Good afternoon, everyone.
My name is Holly Krejci.
I proudly work for SDOT.
Shout out to SDOT.
How many SDOTs in the house?
All right, good.
There's a lot of City Light people out there, too.
I'm humbled and honored to introduce today's panel, many of whom I know quite well.
And please join me in welcoming to the stage our Seattle City Council members, Lorena Gonzalez, Lisa Herbold.
Deborah Juarez.
And Teresa Mosqueda.
Today's panel will be moderated by the Director of Government and Legislative Affairs at City Light, Maura Brugger.
Thank you.
Good afternoon, everybody.
Thank you for being here.
I know the morning was quite entertaining.
And I watched a little bit of it online.
So it looks like you had a great, great panel this morning.
And hopefully we'll step up to it this afternoon as well.
My name is Maura Brugger.
I'm the Director of Government and Legislative Affairs at Seattle City Light.
And part of my job responsibilities is managing council legislation as well as council relations for the utility.
So I get to work with this fine group of women on a regular basis.
Prior to coming to City Light, I spent 12 years at King County working for King County Executive Ron Sims.
So like many of you, I have been lucky to spend most of my career working for two nationally recognized local governments.
And it's because of the great work of dedicated staff like yourselves, as well as the fantastic elected officials we've been lucky to have here in Seattle, that we're able to do such great work for the residents of Seattle.
And I thought today, since it's International, we're honoring International Women's Day, that I would open this up with a quote from one of, one that's inspired me.
Before I came to Seattle I used to do, I did political development internationally and also worked to elect women to public office for 10 years.
And the quote I want to read is, I believe we will have better government when men and women discuss public issues together and make their decisions on the basis of their differing areas of concern for the welfare of their families and their world.
Too often, the great decisions are originated and given form in bodies made up wholly of men or so completely dominated by them that whatever of special value women have to offer is shunted aside without expression.
And Eleanor Roosevelt included that in her UN General Assembly speech in 1952. It's still very true today, unfortunately, in too many places, but not here in Seattle.
So I want to thank you for the opportunity to moderate this panel of inspiring and dedicated women leaders.
Each of them brings their life experience and perspective to their work as a policymaker.
And I can attest to you firsthand that none of these women's special value is shown to the side without expression.
So I'm going to do a quick introduction of each of them.
It was very difficult to narrow down their incredible histories and experience into a few short sentences.
But I'm going to attempt to do that.
And then we're going to jump into, hopefully, an engaging panel discussion.
Councilmember Lorena Gonzalez, who was elected citywide in 2015, is a daughter of immigrant parents from Mexico and was the first Latina Latino elected to serve on the Seattle City Council.
She grew up in Washington's lower Yakima Valley, where she and her family worked as migrant farm workers.
She is one of six children raised in a Spanish-speaking household and earned her first paycheck when she was eight years old.
Lorena worked and relied on scholarships to attend Yakima Valley Community College and Washington State University before moving to Seattle in 2002 to attend law school.
She is a nationally recognized attorney and civil rights leader.
And in 2009, the Hispanic National Bar Association recognized her as one of the seven top lawyers under 40 in the country.
Councilman Gonzalez has been serving on the city council since 2015. Councilmember Debra Juarez, District 5, North Seattle.
Don't forget that.
Councilmember Juarez has built a career focused on legal advocacy and economic development for the most marginalized communities in our state.
Debra got her start on the Puyallup Reservation in Tacoma.
She's an enrolled member of the Blackfeet Nation and one of six children born to a Native American mother and first-generation Mexican-American father.
After growing up on the reservation, she became the first member of her family to go to college.
Councilwoman Juarez went on to law school and served as public defender, Superior Court judge, Executive Director of the Governor's Office of Indian Affairs, and a financial advisor with a Wall Street firm where she created one of the nation's first in-house tribal finance groups.
And Deborah was elected in 2015 as well.
Councilmember Teresa Mascotta, who is also elected citywide, is a third-generation Mexican-American and comes to Seattle City Council following a long career effectively advocating for working families.
Her calling for public service began as a child, where she learned firsthand what it means to stand up for the most vulnerable and to fight for transformational change from her parents.
Most recently, as the political and strategic campaign director of the Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO, Teresa worked to advance immigrant and refugee rights, enact worker protections, and protect workplace safety.
Council Member Escada was elected to the council in 2017. Last but not least, Council Member Lisa Herbold, District 1, West Seattle, South Park.
Councilmember Lisa Herbold has been a Highland Park resident for 17 years and Seattle resident for 26 years.
She served as Councilmember Nick Licata's legislative aide since coordinating his 1997 campaign.
Lisa was elected to the city council in 2015. On the council, Lisa has worked on issues of access, fairness, and commitment to a shared quality of life.
She's been part of passing policies that have become models for other jurisdictions nationally, including paid sick leave, secure scheduling for retail and food service workers, rental housing inspection program, and an acclaimed criminal justice diversion program, to name a few.
So we're going to have three questions that we're going to discuss with the panel.
We're going to have three questions, but we're hoping to keep this very informal and I encourage you to engage with each other as well or ask follow-up questions of each other if you would like to.
