank you for that question.

When I was in the Army over in North Carolina going through the engineering course.

We actually did some volunteer work with Habitat for Humanity, and it's a terrific organization that President Carter has been involved in.

And so, yeah, I think that home ownership should be something that is achievable by everybody.

In Seattle, it is not affordable and that is a big concern for me with young kids growing up and wondering how they're going to be able to stay in Seattle.

I'm worried about that.

There are things I think we as a legislative body can do to ease some of those burdens on the impoverished.

And there's also some budgetary things that we can look at as solutions as well.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

Okay, so earlier I mentioned the Black Legacy Homeownership Group.

It's a community-based organization.

It is working to keep families in their homes as opposed to being displaced and providing resources for them, education, even looking at low-cost, no-cost home repairs.

Recently, anybody have any issues with the atmospheric river and property damage as a result of that?

We did, and it wasn't cheap to take care of.

When faced with that kind of catastrophic expense, some homeowners may have to look at selling as opposed to being able to hold onto it.

I believe this organization is one that can help people stay in their homes.

The other thing that just came out that I saw today is the State Department of Commerce has invested 312.6 million in affordable housing and home ownership opportunities for Washington residents.

That's time.

Okay.

Darn, I was just getting going.

Thank you.

Sorry, let me take a minute.

As Mark had stated, Black Legacy homeowners, and I just read the article this weekend and it's wonderful.

And there's many groups, Habitat for Humanity and other groups I know that popped up during the pandemic to kind of help with the homeownership for BIPOC communities.

And one thing that is my strong suit is bringing communities together to solve problems.

So I would bring together all the players that have started to do this and ask what is the best way for the city to support them and continue to expand their reach to proactively identify the needs so that we can help Seattle grow in an inclusive and productive way.

Thank you.

So I would approach, I would pursue three strategies.

The first strategy is indeed to invest in community-based organizations to support our communities in learning how to purchase your home.

It's a very intimidating process.

The second approach is to just increase the supply of housing in Seattle.

That would certainly bring down the prices of housing and make it much more accessible to more, potential homeowners and I think finally the city can play a role in facilitating private public partnerships.

Amazon has a program already that provides low interest rate loans to help drive BIPOC ownership in our community.

As I said in the prior question, I'm on the board of HomeSite and our executive director, Darrell Smith.

This will be a 30-second commercial, but that's what we have been looking at doing.

That's what HomeSite does, and I would support programs like that to help BIPOC community residents, number one, be able to find a home that's affordable.

Then also the programs that we have, and remember, one of the reasons why I'm still a renter, I can't afford a down payment.

One of the things that HomeSite does is really look at down payment assistance, which allows folks the opportunity, especially younger couples, especially if you have children, if you're looking to find the way to get that first down payment on a house.

And some of these houses in Seattle are so expensive that the down payment becomes a major issue.

So those types of programs that we've developed through those community-based programs I think are critical and things that I would look at supporting.

Thank you.

So I'm interested in things like land trusts.

I know the Brighton Neighborhood Group is looking at this model.

They're trying to crowd fund property for the community by their block so that every neighbor could have a little piece of an investment where they could generate that generational wealth.

I also think as a family when our building, Louise Hotel, caught on fire, We had the hardest time trying to find a loan as a family of color.

We were turned down everywhere, and it was just this one small little community bank that helped us out and was able to get us going.

I think it's also very important to help people stay in their homes.

There are a lot of families, a lot of seniors who can't afford their taxes.

We have to make sure that there's education going out there, helping them to navigate systems where they can get a tax break.

But also things like, you know, when there's inheritance tax involved, sometimes when properties pass down from family to family, making sure that the education is there to set them up so they're not paying exorbitant tax so that that property can remain in their family.

Thank you.

This time, sorry.

Okay.

Okay.

I'll extend 10 seconds to Homesite, the infomercial.

I've been a fan of Homesite.

I'm a great fan of interim CDA.

I've worked at getting veterans and myself get involved with Habitat for Humanity building homes and stuff like that.

These are just wonderful organizations, but I would like to bring my experience in collaboration, not just with nonprofit, not just with relying on our city tax for that, but being to bear my experience in collaboration with city, state, federal, Mark has mentioned already, to bring about some of these investments and opportunities and very creative solutions to help solve and mitigate this problem.

And we've got to join other, you know, and get everybody to fix this one little itsy bitsy problem that is the regressive nature upside down tax code of our state.

It's time, sorry.

So yeah, thank you.

My recommendation would be to start with the Office of Housing and to see what sort of programming they already have that can support BIPOC families and residents to maintain ownership of their home or to seek ownership of their home.

I think it would also be worth looking at is there a way to create benefits or incentives to senior living facilities and finding ways to subsidize housing options for people where their only form of wealth may be that home.

And so how can we work with them to age in place but keep that home in their family?

There is a program that exists within our department that's called Minor Home Repair, and it is what it says.

It's a minor home repair service that allows people to have improvements made to their home so they can stay in their home.

So whether that's grab bars or something like that, we're encouraging people and helping people and supporting them so that way they can remain in their homes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Now, this will be our last question before our break that was asked for by the candidates, so don't come after me if you say no breaks.

And Lynn, I'm gonna start with you on this one.

This is from Seattle Neighborhood Greenways.

Aurora avenue North lake city way rainier avenue South mlk way South and fourth avenue South are the five top most dangerous streets in the city for people walking biking driving and taking transit what should be done to fix this.

Well, this goes to planning.

It goes to neighborhood planning.

It goes to transportation planning.

I would work with our transportation department and work collaboratively with other council members.

There's just a lot of good, smart people that can help solve this problem, for sure.

I experienced this dangerous stuff when I was down having a small business and actually live in an MLK.

The fact that transit was intentionally built on surface and not elsewhere was a major cause for death and accidents and injuries.

So it goes to equity.