And then at the end we're going to have time for the panel to take questions from the audience.
So the first question, these were shared in advance so it's hopefully no surprises.
On average, women have to be asked three times to run for office.
How many times did it take you before you made the decision to run?
What's the biggest challenge facing women and what's the biggest challenge facing women in public office?
And so hopefully it's a chance for you to talk a little bit about what inspired you to become a city council candidate and then ultimately a city council member.
So I think we'll, if you don't mind, Council Member Herbal, do you want to kick it off?
I thought you could sort of talk a little bit about what made you take the plunge from staffer to elected official, and also Council Member Gonzales, you as well were a city staffer before you took the plunge to become an elected official.
Yeah.
Sure.
I'm happy to start off.
Being a political aide to a council member puts you to a lesser degree, but still puts you in the public eye a fair amount and has one working with constituencies.
I was, it was regularly suggested that I should run for office throughout the 18 years I was Councilmember Licata's aide.
You know, my background prior to working for NIC and sort of the role I took working for NIC was, you know, before I was a community organizer.
And the role of a community organizer is is not to be a leader, but it's to empower impacted communities and develop leadership among the individuals that you're working with out of an understanding that they are their own best advocates in creating change.
And my role working for Nick was also working to amplify the voices of the communities he was working with and also as a support person to him.
So anytime it was ever suggested that I should run for office, my response was always, I'm more comfortable working behind the scenes to bring out other people's leadership.
So it took a long time to actually change my mindset.
And the thing that did it is really, I think, a challenge to myself.
to try and do the things that I'm not comfortable doing as a way of becoming a better version of myself.
And, you know, one of the things I always say is I love the work.
And when I say that, I mean I love public policy.
working through legislative efforts and working as an advocate for my constituents on some of the nuts and bolts things, like fixing streets and getting a utility bill addressed.
I love that work.
I wasn't sure that I would like the job, the job of being a council member.
And so I really needed to challenge myself to find out whether or not I would, and I do.
You just want us to go down the line, Ms. Bruger?
Okay.
So how many times did I get asked?
A lot.
I mean, for white women, it's three times on average.
But for women of color, it's significantly more than that.
And every time somebody suggested to me that I should consider running for elected office, my response was always, are you crazy?
And it turns out I'm the one who's crazy, because I ended up doing it, but for very good reasons.
I mean, it sounds cheesy, but I really made the leap from being a litigator and a lawyer to elected office because I really believed in the power of being able to make change through government.
And many of you in this audience, I think, understand that and appreciate that as public servants in our city is that there is a lot of power in what we do here in government to make the day-to-day lives of people better.
And I truly believe that that's why we're all here, whether you are in an elected role or whether you are a customer service rep at our city.
And so in a period of time in our history where the very existence of the value of democracy and government is being questioned and the rule of law is being tested every day by our president.
I think it's important for us here at the City of Seattle as stewards of the public trust and as representatives of government that every day we challenge ourselves to be better, and we certainly challenge our democracy to be better, but that we also, that that still means that we believe that we have a role to play in lifting up our neighbors and folks who work in the city of Seattle.
And that's really what motivated my desire to want to not just be an activist and an advocate both in the courtroom and outside of the courtroom, But to actually be able to bring that skill set to government and to be able to advocate for what my priorities have always been, which is to fight for women and to fight for children and to fight for survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence.
and to hold government accountable.
And one of the roles I really enjoy as a council member is sitting at the committee table, sometimes grilling people like Maura, with really hard questions because it's important for us to get it right.
People are depending on us to get it right.
And if we don't get it right, we damage the reputation of our city and our ability to govern effectively.
And so that's really what motivated me to want to do it is really really the cheese factor of really believing that we can make a difference and all politics are local.
And I know many of you probably have those one-on-one experiences with your neighbors and with your co-workers and with others that really exemplify that every day.
So thank you all for the work that you do every day to make our jobs a little bit easier every day in terms of really defending the work that you all are doing and making sure that we are asking questions of management to improve the systems and the conditions in which you're working so that you can deliver the services we envision for you to be able to continue to deliver.
So first, happy International Women's Day.
And I want to acknowledge also that International Women's Day was started right here in the United States.
Over time, the name has changed, though.
The original International Women's Day was called International Working Women's Day in recognition of the fact that women then and now still make less than men on average per hour, that women are more likely to have to take themselves out of the workplace because of caring for a child or a loved one or somebody that's sick.
that women on average still then and now have less retirement security.
So happy International Working Woman's Day to you.
And as we stand up and recognize all that we've accomplished, we also recognize that there's so much more that we're fighting for.
Having people in positions like what we're all in today, positions of public service, whether it's managing a department, answering a phone, sitting in the offices that we sit in, the roles that we have to raise issues that impact women are right now in front of us.
The work that you see the city council doing, fighting from everything for childcare and healthcare and equal pay, are making sure that we're elevating issues that have for far too long been put on the back burner.
And when we get people in positions of power, whether it's within departments or within city councils, who are willing to step forward, challenge the status quo, and demand that our issues are put forward on the front burner, it actually elevates the health and safety and equity of the entire community.