It goes through the issues around impacting community of colors and immigrants that don't have a voice and are not able to uh have the political uh engagement power uh empowerment that that they need to to raise this voice and advocate for them so um i i i would totally work with the department transportation and other departments and other council members to to to to raise to prioritize this this issue it's uh it's impacting people tremendously thank you

This is a really great question, but I also don't think it has a one-size-fits-all type response, because the needs are very different in terms of the volume of transit that we see using Aurora versus the pedestrians or students that we may see crossing Rainier or MLK down near Aki Kurose Middle School, for example.

I think some of the things that we can look at maybe more easily, or some of the Quicker wins would be looking at lighting and also looking at public safety concerns around the areas because if public safety is a concern, your foot traffic is going to decrease.

Similarly, if someone is going to drive to an area but they also don't feel safe, that obviously is going to impact that foot traffic.

If people are not going to the areas that we're talking about on these impacted streets, everything then is a domino effect and we'll see that effect then it also impacts the business and economic development too of those areas.

So I think we would really just have to look at what some of the top concerns are from the community members who are using those streets or visiting those areas and sort of what their concerns are when they're traveling.

Thank you.

In my job, I have worked in all parts of the city along these various streets.

Much of that has been on a bicycle as a daily rider for my work along Aurora Avenue, Lake City Way, Martin Luther King Way, Rainier Avenue.

I can tell you it is dangerous.

We have started with paint as our bicycle lane solution.

and it's time that we advance to protective infrastructure with Vision Zero.

We want to get to zero fatalities related to traffic collisions and we are not getting there and we need to step that up.

We have pedestrians and bicyclists being killed in our city regularly now and it's very concerning to me and I think with e-bikes and scooters and the lack of helmets and lack of enforcement, the roads have gotten very dangerous and we need to fix that.

I will do everything I can on this city council to ensure that our transportation is safe and effective for all modes of transportation.

Thank you.

I definitely want to echo some of the things that have been said.

Productive infrastructure for our bikes, better pedestrian safety, especially along those trans corridors.

Part of it also comes down to just driver awareness, driver education.

In some cases, pedestrian awareness, pedestrian education.

It's amazing how many times I see people walking down the street into traffic looking at their phone.

It's like, don't do that.

There is a Target Zero effort that was mentioned that is looking to reduce the number of traffic fatalities to zero.

It's a multi-county effort.

One thing I think we can do is not only work with the Department of Transportation on traffic calming, let's work with the Department of Transportation on synchronizing all of our traffic signals so that things can flow better.

That's one of the things that I focus on as well.

Thank you.

Thank you.

In my conversations over the past year, I've learned, not recently, but over the past year, that SDOT has not ever integrated the transit, vehicular, bicycle, or pedestrian plans onto one integrated system.

report, and so they all work individually, and I think the first priority would be to bring them all together and overlay them so we can actually make sure that there is a movement of traffic, whether it's pedestrian, vehicular, bicycle, transit, and it's moving effectively and efficiently, and then also bringing together the community stakeholders in all these areas MLK, Rainier, Lake City, Aurora, because they're the ones that live and breathe and see the traffic fatalities better than any of us can say sitting here.

And so working with those communities and getting their input to actually get solutions that serve them.

Thank you.

As a school board director, I have been working with the City of Seattle School Traffic Safety Committee, and so I'm relatively familiar with some of the strategies that we can be used to address pedestrian and bike safety.

And the good news is that there are tools, we know what the tools are.

We can improve lighting in those areas, install speed zone cameras, have sidewalks.

I think the issue Has today has really been a brown investment and priority of investments.

That is the reason why we are witnessing pedestrian deaths and bike accidents and those neighborhoods They have not been invested in and prioritized to date and I as a council member will work with that district Representative to ensure that we do prioritize that and I think that a large source of unfortunately our accidents are members are unhoused neighbors.

So I think that if we begin serious work on trying to address our problem of homelessness, that will be a good strategy to reduce the amount of traffic accidents to pedestrians and bike riders.

Thank you.

I think this is, and I can't speak for all areas of the city, so I'll speak for my own.

This is a problem of human nature in regards to people maybe getting five more minutes started on their day, and maybe there could be some sort of a public service announcement.

People drive, and not all people, people, but a percentage drive too fast.

And we see this in our Lakeside Avenue neighborhood.

And my daughter, who is a little girl, was built kind of like a milkshake.

And she would run and her body would shake.

And she's going down this narrow sidewalk.

And sometimes she would look like she was going to veer into the traffic.

And there are cars coming down on a 25-mile-an-hour road that are going 40 miles an hour.

And I'm just sitting here just hoping that she doesn't fall off because I don't know what's going to happen.

And we would try to work from that perspective.

And I see it down some of the busier streets in our neighborhood.

I ride a rad bike.

And you can see this 225-pound black Latino man going down Yesler Street.

And the guy goes whizzing by me, almost hits me, and he stops to look at me.

Then he looked at me, and then he took off.

And I just yelled at him, slow down.

Slow down.

We need to look for ways because people are driving too fast.

I know the people closest to the problem have the solutions.

I know that many of these neighborhood groups who are dealing with those streets have plans.

I saw that in 2015 move levy.

There were some projects that were supposed to be funded in that plan that have not yet been completed in some of these streets.

And so I think we need to bring together neighborhood groups, stakeholders, see what they want and to see happen to those streets and make sure that gets funded and that we fulfill the 2015 move levy going forward and prioritize that.

I know that levy was, I guess, very ambitious, but I think we need to have these ambitious plans because we need to fulfill them.

And the transportation levy is coming up again this next year and that's gonna be very important.

How do we make our streets safer?

Thank you.

So with that, we are going to take a 10 minute break and come back to our audience questions.

If you are on Slido, go ahead and submit your questions and you can also upvote some of those that you agree with.

So we'll come back in 10 minutes and continue.

you you Thank you.

you Thank you.

hi everyone and welcome back to our council vacancy public forum I'm Alicia crank with Seattle City Club we just completed one round of questions from community groups that submitted earlier and now we are turning to your questions and again there's over 50 in our portal which we are very excited about but please remember that all the questions will go to the City Council tomorrow and so that they can have them for the meeting on the 22nd where they may be asked there.