And that's part of what I think we're celebrating today.
Not just women, but our fight for equality throughout the entire world.
In the city of Barcelona and in Madrid, two women mayors of the two largest cities in Spain have joined the call for a national day of strike.
And women who are used to coming to work and women that are used to doing the household in the home have gone out on strike.
They've joined people in the streets demanding equal pay, respect, making sure that we're looking for opportunities for investments in education, in social services, in job opportunities.
And that's part of the call that I think you're hearing today.
And I hope part of what the takeaway is for us.
It is about demanding equity in every aspect of our lives.
And that's what I hope we'll continue to do on Seattle City Council.
I never thought I would be here.
You heard I just got elected four months ago now.
November 2017. And really I was inspired by seeing people who look like me stand up to run for office.
Councilmember Gonzalez being a friend of mine for many years, seeing her stand up and run for office and win, seeing a council that used to be majority women and now super majority women be able to take the reins in a city that is priding itself on being progressive and leading the nation showed me that it is possible.
And what happened?
Last year, we saw record numbers of women and people of color and individuals from the LGBTQ community stand up and say, I'm not going to say no anymore.
I'm going to say yes to run for office.
And not only did they run, but they won.
And we are part of them.
And I hope that you will soon join us and that you'll join people like Aretha Basu who gave me the shout out as the campaign manager.
If you're not going to step up and run yourself, help somebody run.
Help somebody see that in themselves.
Mara asked what it took to finally get me to say yes.
And I have to also correct the record.
The average is seven times.
Seven times women on average have to be asked to run for office before they consider saying yes.
not before they get to yes, but before they even consider the possibility.
And I was lucky.
As you heard, I grew up in a household of activists and educators who took me in my stroller to the streets and the rallies and the protests and the meetings that look like this.
And they also knew the importance of being part of the political process that can push for change.
And my dad would always tell me, you should run for office.
And I'd be like, no, no, no.
He was like, you should be the next Maria Cantwell.
And I'm like, what?
Who's that?
But I just say that as an example of what we could be passing on to our friends, our colleagues, all of you in the room, our children, the next generation.
Because far too often, kiddos are not taught in school to run for office.
Kiddos are not taught in school that this is a democratic process that requires our participation.
And too many of our children, their parents don't tell them that they should run.
But our democracy requires us to be participatory.
And if we truly want a representative democracy, which is what I think you see up here, we've got to start stepping forward.
And we need you in the streets.
We need you at the rallies.
We need you upstairs testifying.
And we also need you serving at every forum of local and national government to actually create true representative democracy so that we can push for equity, so that we can join the calls for action, so that we can be in the streets together fighting for the true equity.
that I think we all are here today to celebrate and to call for action.
We're going to actually move on to the other question at the request.
But first I want everybody in the room who has an empty seat next to them to raise their hand.
All of you staying in the back, there's empty seats if you want to sit down.
If you want to stand, you're certainly welcome to stand, too.
But I just want to make sure there's plenty of seats.
OK.
Next question, which is a wonderful transition from Councilwoman Esqueda's discussion about the importance of gender equity and what we really see a lot of discussion about right now.
Those of you who watched the Oscars on Sunday, I think saw a very different Oscar show than we've seen in the past.
The next question is gender pay equity.
How do we bridge the gap?
Get better at negotiating salary?
How do we elevate soft skills roles that women more traditionally fill?
And how is the city navigating and addressing these issues?
So I'm hoping that I have a couple of things I want to cue up.
First, I'd like to have Council Member Juarez, who is who has experience in both public and private sector sort of talk about her experience in those two different sectors and then also to make sure that we hear from the chair and the vice chair of the gender equity committee about what they have queued up for in the coming year, so.
Thank you.
Let me just correct a few things in my bio.
I've been a lawyer for 31 years.
And the last 13 years before I decided to run for office, I was a partner in a major law firm.
And we talked about what my experience was from being a judge to being legal counsel to two governors to going to working.
I literally actually worked on Wall Street.
I was actually in one of those buildings that When we had 9-11, one of those was Morgan Stanley, that was one of our buildings, and I went to New York a lot.
And then at a law firm, and I think about negotiating your worth is, first of all, you have to know your worth.
I don't think you should be cursed with a disease to please, that you have to be nice.
because I'm not when I think that I'm not getting what I need.
I think the difference with the private sector to some degree and certainly at the law firm when you're a partner and an equity partner and certainly working at a place like Morgan Stanley is I knew how much everybody else was working.
What always struck me as interesting is that even though I would see a disparity, and we all could see it on the spreadsheets at comp time, the men, and these are predominantly male-oriented, you know, fields that I was in for many years, still continued to want a disparity and have to call them out on that.
That was always interesting, and those resulted in, like, major battles.
At least at the firm, every fall was comp time so you would start knowing how much money you were going to give an associate, what a partner would get, what an equity partner would get.
I just had to learn how to do the math and get a spreadsheet and demand it and see what other partners were making and make sure that I was getting and I'll be honest with you, it didn't start out where people were saying you're going to get the same check as so and so even though we both worked on the same trial for two years.