So again, don't be despondent if we didn't get to it tonight.

The decision makers will get ahold of those questions as well.

Who do I wanna start with this time?

Who haven't I picked?

I haven't picked on Mari yet.

Mari, are you ready?

This one actually comes from the Washington Youth Alliance.

If appointed, do you commit to increasing or maintaining mental health services for youth that passed in the 2023 budget?

Please start small, it's okay.

Thank you for that question.

This actually hits really close to home just in the work that I do right now in the Human Services Department.

We have a really strong division called Youth and Family Empowerment, and some of the supports that we do provide, both in that division and then the division that I'm over, which is Safe and Thriving Communities, does contribute to overall mental health.

And I think when we're talking about larger issues like public safety or homelessness, we have to think of some of those root causes, and sometimes that is related to a mental health need or disability.

mental health situation where someone could benefit from added support.

I definitely would support youth mental health counseling, whatever that may look like.

Also making sure that it's accessible with very few barriers.

Looking at different ways to provide those services.

Sometimes it needs to happen at school.

Sometimes it needs to happen in the neighborhood.

Sometimes it needs to happen during school hours even.

We have to make it accessible for everyone who feels they need that service.

Thank you.

I would absolutely increase it.

Mental health needs to be fully funded, especially for our youth.

We can look it out on our city streets and see what behavioral health and mental health issues look like.

And the sooner we address them, the better off we are.

I have worked with our disabled veteran community and they some struggle with some mental health issues along with addiction just like the rest of every community in our neighborhoods.

But for our children, I think we pull out all the stops and I would increase.

Thank you.

Yes.

Yes, mental health is important.

I think in particularly communities of BIPOC where it is stigmatized, we need to support mental health at a younger age to get the resources everyone needs and work with the stakeholders that are already doing the job and reaching out to these youth to ensure that we are getting to them in the proper channels.

So, yes.

The genesis of this investment that the Council recently made, which is a $20 million annual investment in the mental health needs of our youth was in direct response to a very tragic shooting in Ingram High School.

Subsequent to that event, the council and the mayor came together and identified $4 million of funding to pilot some programs in some of our high schools to address the mental health needs of our students.

I think there were really promising results and that's why they made a commitment of $20 million going forward.

What's important to understand is that the state legislature currently only funds one counselor for every 1,500 students.

This is driven by a student group that was trying to drive that ratio closer to one for every 250 students, which I think is what is best practice in the National Association of School Psychologists and I'm very excited that the City Council recognizes this tremendous need in our community and it's coming directly from our students and I think our students should take tremendous pride and I will make every effort to protect it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

My wife Sarah is a mental health therapist.

I sat on the board of Sound Mental Health for five years.

This is a personal and professional commitment to me, 100% yes.

coming out of the pandemic, our young people need more support than ever now.

And so I believe we can do more.

And it's not just mental health, but it's also this vacancy, the Arts and Culture Committee, Sustainability Committee, City Lights.

I mean, we all have responsibility.

Every single department has in hand in how we raise our young people.

And so I think that's an amazing start, but we could definitely do more in funding in terms of mental health and other areas as well.

Mental health is personal to me.

If you looked at me, if you talked to me, if you've known me all your life, you would not know that Lynn has a mental health challenge.

I own that.

I'm a beneficiary of that, and I struggle with mental health for most of my times after leaving the service.

So that's a struggle.

So I don't think mental health issue is uniquely challenging to youth, but I wholeheartedly, just from an empathy, just from a direct personal experience, of course, we should maintain an increase of funding for mental health for our young people.

I would even expand and challenge our council members and the mayors and the rest of the community to, you can do something.

You don't need money to be kind.

You don't need money to care.

You don't need money to reach out and say, I see you, I hear you, I want to be with you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for that answer.

I apologize if I butcher your name, Neha?

Neha, thank you.

Neha, I haven't picked on you so now it's time.

This question is, There are many demands of a council member, including regular voting.

Do you have a consistent history of voting on local matters as a private citizen?

Thank you.

I turned 18 for the Gore Bush election and I happily registered and voted at my former elementary school and would drive back there every election when I was at the University of Washington until I changed my registration to Seattle.

And so I have actively registered since I was 18, or voted since I was 18, except for a few when I lived on the East Coast, I think I didn't get my ballot in time, or a couple trips during the primary that I missed my ballot, but I've been actively voting since I was 18, so yes.

Thank you.

When I was a senior in high school, I helped my grandfather who was a refugee study for his US citizenship exam, and I had the distinct pleasure of voting in my first election with him, and it was actually a school levy from my school district.

My voting record is nearly perfect, and in Washington state it is perfect because we are very lucky to have the ease and convenience of mail-in voting.

I remember very vividly my first time voting in the 1984 elections, and I remember the news coming on that Ronald Reagan defeated Walter Mondale, and I walked up to Rainier View Elementary School and I cast my vote for Walter Mondale.

I have voted since I was 18 years old.

I have voted in all local elections.

When I was in the state of Oregon going to college, I voted there.

When I lived in Georgia, I voted there as well.

been a lifelong voter.

I think it's a part of our political process, the most important part of our political process.

And I have voted in all of those elections.

I will acknowledge that my voting record has not been good, and I own that, and I know it's a mistake, and if I go back in time, I would change it.

But I come from a community that does not vote.

We are not talking about politics, we're talking about survival.

And so this last, I mean, I don't wanna make that as an excuse, You know, this past last couple of years, I've been actively out there trying to register people who have never voted before, people who are in their 80s, 90s, refugees, immigrants, non-English speakers who have voted for the very first time this past election.

And so I think the very important question to ask is how do we engage people who are farthest away from government?

who do not see any visible improvements when it comes to government.

How do we engage those voters?

I mean, you go into the Chinatown International District and you see the graffiti and the disinvestment.

And so that's a whole group of people who are not known to be voters.

How do we engage that group?

And I kind of see it as...

going forward an opportunity and a mission and responsibility to to learn from my mistakes and in the future be able to engage voters and try to get them registered and involved in the government process thank you i love voting i love freaking voting so much

that I joined the service to defend and lay my life down to defend voting.

I love voting so much that since I left the service, I eventually got nominated and voted by unanimous agreement votes by King County Council to let me come and play as a member of the Citizens Oversight Committee of King County Elections.

And part of it is about learning and engaging with all group of people to help those who are disenfranchised through the voting process.

And the number one thing to get other folks to get involved in is through language access.

This city is one of the most diverse cities in the region and the state.

And there's so many people are not, Y'all, you speak English better than me.

Trust me, you.

I'm a first generation immigrant and former refugees from Vietnam.

You think I speak good English?

No.

Language access is so important.

Thank you.

So I definitely remember going with my mom to vote because it was so fun to punch through in the little ballot and pulling the curtain to make sure it was a private experience.

And when I turned 18 and got my license, albeit it was a little bit late, I had to get my license so that way I could drive in a carpool to UW.

But they were able to register.

I was able to register to vote in one fell swoop.

And so I voted since then.

And I think when we think about making voter registration easy, combining it with something like the licensing process obviously made it really easy for me as an 18-year-old.

And so if we can think about alternative ways to make sure that that experience reaches everybody, that would be great.

Thank you.

Yeah, I registered to vote when I was 18 and I've voted in every election since then.

Even while deployed overseas, I made sure I had my ballot and I submitted my vote.

My wife is an immigrant to this country and she is now a naturalized citizen and it was important for her to do that so that she could also take part in our elections.

I have three teenage children.

and I'm happy to say that the Washington State now with the driver's license makes it incredibly easy to register to vote and so my daughter has voted this last year and this year my son will turn 18 and both kids and both parents will vote and I'm happy that I've stressed that and I'm very disappointed in the low turnouts that our city has and I thank our fellow council members for the work they've done to register people to vote because I believe in restorative justice.

Thank you.

And just like Captain Strand, I, too, registered to vote when I turned 18. And while I was overseas with the military, I still submitted my ballot in an absentee fashion for the City of Seattle and the State of Washington.

So just to echo some of what's been said, voter turnout, definitely need to increase it, definitely need to Encourage people to turn out but also give them a reason to turn out, you know as President Obama said don't get mad vote and That's what I think that we should all be encouraging each other to do let your voice be heard vote.

Thank you All right, we're gonna stay on that line of thinking, actually, and Juan, I'll start with you and have you come back this way.

This is actually my question, or the City Club question for you, which is how would you get more people, more residents, more youth, civically engaged?

As you've already mentioned during this last question about low voter turnout, how would you, as an elected, motivate and encourage others to get more civically involved?

I think that that is an important question on so many different levels.

I'm currently working on a bill right now to engage curriculum for young people to start learning about blood donation, because right now we are at one of the lowest points in American history in terms of people who are going out and donating blood.

There's many reasons for that, but we think that that's an important piece of the equation, is making sure that they're learning about it in schools.

I think it's important to remain active yourself, and that's why I serve on boards and commissions and get out there and do those things.

Civic engagement also includes participation in not only athletics, which is a passion of mine, but my kids were involved in dancing and playing instruments and helping them develop and find different ways that they can find their true passions through arts and leisure and culture in a variety of different ways.

And I think also we have to motivate adults to do that as well.

Then another experience, I had an experience as a juror two years ago.

That's another thing because we have so many people of color are participating in juries and that's an important part of the process as well and an important part of civic engagement that we need to look at.

Thank you.

So I come from a community of refugees, immigrants, mostly non-English speakers.

And I think it's very important to have language access.

Not only that, but letting communities know that if they want to be heard, this is how you do it.

How do we engage communities into city hall, into county hall?

and that starts with every one of us and communities from the ground and grassroots level and how do we are able to let people know that your voice does matter and I think a lot of people do become disenfranchised and so in terms of young people I think setting the example especially in families and schools community centers and arts and culture programs that this is how you enact change.

If you see something in your community that you feel very strongly about, this is how you do it.

And you have to get engaged with the process if you want to make things better.

Thank you.

Well, I do have direct experience in terms of engaging young people to be more civically engaged.

I asked them, some of the youth that I mentor, I asked them to design their own images and stuff so that they can be blaster as a part of voting engagement with King County elections.

So I have a record of doing that.

But I also think when you talk about civic engagement, it's not just about voting.

Civic engagement is about so many things, and it begins with taking, letting young people know that they own this stuff, they own the government.

There's so many ways to say that you're civilly engaged.

You don't have to just, you can, young people can, hey, if parents can be forced to buy toy for kids, kids can force parent to vote.

You just need to let them be a part of that ownership and decision making process about how to engage and learn and own their government.

I took my daughter up to the mayor's office to say hi and demanded that she be seated at the mayor's chair.

It begins with a lot of that and you all have, each one of us has the duty and responsibility to be more civically engaged.

Thank you.

Currently, I know we do have some youth programming that encourages and promotes civic engagement and getting youth involved in the legislative process, whatever that may be.

So it does, like people have said, it does go beyond voting.

But we know that all kids in schools know that if the teacher asks them to vote on something they want to do, they know what that means.

So they know that it'll be a result based on the vote.

And if we can draw correlations to the larger government or larger legislation that could impact them or impact them as they become adults, That's how you get them involved, is you draw those correlations so when they're in elementary school, they understand, oh, when I vote, this is what it means in fifth grade.

But when I vote when I'm 18, I can have a greater impact.

Rainier Beach Action Coalition actually has a program where one of their goals is to have youth involved in civic engagement.

And I think if we can look at other alternatives to community-based programs that can get youth involved that helps them to see things that are impacting their communities directly, that's where you really build and cultivate that interest in voting and just civic engagement overall.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, I agree the importance of civic engagement.

I think it also starts at home.