I had to really advocate not only for myself, but as I was head of the tribal practice group, so I also had to advocate for the mainly women of color and men who were in my team for them to get the same bonuses and be seen the same way because the cultural yardstick to what success looked like didn't look like me.
It basically was a white male from an East Coast law school top of his class.
So for me to recruit something different and then have to show my partners, where I was the only woman minority partner in the firm, that this is what success looks like, this is what brilliance looks like, this is what intelligence looks like, and damn it, you're going to give them that $20,000 bonus.
And that was not easy.
And I was there for 13 years.
So, I think just very quickly, I think what you have to keep in mind is that you have to know what your worth is, and you have to, particularly as a woman, you have to be able to articulate that and stand by that, even if that means you have to leave.
And I was prepared to do that.
But again, this is what you have to love about capitalism.
As long as I was making them money, then they were going to do what I said.
And don't think I didn't leverage that.
We had a couple of multimillion dollar settlements where I found out that my bonus was about, well, it was a lot smaller than my three male partners.
And I basically held the board hostage.
And I called up the tribe and they said, we're not writing you a check until we know what Deborah's getting paid.
It literally came down to that.
And that, I took a beating over that for a year.
But I just held my ground.
And, you know, it wasn't easy.
I would love to tell you that, oh, it's been great.
But in those kind of fields, and the other part, too, is that I was very lucky that I had really good other female allies in the firm who stood next to me and supported me, as well as men, too.
But what I try, I have two daughters, 26 and 23. And I continue to see in them what I'm so glad I'm seeing in this generation, as that they know their worth.
And they're articulate.
And they don't apologize for being loud, or being audacious, or having an opinion.
Even when we disagree politically, yeah, they all had their Bernie Sanders shirts on.
No offense to Bernie Sanders folks.
But my point is, I think it's just knowing your worth, and also not having to apologize for having a voice.
And you could be wrong on your worth, too.
I mean, I was open to that, too.
Like, no, you're not worth that.
OK, but let's talk about that.
So that's my words of wisdom there.
So the committee chair and vice chair, do you want to talk a little bit about what's up for this year?
Thank you.
Sure.
My committee assignment leads with gender equity, so that includes a lot of different, it's a very broad category.
And I think that there's a lot of interest amongst various council members on different policy areas that advance gender equity both within our city's workforce and and in our private sector as well.
And so I'm really excited about being able to have that body of work being part of my committee and to be able to share the tremendous load of work in this area with colleagues like Council Member Mosqueda and Council Member Herbold who have pieces of gender equity work occurring or potentially occurring in their committees as well.
So I appreciate Council Member Juarez's comments around making sure that we understand what our worth is as women in the workforce.
I think the challenge that we face as women, however, is that we inherently, innately undervalue our worth.
And the state is this close to making it easier for us to value our worth.
And they're doing that by passing the Equal Pay Opportunity Act that is literally on its way to the governor's desk as we speak.
This is a huge win.
We should be very grateful to Representative Ta-Nehisi who has really been championing this effort in the state legislature for several years.
But it is a statewide framework that allows cities like Seattle to retain our local authority to make sure that the policies passed by the state can be enhanced.
But it includes prohibiting discrimination or retaliation for talking about your pay and how much you're making with your colleagues, for example.
It requires a level of transparency around salaries being earned in comparable positions.
and a few other really important pieces to that policy.
And so I think, you know, it'll be really important through the council now to be able to take a look at that as a baseline of the type of policies we can consider and really sort of begin a conversation both with our internal city workforce and with our external private sector workforce about how we ensure that the policy meets the needs around equal pay and the gender wage gap in particular for our city workers and for our private sector workers as it relates to the gender equity issues that we know exist within this area for women in particular.
So I know Council Member Mosqueda and I have had some exciting conversations about how we can frame those conversations.
in committee that make it really clear that the city of Seattle wants to position both our municipal workers and private sector workers in a position where they are most able to and have all the tools available to them to be able to truly, meaningfully value their worth and to be able to advocate for that worth.
So we don't have any bills written yet, but we have a lot of ideas.
And certainly one of the things is, for example, making sure that our City of Seattle applications don't ask you to indicate what salary you'd like to be paid.
You know, growing up and applying for fast food worker jobs, I was like, whoops.
If I can ask how much I'm going to be paid for, I'm just going to put a whole bunch of money here.
But obviously, it's not realistic, right?
And so I think we know from the literature and from studies that right there, that first step where you are being asked to value your worth in a position you don't even have yet on a job application immediately puts women in particular at a institutional disadvantage when it comes to being considered for a position and being paid what somebody with comparable skills might be paid but is a male and is valuing themselves perhaps with an inflation of what they're actually worth.
But that inherently puts us at a disadvantage.
And I think in Philadelphia recently, their city council banned asking for salary information in the private sector.
And so I think we could lead that effort here at the city by practicing what we preach and then by making sure that we're holding our private employers to similar standards as we're expecting ourselves to abide by.
Councilman Mosqueda.
Thank you.
Well, first of all, yes.