I visited the Capitol with each of my children to stress the importance of our government.

I was proud that I answered the question correctly that there are 42 steps on our Capitol.

because we are the 42nd state it admitted to the union.

And I know that because that was something I had from the soldiers I served with in the Washington Army National Guard was a US flag with 42 stars on it.

But also I think our, we need to address institutional racism.

We do have disenfranchised communities out there and that if this starts at home and they don't have that home life, we need to reach out to them and engage in that.

Like I said, the driver's license now, it's easy to register when you get your driver's license, but we also have a large number of youths that aren't interested in driving.

And so there is a lot of work to do.

And I...

Hi.

I just want to say that I'm a...

I didn't touch anything.

I'd like to reclaim my time.

Well, you were over time when it went dark.

I just want to close with this, what JFK said.

It's by actions and not by words, and so it's going to take all of us to change this.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Should I go or pause until we meet?

No, go.

Go?

OK.

If we want our young people to be civically engaged and involved, we've got to be civically engaged and involved.

Because we're going to be setting the example for it.

When I think about past elections, when I look at voter turnout and 19% of a precinct, that's how many people turned out.

Why are the rest of those folks staying home?

Again, is it that they don't feel their voice is going to count or that they don't feel that there's a reason for them to engage?

Oh, thank you.

We have to look at that as well.

Again, it does begin with the adults in the room.

If we want our young people to be involved, we got to be involved.

Thank you.

Thank you for this question.

We've had our nanny with our family for three and a half years now.

And when she first joined us, she was applying for citizenship.

And so she had her interviews scheduled in October.

And every morning, we would go over the 100 questions and ask her three questions.

And my son, who was four at the time, could not read, but would always ask me to tell him the questions so he could ask questions.

our nanny at breakfast and he knew most of the answers before she took her exam.

The funny thing is he would go to school and ask those same questions again to his friends in the class.

The teacher emailed me to ask me what was going on.

Long story short, civic engagement starts with the youth.

showing them that they can actually be empowered.

Another thing that he has always asked for is a ballot.

And I think it would be great to have some sort of youth ballot.

We photocopy ours so he can fill it out and be part of the process.

But a way for them to feel like their voice is being heard in a proactive way.

To also teach them, if you don't know how to vote, it's really daunting and intimidating.

And I have to look at the voter's guide when I'm voting, so I can only imagine we're 18 with no guidance.

We just need to engage them and teach them how and what questions to ask to continue voting.

Thank you.

I think as elected leaders, we need to demonstrate that something happens when you get involved.

I think we were just discussing an excellent example of when youth get involved and this city council reacted to it and did something about it.

It started with a $4 million investment in mental health.

The following year it became $20 million.

That was initiated by an organization called Seattle Student Union, and now that student union is growing their membership and has become the Washington Youth Alliance.

I think it's really important that elected leaders give young people an opportunity to enact change in their own communities and make good on them.

we should consider allowing young people to serve on our commissions.

I know that Council President thanked the many applicants to this vacancy and encouraged them to join commissions.

And I invite our young people to join our commissions as well and get involved in our city that way.

Thank you.

So what I heard was that, from all of you, that if City Club was to start a youth initiative, you are all going to help out make it happen.

That's what I heard.

You hear what you wanna hear, Alicia.

Okay, we're going back to budget now.

And I will say, let's start with Steven again.

There is a large budget shortfall, as with most people, or most organizations.

Do you support the progressive tax revenue options put forward by Council Member Mosqueda, or cuts to service?

How would you make those cuts, if so?

Yeah, thank you.

So when it comes to the budget, I think we need to audit the budget, as I said earlier, and look at where we can cut before we look at any increases in our funding and any taxation.

I do believe that we should have a progressive tax, not a regressive tax.

So that is something that I support.

But I'm not comfortable raising taxes until we know that we are being good stewards of the public funds and one thing I want to Talk about is our police department Obviously I am a supporter of the Seattle Police Department and they've been without a raise for a while But there are also some alternatives to policing where I think we can save some money It is cheaper for other people to respond to somebody sleeping in a doorway than it is to have a fire truck or a police car show up to those kind of low acuity calls.

Aye.

So I think we can save money there.

Thank you.

So the question is whether to support former Council Member Muscata's ideas on revenue or to look at budget cuts.

Yes.

It's not an either or.

I think it's both and.

We do need to look at As I mentioned before what are we spending?

What are we spending it on?

What's our return on investment?

And if we're spending money on stuff that doesn't work Let's stop doing that and recoup those funds to put it towards things that are more necessary more needed At the same time.

Yeah, let's look at different types of investments.

Let's look at for example a public bank or where the city can actually borrow against its own assets to fund infrastructure projects, housing, and other kinds of services.

North Dakota doesn't.

There's no reason why we can't look at that as a potential funding mechanism for ourselves as well.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I believe that we owe it to Seattleites to audit, review the budget.

I don't think a review of the budget has been done in many, many years from what I hear.

And we actually need to trim where we can.

I do not think we are going to find $250 million in savings through the audit, but we will find some money.

And then also look at our restricted funds and see if we can use them, maybe a proportion of them, to help plug the hole.

If we are not able to do that, then we can go and ask Seattleites for a tax raise.

Seattleites are not opposed to a tax raise.

They just want to make sure that we are spending their money in a proper, accountable way.

And so I will ensure that we are doing that before we come to the table to say, please give us more money.

Thank you.

Thank you.

My experience overseeing the $1.2 billion budget at Seattle Public Schools and trying to close $100 million budget deficit, I think it's really important to start first with clear objectives of what you are trying to achieve.

I would engage our fellow council members in trying to identify what those objectives should be and working with department heads and making sure that the work of their organization is driving those objectives, it's measurable, and we can demonstrate results.

I do think it will be challenging to identify $250 million of cuts with this budget in a very short amount of time, and it's important to look at all the options, make sure everything is on the table.

But I think the important point with taxation is that there needs to be a really clear purpose for it and that we measure our results with that purpose.

And so that, again, goes back to the necessity of having clear objectives for what we are trying to achieve as a city.

Thank you.

Another question that's so difficult to answer in the abstract given the 30-second time frame and trying to answer this in such a short time frame.

The bottom line issue was this.

We as a community just elected an innovative and collaborative city council and new council members.

I know there's some existing council members and folks who have ideas.

I'm a person who's open to all ideas.

I want to make sure that in this new era of collaboration, even if there's people who philosophically may be a little bit different to me, we all want the same thing.

And I think it's important that I listen to the other council members, that we work in a collaborative, engaged environment to take a look at especially these budget issues, which once again, like I said, impact on so many different areas and ultimately people.

And I think we have to be responsible from that angle as well.

So I would say that I would be working with this innovation and collaboration that has been expressed.

And I want to listen to all ideas.

Thank you.

So budgets are tight for everybody.

We have people all across the city who are just trying to make ends meet.

And so how I would approach this is from a small business perspective.

We have a budget, and we have to make it work.

And so as I said earlier, we have to have metrics for success, for results, for every single department and agency.

We need to know that they're meeting these results.

which includes an audit of all budgeting, and be able to look at that information before we go to the last resort.

I know the Progressive Revenue Task Force identified a couple of things, and they went through an exercise of legality before they were implemented, but we definitely need to look at ideas, and as well as fight for a more, less regressive tax system in the state legislature.

Thank you.

Yeah, I think I'm in agreement with many of my, can I call colleagues yet?

Or, yeah, I don't know.

Sure.

Yeah, so, yeah, thank you.

Around the efficacy and sincerity around the audit, like, you know, we need to understand what we have.

what we're spending on, what we have been spending on, and have we got a good return of investments for the things that we've spent on.

And again, it's not all spending's a bad spending.

Sometimes we need to spend more.

My gosh, you know, I work for a member of Congress and trying to close the federal budget.

I mean, are you kidding me?

But we gotta work on it, and I'm all in favor in the spirit of collaboration.

We've gotta work together and identify where we can save, where we invest together, and come up with a collaborative solution, creative solution even, on this challenge.

Thank you.

I would echo what Mark said, which is this is a both-and question.

So if you tell someone we're going to raise taxes, you'll get an immediate response or reaction.

Similarly, if you say we're going to make some program cuts just based on what the numbers look like, you will also get a similar reaction.

I think something that we need to consider colleagues of mine that we've been talking about is what could this impact be on us both as employees and also how could this impact some of the community-based organizations that we're funding in those programs.

And something that I think is important to think about is when we're talking about budget cuts or program cuts, think about the staff that you're impacting through those cuts.

A lot of times that's frontline staff, which means they're making the lowest amount of money.

That's including City of Seattle workers too.

If we're looking at making cuts to staff, what impact are we having?

It's a ripple effect.

If someone loses their job and now they are no longer able to afford their housing, we've created that housing instability for that individual.

Now maybe they are no longer able to live in the City of Seattle because they lost their Seattle job and now they're seeking housing elsewhere.

Just once again, I think it's a both and and we really have to look at budgets.

We have to take guidance from departments to know, you know, they're the subject matter experts on their budgets.

So how can they advise us?

Thank you.

Thank you.

This will be our last audience question before we go into the lightning round and then your closing comments.

So let me give you an easy one.

And of course my screen moves as soon as I find it.

in 2023 and we will start with lynn on this one in 2023 encampment removals cost about 38 million dollars and data shows most people did not take offers of shelter what should should the city slow down the pace of removals or what would you what would you propose instead

You know, I also go back with I don't know.

It's a huge challenge.

It's a human cost.

There's just so much level of this.

It's a really disheartening situation.

I've disclosed with you that I have mental health challenge.

I also need to be transparent that I have experienced houselessness before in my life.

And as someone who has experienced houselessness, I don't think about You know, whether I'll be forced to move, I'll be forced to, you know, all my stuff being thrown away or, I did not think about it.

I just try to survive and if people want me to go somewhere else, I'll go somewhere else.

So we gotta, you know, we gotta think about all of these human dimensions.

I can't, I can't give that answer.

Thank you.

When we think about encampment sweeps, I think we also need to think about what wraparound services we're offering people.

A lot of times the outreach to these areas or these encampments may not be something that people are interested in.

If the shelter is only allowing men or women and you are not able to live with your partner, that tent does start to look a little bit better because you're able to stay with your family.

Sometimes you can't take your pet.

And I know there are plenty of people who feed their pets better than maybe some of us even eat as humans.

But think about just like these basic human rights and basic human comfortabilities that if you are houseless, you do not have that same sort of flexibility to move around.

When we talk about wraparound services, houselessness is not the only thing.

We have to look at some of the root causes.

So is that mental health?

Is that substance use?

other things that are impacting them that prohibit them from being able to maintain a safe home or live elsewhere than an encampment.

And at the root of it, too, I think we need to look at what that outreach looks like, because we know that from different communities, sometimes you feel more comfortable with people you are familiar with, people who look like you, people who speak the language that you're familiar with.

Thank you.

I want to be clear when talking about our unhoused neighbors.

That is not illegal and they are not criminals.

I think that's important when we talk about public safety and homelessness that we're not combining those two issues.

They're very separate.

There are people that are unhoused that are going through mental health issues, that have drug addiction issues, that need help, serious help.

We are spending a lot of money and it is not getting better and we need to look at why that is.

I agree that these encampment sweeps and spending $38 million to do it again two blocks over is not effective.

We need more permanent solutions.

I think the city expected King County Regional Homelessness Authority to be able to give them the money, the $100 million or more, to find those regional solutions for all the cities in our region, and I don't think that that has been effective, and we need to look at whether we continue with that or not and how we do get people indoors because we can't leave them on the street.

Thank you.

I'll try to be as brief as I can with this.

A lot of folks call me.

I'm by profession a crime prevention coordinator with the Seattle Police Department.

A lot of phone calls I get from folks in the community are about homeless encampments.