I just also want to acknowledge the importance of getting true representation into positions like Seattle City Council.
We as women, and also as women of color, recognize the intersectionality of all the issues that affect our ability to have access to equal pay and economic stability.
So as Council Member Juarez and Council Member Gonzalez mentioned, there's a number of things that we can do individually and policy-wise to push for equal pay, but we also recognize that our ability to make the same amount as men is impacted by the fact that we are disproportionately impacted when we're taken out of the workforce to take care of kiddos.
So we're going to be fighting for affordable child care for every family in this city.
We also know that women are disproportionately impacted by limited access to comprehensive health coverage.
And that's why, as chair of the Housing, Health, Energy and Workers' Rights Committee, Vice Chair Juarez, is helping us lead an effort to try to create a regional health plan as we talk about access for women, immigrants, and trans community whose health care is threatened under this administration, fighting to make sure that we have affordable health care.
Because if we don't have affordable health care, we're never going to truly have economic stability.
We're also fighting to make sure that there's more affordable housing options throughout this city, both for renters and people who own and want to own in the future.
We know that women have disproportionate rates of ownership.
This is because of historical trends of us being prevented from owning in centuries past, but also an impact of us making less per hour than men on average and having less equity thus, owning fewer pieces of property.
So we're going to be fighting for more affordable housing options, which will disproportionately positively impact women and the families that they have.
Finally, we're, as you heard, standing up and saying time's up.
We're standing up and we're saying enough is enough.
And as part of the Me Too movement, we are standing up in solidarity with all of you who've called for action to fight against intimidation, harassment, and assault.
Because we will never have equal pay in the workplace if we can't step up and fight for our rights and feel like our voice will be protected and our identity will be protected.
And lastly, I'll say, coming from the labor movement, we know that the best way to create greater pay equity is to make sure that more workers have union representation.
And with workers' rights and organized work being threatened by the Supreme Court and the Janus decision that's being considered right now, I'm really interested in working with all of you folks in the community on the front line, standing up and fighting for workers' rights and the ability to organize.
Because when we organize and come together as a union, that's where we see greatest rates of pay equity.
Thanks to Councilmember Gonzalez for acknowledging that there are many committees on the council that have issues that in their bailiwick that sort of touch women's issues and reflecting on that, you know, I have civil rights in my committee.
Councilmember, I'm sorry, Councilmember Muscat has got workers' rights in her committee.
But, you know, you really think about it All of our issues are really women's issues when it gets down to it, because everything that we do touches women.
And many of the things that we're working on relate to trying to correct disparities for women across all of the lines of business that the city engages in.
As it relates specifically to civil rights, You know, having laws against discrimination, against sexual harassment are really important, but it's also really important to make it possible to enforce them.
And I was contacted by a constituent a few weeks ago who had talked about her own personal experience trying to work with the City's Office of Civil Rights to bring a claim against somebody who has sexually harassed her.
And this individual had been told that the statute of limitations for filing a claim against sexual harassment as defined in the Seattle Municipal Code had expired.
And we know whether or not you're talking about sexual harassment or other types of discrimination that people experience in the workplace or in a school setting, often people take a while to come forward.
They take a while to come forward for a lot of reasons.
Either they may not know that their experience was, in fact, harassment or discrimination.
be in denial.
They may have fear or shame.
They may be worried about reprisals in the workplace or in their housing situation or their educational situation.
So that really speaks to the need to have a statute of limitations that considers those things.
And so one of the pieces of legislation that we're working on now is legislation that would expand the statute of limitations.
One thing that a lot of folks don't realize is that the city's ability to enforce sexual harassment is found in the part of the code that bans discrimination.
So sexual harassment is considered to be a form of discrimination.
that's the place that we're doing it, but we're having a lot of conversations about how to use the fact that we're making this change in the law to better educate both the public, whether or not you're talking about employers or housing providers or folks who are employees or recipients of housing, how to better understand their rights under the law as well, because that's a really critical component of encouraging people to come forth and work with us to help us enforce the laws that are important to our city and our nation.
All right, we have one last panel question, and then we'll open up to questions from the audience.
And we're good.
It's about 1 o'clock, so we're good on time.
What advice or words of wisdom do you wish you'd been given earlier in your career that you'd like to pass on to others today?
Deborah, you're up first.
I knew you were going to do that to me.
Oh, man.
OK, so what's the question again?
What advice or words of wisdom do you wish you'd been given earlier in your career that you would like to pass on to others today?
That I had been given earlier in my career?
I don't know.
Do you want us to filibuster for you?
Yeah.
I'm serious.
I really don't.
I'm not trying to be flippant.
I am tired.
But what advice?
What would you tell your younger self if you knew you were going to be where you were today?
What would I tell my younger self?
I would have told myself to run sooner, not to wait.
I waited my turn.
I kept thinking, oh, I've got to have this kick-ass resume.
I've got to be a lawyer.
I've got to do this.
I've got to do that.
I've got to make sure I do my first murder trial before I'm 30. I've got to make sure that I settle big laws.
I mean, I felt like I'd be super.
All of my sisters to my left felt the same way, that women, in particular women of color, it wasn't good enough for me to get into law school and do what I did and move on.
I certainly found this out as a judge.
I had to be above reproach that I was smart.
And it was imprinted on me every frickin' day that either I was there because I was the affirmative action appointee, which was the most humiliating thing I had to deal with, not that I was really freaking smart and I deserved to be there and had to demand that kind of respect, but that somehow we got in our minds that, like a lot of things for Native and Latino women, we have been taught to kind of wait our turn.
And I think what I've imparted on my daughters is that, oh no, You do it when you do it.
If you fail, you fail.
If you win, you win.
If you lose, you lose.
Either way, it'll be good.
No matter what happens, you're going to be OK.
Because I was always thinking, well, what's the worst that could happen?
Well, I found out when I was the judge and I didn't get re-elected, I lost.
And I was OK.
And I think the other part was, is I didn't have, I mean, if it weren't for Judge Otero, who in King County Superior Court Judge, is kind of like what Counselor Muscata and Gonzalez were saying, Somebody pulled me aside, it was Judge Rotellero, and said, have you ever thought, actually, Judge Anita Crawford-Willis, who's now on the municipal court bench, we went to law school together, pulled us both aside.
And her and I both remember, we talk about it now, it's 30 years ago.
said to ourselves, well, we can't be a judge.
No one on the bench looks like us.
You're the only Latina, and there's no one else around.
And the people that became judges were the people that work for the prosecutor's office.
Came out of Olympia and were mentored.
There's like a whole pipeline.
You go to law school.
You go work for the city attorney's office or the King County prosecutor's office.
You go down and you clerk for either the Dems or the prosecutor's office in Olympia.
You align yourself with an elected white male.
And then you get an appointment.
Well, I didn't do that, and then all hell broke loose.
And so I guess what I would tell my younger self is not to wait, not to wait my turn, and not to not to see that there are women and people like me that are the yardstick and are the pitcher of intelligence and grace.
And I kind of knew that because I grew up on the reservation, and I grew up around elected Native American women.
So I watched Native American women run for office and be the chair of a tribe or the vice chair.
And so that wasn't new to me to see.
What I hadn't seen is myself doing that in the non-Indian world.
And that was a lesson for me.
So does that answer?
OK.
I would agree 1,000%.
The only piece of advice that I would have is you are ready.
A lot of us decide that we're going to wait to get a little bit more experience, as you heard Council Member Juarez describe.
And my former job, I ran a program called Path to Power when I was at the AFL-CIO for Washington State, the Washington State Labor Council.
And often in the classes where we would mostly encourage young folks, women, people of color, LGBTQ community, union workers to see themselves running for office, the thing that we would hear, especially from women, is, well, I'm not ready yet.
I'm just going to do one more thing, just this one more thing.
I guess the thing I would underscore is you are ready.
Your experience, your lived experience makes you ready.
There is no one more qualified than you to fight against the injustices that you and your colleagues in your community have faced.
And the time is now to step up.
But you kind of saw that when you were running for office, that you actually got stuff done.
Yeah.
I mean, that was like a big thing.
Yeah.
And to not let anybody question you.
Even on the campaign trail, people would say, well, it sounds like she's done things in the past, but I don't hear her have any ideas.
Excuse me.
I got lots of ideas, and here we are putting them into action.
So that's actually a really great example of what you just saw, Council Member Juarez do.
The last thing I would say is, as you go throughout your career, and not only what I would tell my former self, but what I would tell folks who are in any position, help somebody up into those roles.
Because what you see up here is my colleagues who have helped me up the ladder.
And they didn't just get up the ladder themselves into these positions and then kick that ladder over.
They got into this positions and then help the next person up.
And as we get into positions, whether it's in management or it's leadership or it's community organizer or it's city council or Congress one day, right?
Help that next person up the ladder.
Don't kick it over and continue to find that next person that we can see up down the pipeline.
And that is how I think we will truly create change.
And these girls are the ones who are doing it for me right now.
So thanks to you guys.
Well, I just want to say one thing before we all clap.
We have a saying in Indian country, and this is imprinted in us as Native women particularly, that you lead to leave.
I mean, I don't own this job.
My job and my moral responsibility is to look behind me and make sure every woman of color and every woman that I open the door, that I'm not a gatekeeper, that I give them access and I give them a ton of space to rise and fall, to be successful, just to be there.
Because I had so many women do that for me.
I wasn't sure if we were going to get that.
It happens.
It happens.
I would say that, first of all, I just want to say that as I'm sitting here on this panel, I am reminded how lucky I am to be on this city council in particular.
And I hope that you all walk away with the same sense of pride that I'm feeling now, which is that I mean, just like listening to my colleagues here has been really inspirational for me as well.
It's just the amount of energy that we have as individuals and collectively is pretty extraordinary.
And sometimes it's a little too much, I'd have to say.
Sometimes I'm like, can we just take a break for just a minute?
But we don't, because the scale of the urgency is there, and we recognize it.
But really, I am so honored to be in good company every day that I come into work.
And so I just want to express my gratitude to my colleagues for that.