And I emphasize to them something what Captain Strand said.

Being homeless is not illegal and just because someone is homeless does not make them a criminal because we have a lot of people that have addresses that are committing crimes.

I want to make that very clear.

If we really want to address this, we need to provide addresses for those folks who are out there on the street.

If we want to solve the issue of homelessness, let's build housing.

Let's get people inside.

Let's provide the wraparound case management services they need so they can stay in their housing.

Let's not do congregate shelters because no one wants to go there.

Let's provide low barrier housing so someone can take their pet, take their partner that doesn't require them to be sober.

DESC has a model over off of Denny that allows people to drink.

They have very few calls for service at that location.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Unfortunately, as the city, we all know that we are facing a homelessness crisis.

But I do believe all of these topics are intertwined, homelessness, public safety, and affordability.

We need more housing so that we can get people off the streets.

into a bed with an address to allow them consistent services and people to be able to visit them.

We also need to get housing encampments out of the right of way and make sure public spaces are safe for everyone.

But we need to do it with compassion and be cognizant that, as everyone else said before me, that Sorry.

They have a right to be there, and they're not doing anything illegal by being homeless, unfortunately.

But we also need to address all of these issues head on to actually make a dent in our homelessness population and affordability.

So thank you.

Thank you.

I think it's important to study and understand why the offers of shelter are not being accepted and why it's not an attractive option.

My understanding is that for a lot of these people, they have built communities in their tent encampments and their possessions are there.

I think that the city should be pursuing strategies that are more immediate term Solutions but are more of a bridge to permanent supportive housing.

I think tiny house villages is an excellent solution I was talking to Sharon Lee Low-income housing Institute and I think it's quite cost-efficient to build tiny house villages one One tiny house costs $4,000.

You can do a tiny house village with about 50 tiny houses, and it costs less than a million dollars to open one.

And then going forward, the operating cost is just $100,000 a year.

I think this is a very immediate-term solution that we should be pursuing, and it would definitely address some of the reasons why it's not an attractive option to go to shelter.

Thank you.

I believe it was 10 years ago, and I could be off by a year, and I can't remember which one of the mayors did it, but there was a report in the Seattle Times that I saw that had data, and I'm just a big believer in a data-driven approach as we look at this issue, because I think sometimes we talk about yet again, the homeless and the abstract.

I think we need to know who's out there and why they are out there.

I remember in the information that the data at that time had, there was a percentage around 18 percent that had transitioning from foster care programs.

there was a percentage of, I think, around 12% that were actually working part-time jobs when they were homeless.

And then we had, from our disproportionate communities, we had an African-American population that had served in the military, and they were suffering post-traumatic stress disorder.

So we need to take a look at that.

I just believe we need to have data so we can find out some of the specific root causes, and then that will help us find the wraparound services and the types of programs that our homeless population needs.

Thank you.

So some of the work that I've been doing on the community watch is we go into the encampments and we build trust with our in-house neighbors.

We find out their backstory, their root cause, what they're looking for, what they want.

And I think community aspect is very important.

And building those relationships is especially important.

I know nobody wants sweeps.

You don't agree.

I mean, we all can all agree that they're terrible.

But I mean, we have to make sure that, you know, that the...

wraparound services are available, behavioral health services, the mental health services, addiction treatment services, and then being able to build community relationships and trust is very important in trying to get people inside and finding out what they're looking for, what the root cause is, and being able to to holistically help people.

And so I know we try to find long-term solutions.

Many people who have found shelter come back to encampments.

That's where their friends are.

And so we really have to look at how, going forward, every individual person, and we can't just make assumptions.

But through my work with Community Watch, we go to the encampments, and we see how, yes, scared they are.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Now you all get to collectively rest your voices for a second and use your paddles.

We have six lightning round questions and once we're done with each one, you will just raise your paddle thumbs up if you like it or thumbs down if you don't.

Ready?

I'm sorry.

Yes, let the audience see it.

Okay, so first one is do you support passing new progressive taxes such as a CEO pay ratio tax, city level capital gains tax, and or increasing jump start to raise funds to help fill the budget gap?

Okay.

Planners tell us you can't manage what you don't count.

Would you support requiring the city to produce an inventory of all rental housing to include low income affordable housing?

Will you support reviewing and fixing problems this year by amending the 2022 tree protection ordinance passed by the city council?

sure will you support reviewing and fixing problems by amending the 2022 tree protection ordinance sure Would you support a LUMA amendment to the current ordinance and add 8,000 large and healthy trees on the perimeters of lots to that list of trees protected during development?

The LUMA amendment.

Yeah, okay.

That'll be a good follow up for next time.

Two more, the Seattle Community Safety Program has been effective in supporting regional and ongoing gun violence prevention, but has presence only in a few city districts.

Will you support expanding this citywide?

And last but not least, Will you support creating an independent department of climate and the environment with an urban forestry division to consider or to consolidate the city issues in one department for better oversight?

All right.

Now it's time for our closing comments.

Each person will have 60 seconds.

And since I started with Vivian in the beginning, we'll start with Juan and come back this way.

Thank you so much, Alicia.

Thanks for the City Club.

Thanks to my colleagues.

Thanks for all of you for showing up this evening.

Three things I wanted you to walk away with.

Number one, I can win citywide.

I can build successful campaigns in consecutive years.

I've experienced it with Governor Locke when we did that back in 1996. I understand the importance of serving the district, the entire city that I'm actually representing.

and then also working to make sure that we build a very, very strong campaign.

I can raise the money and I'm really excited about that aspect of it.

I have a unbelievable network and I want to thank so many of my folks who are listening tonight, watching tonight.

It's been remarkable the last several days and all the texts that I've received.

I've got a remarkable network throughout the city and combined with the public policy experience, combined with the political experience, I think I could be a very effective candidate.

Then third, of course, once again, innovative and collaboration.

That's been my reputation, and I'm looking forward to work with the city council that we elected.

I just want to leave you one more thought.