But I also want to acknowledge the company of, of a lot of our staff members.
And I think one of the remarkable things that I've seen, I promise I'm going to answer the question, but I want to share this thought first.
One of the things that I have noticed as the demographics on our city council has changed to being younger supermajority female and majority people of color is that that is also, that representation is also reflected amongst our staff.
for the most part.
And so I've really seen a lot of our offices bringing, living our values through hiring people from our community that are also representative of of our values and of who we are as a city.
And so it's been really awesome to see how the staff level has also changed and how wonderful it is to be in their company every day, as well as they are the ones who really are implementing and executing a lot of the work.
that we put on them.
So if we think the pace for ourselves is maddening, I acknowledge that our staff probably feel like it's a little bit more maddening.
But I just really want to acknowledge their role in our success that is oftentimes a quieter role, but a very important role that they play every day for us to make sure that we are as successful as we can be.
So a round of applause for our staff.
And that includes central staff as well.
I have certainly co-opted a fair number of central staff in my endeavor to accomplish the things that I care about.
So huge thanks to them as well.
Piece of advice.
I mean, I think the piece of advice that I often share with younger professionals who are looking to do whatever it is they want to do in their career.
I always remind them that we live in a world where we hear no more often than yes.
And as women, I think we hear no even more often than is and should be acceptable.
And so my advice to folks and my advice to you all is that you should not be the one to tell yourself no.
That's not your job.
You have plenty of people around you who will tell you no. every day, sometimes multiple times a day.
And it's your job to figure out how to get yourself to yes, whatever that place is that you want to be.
But really, it's not your job to tell yourself no is how I've really centered myself and how I've tried to center mentees and other folks that I come into contact with.
I just think it's really important that for us to recognize that we do have our own power and we do have agency to use our own empowerment for ourselves.
And again, the systems particularly for people of color, particularly for women, are designed to get us starting the game at no.
And I want to urge you to just really be conscientious about that and flip that on its head and just be like, you know, I know the system is telling me no, but I'm saying yes.
And I'm going to figure out how I'm going to chart a course forward to make sure that yes results in the outcome that I want or a very close outcome to what I want.
And I hope that you all will work every day to be able to do that.
This one's really skilled at doing that.
So if you have a chance to partner with her on something that's really important to you, she's a great partner.
And she really brings a lot of power and intently thinks about how to get to yes.
And it's just a great joy.
As far as the advice I would give, We hear a lot about our need to self-care, and that's really important, but I think, and that can be done in a lot of different ways, but I think one of the things that we don't always think about, because it's not necessarily behavior that's modeled by our mothers or our grandparents, it certainly wasn't for me, is taking care of yourself also means asking for help.
Asking for help can not only help you, but it can help you get what you want done.
And that's really important to both keep yourself sane, make sure that you're supported, and you know you're not alone on an issue.
But again, it just helps also amplify your work if you're asking other people to take roles of leadership.
We heard a lot about helping other people.
I think asking other people for help is just every bit as important.
to your success as an individual woman, or to your ability to get the things done that you and other women think are important.
You know, I mentioned that that wasn't sort of behavior that was role modeled for me as a kid.
And I don't know that necessarily I've role modeled it for my own daughter beyond giving her a hard time when she didn't ask me for help.
But I think the types of of jobs that we take can also be a really good way to role model that.
When you're working in an atmosphere that in order to get anything done requires the participation of diverse voices and impacted people, I think that really sends a good, strong message to our young women.
So now we have some time to open it up to audience questions.
I assume there's some roving mics.
That's correct, Maura.
We have roving mics.
But we also have some agreements we'd like to agree to about the questions before we move into that.
So one thing is that this event was created in the spirit of keeping the conversation going in a productive way.
And so we hope that the questions will move along in that direction.
If you are someone who speaks up all of the time, consider creating space for others in the room who may not do that.
And, you know, I am really guilty of that, so I understand that.
If you'd be so kind as to introduce yourself and maybe the department that you're with before you ask your question, that would be great.
There are a lot of voices in the room today.
We want to hear from as many people as possible.
So keep your statement questions short.
And one thing to keep in mind is while we do have council members here and many of us live in their districts, if you have a concern about bike lanes, please wait until after the session passes.
Or any other associated things.
We'd like to keep it on topic for what the panelists can possibly make.
And no questions about off-leash dogs.
No off-leash dogs, yes.
No question about tree canopies.
Tree canopies.
Tree canopies.
Tree canopies.
Dog sleds and pettings.
Dog sleds and pettings.
Dog sleds and pettings.
Dog sleds and pettings.
Dog sleds and pettings.
Dog sleds and pettings.
Dog sleds and pettings.
Dog sleds and pettings.
Dog sleds and pettings.
Dog sleds and pettings.
Dog sleds and pettings.
Dog sleds and pettings.
Dog sleds and pettings.
Dog sleds and pettings.
Dog sleds and pettings.
Dog sleds and pettings.
Dog sleds and pettings.
Dog sleds and pettings.
Dog sleds and pettings.
Dog sleds and pettings.