Quickly.

We could all be heroes if you donate blood.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Permissible.

Okay.

I consider myself a daughter of Seattle.

I lived here my entire life.

And I love my city.

I have boots on the ground.

I have been out there in doing this work in public safety.

I'm out in encampments.

I'm out on the streets, de-escalating fights.

And I've been doing it for the last three years.

I also have a lot of experience in affordable housing.

I served on boards and commissions, especially when it comes to historic preservation.

And I also have a lot of experience when it comes to lifting and amplifying voices and bringing people who have never engaged a city hall before into its chambers.

And I've done this for for years, and I plan to do it at a higher level.

I think a lot of the issues that we're seeing in South Seattle, we see in the entirety of Seattle.

And I've had these experiences tackling these issues, boots on the ground, from a grassroots level these last couple of years.

And it'd be amazing to be able to help uplift voices, get people engaged on a higher level.

And I know that together, we can make Seattle better.

Thanks.

Thank you.

I almost forgot to bring the mic to myself.

Thank you, everyone.

Thank you to the 72 applicants who put their names in.

I want to make sure that you are seen and heard, well, the other 60-something, that you are an important answer.

Even though you're not here, you're an important answer to the challenges, and you can provide solutions moving forward.

For me, You know, I have a set of resume that can rival and, you know, compare and be proud of my resume, my record of what I have done with any single one of persons here.

What I want to impart upon you guys is that I have, in my lived experience and all of my professional experience, a consciousness of cultural sensitivity that I'm able to connect.

I have a level of deep empathy that I connect with many people across sectors.

Thank you very much.

Thank you everyone who's attended tonight.

I come from a legacy of activism and that has really created my core foundational beliefs and my commitment to Seattle as a public servant.

I want to do the best to serve our communities and I know that this person is going to need to hit the ground running and I feel that my strong experience in city government, my familiarity with different departments, familiarity different budget processes will be a definite value to the City Council as we start to tackle some of these issues that were already a little bit behind on to be honest and I feel like that would be a great opportunity for me to let my experience and my expertise from the city side to to a council that is very new.

Historically, we'll have six new people.

I want to make sure we can build trust and community.

I feel like that's very important at the city council level, but also within city government as a whole.

Bottom line, I want to ensure that Seattle will be a great city for my children and for their generations to come.

Thank you.

I want to thank everybody here and everybody online for being engaged.

This appointment to the open citywide council seat should be about more than one district or one topic.

I hope my answers have shown that I know this city and I know a variety of topics and can speak intelligently about them.

I know this city.

I know the difference between Alki Beach, Rainier Beach, and Matthews Beach.

I know the concerns of each of those neighborhoods.

I'm familiar with Golden Gardens, Kubota Gardens, and the Danny Wu Garden.

I work directly with South Park, Lincoln Park, and Volunteer Park and understand the problems experienced in each.

The agenda for this year includes fixing a budget shortfall, updating the comprehensive plan, and most importantly, public safety.

My background and experience will be an asset to the work being done by this city council, and I thank you for this opportunity.

Thank you.

I also want to thank everyone who is here tonight.

Wonderful opportunity, wonderful panel, and just want to echo or build upon some of the things that Captain Strand has said.

This appointment is about being an advocate for the entire city, not one district, not one neighborhood, not one demographic, but all of us.

And one of the things that I bring to the table that sets me apart is a history of coalition building with working with neighbors, with business communities, with government agencies to solve problems for folks in our communities.

I have been focused in the past 33 years of serving the city in getting things done.

What I bring to the table is a history of getting things done.

That's what I intend to bring to Seattle City Council.

I thank you for your time.

I thank you for your attention.

I thank you for being here.

I ask for your support.

Thank you.

Thank you Seattle City Club for hosting this forum, and thank you for everyone that attended and asked the questions, submitted the questions that were asked this evening.

From my conversations over the last year, I believe all of us wanna live in a city that is and feels safe, that provides resources for those that need them and that we can afford not only to live in the city now but grow old here.

If I'm appointed to the seat, I will do all I can as a representative to make sure that this is a reality and we're able to walk around in any neighborhood and feel safe with our future generations.

It will take us working together collectively with housing advocates, developers, first responders, social workers, residents, employees, and engaging everyone at the private, public, and nonprofit sector to come together and ensure that we are a city that is safe, compassionate, and affordable, not only for those of us who have chosen to make Seattle home, but it's also inclusive to those that want to come here.

Thank you for this opportunity, and I hope to be able to serve alongside current city council to make this a reality.

Thank you.

Tonight we've discussed some of the city's challenges, but I believe in even a difficult time we can make progress.

on public safety, homelessness, and economic vitality.

We need to scale our police force to the needs of our growing city and invest in alternatives like the new care department.

We need to address short-term needs and plan for their future to end homelessness and have affordable housing.

And we need to drive economic growth.

That's the engine that drives all the things that we want to achieve for our city.

I'm ready to get to work.

I'm also ready to get to work as chair of City Light Sustainability and Arts and tackle challenges such as the impact of climate change on snowpack and therefore our power resource, investing in our electrical grid in response to greater electrification.

I'm ready to work with regional stakeholders to find solutions to the culverts and honor the treaty rights of our indigenous nations.

My service as a school board director prepares me well for service on the libraries and education committee as vice chair as well.

And critically, I'm ready to tackle our $250 million budget deficit, bringing my professional financial skills and the practical experience of overseeing a $1.2 billion operating budget for the school district and closing budgets in a public process.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, everyone, for being here.

This was way more fun than I thought it was gonna be.

So thank you.

So again, I would like to thank everyone who participated in the forum tonight, both in person and online.

Thank you to the candidates for your willingness to seek a spot on the council.

thank you to the city staff and seattle channel for working quickly to help us pull this together and and also my staff volunteering board so if you want to learn more about city club please find us online and otherwise have a safe evening so it will be up for the rest of this page where you submitted your questions if you can fill out the straw poll that would be great and we will publish the results tomorrow thank you