Good afternoon, my name is Margot Dannemiller and I'm pleased to serve as Seattle City Lights Marketing Manager.
I'm feeling a mix of emotion today about the disappointment that Time's Up has taken so long to manifest itself in its message and its action and its reaction, but tempered by the hope and great inspiration that I feel hearing about your dedication and your commitment to that.
So thank you very much.
And council member Juarez, I know you don't know me, so this will seem odd, but when Maura asked the questions, I thought I knew exactly what you were going to say about words of wisdom.
And that is because you shared it a few weeks ago in the Energy Committee and I was wondering if you would share about change the language and if you have one or two tangible ways that we can start to change the language and make sure that we have safe and equitable places to work.
Thank you so much for that.
It's not something I always share, but I'm really glad that resonated with you.
Darryl Kipp, I'll be real quick.
Darryl Kipp is an elder, went to Harvard in linguistics, started the Blackfeet immersion program in our school 30, 40 years ago.
We since have lost him.
But in any event, we brought our language back, and we have two schools, K to 8, that are taught exclusively in Blackfeet.
And I was part of that growing up to some degree.
And as what you were sharing, one of the things that was drilled into me growing up is that language is culture, and culture is behavior.
And if you change the language, you change the behavior.
And it's just, you can go online and look up Daryl Kip in the Pagan Institute.
Pagan is the actual word for our people instead of Blackfeet.
That is just so true.
When you change the language, you change behavior.
And so when you have men stop calling you honey or babe, it stops.
It shouldn't have to stop with a lawsuit.
But you're right, and I'm really glad that resonated with you, because I was actually raised on those kind of words.
And we were also raised, which I think I've shared this before in a public forum.
I was continually raised and got slapped upside the head if I didn't do it this way, and I had to unlearn it culturally.
We were never taught to start a sentence with I, I, me, me.
We just weren't.
So it was really, believe it or not for me, on the campaign trail to talk about me, me, me, I, I, I, I did this.
Everything has to be starting with you honor with the people that you know in the audience, and then you talk about where you come from.
And you never start a sentence with I or me.
It's always us, we.
And so culturally, it's been interesting for me to being elected because I have to, my staff gets mad at me.
Where's Mercedes?
and Sabrina, that it isn't about being modest.
It's about just having that power and being proud of it.
And it doesn't mean that you're being boastful.
You're just talking about that you've done something and you think you did a good thing.
So anyway, thank you for bringing that up.
Hi, my name is Sohaila Ghasemikia from Seattle City Light.
I work for City Light for past 17 years.
I feel lucky to live in this country that allows freedom of speech and provide equal opportunity.
My question is, how can we advance cultural diversity even further?
and empower women from different countries such that they all feel they have the same opportunity in workplace.
Sure.
I just really want to honor the fact that that you got emotional asking that question.
And I think oftentimes as women, we have been socialized to think that it's not OK to be expressive and to feel.
And I oftentimes am the one person on a panel who starts crying.
So I just want to thank you for your sincerity and for your willingness to be vulnerable in a room of probably people, not everybody that you know, right?
And to be vulnerable in front of us.
And so I really want to honor the fact that you're feeling that.
You know, on the city council, we do a lot of work every day that we hope is going to move the needle and improve the lives of everybody in our city.
And we spend a lot of time talking about communities who weren't born here and folks who were born here but perhaps were brought here.
And then we do a lot of focus on Native communities who have been displaced.
And so I think that when I think about this issue, I think about the fact that It's 2018, we're a super majority city, Women's City Council, we're mostly, we're a majority people of color, and we're being tasked with the responsibility of undoing generations, generations of institutionalized racism and sexism.
On top of that, we're being asked to deal not just with the institutionalized aspects of those isms, but also with the overt.
intentional sexism and sexual harassment and discrimination that people are subjected to, both either by your colleagues or by supervisors.
And I've heard stories from workers about experiences with the public, about being told to get off their land because they're black.
And that's unacceptable.
And I think, you know, if we all had the magic wand and the answer to be able to just fix it today, we would.
And the reality is that I hope what you've heard from us is that in each of our respective buckets, we are focusing and charging forward on policy changes that are going to hopefully put us on a very strong and clear path towards cultural changes within our own institution, which is the city of Seattle, but also within society.
So how do we hold ourselves accountable Not just as elected leaders, but how do we, the collective we in all of this room, hold ourselves accountable to honoring who people are and how people show up?
And how do we make sure that when we fail to do that, we recognize that as a failure and we're willing to change our own behavior and also change any systems that are allowing that behavior to flourish.
So for example, in France, they just passed a law that makes it a crime, a crime to catcall a woman on the street.
It got so bad in France that they had to pass a law to tell people not to talk smack to you while you're walking to work.
Like that's ludicrous, right?
But that's where we're at.
That's what the Time's Up movement is about.
That's what the Me Too movement is about.
It's about saying, You cannot figure out how to behave like a human being, so I'm going to change the system and force you to behave like a human and to treat me like a human.
I am not an object.
I am a person with feelings and attributes and assets, and if you won't respect it, voluntarily, then we have to force you to do that.
And that means speaking up and speaking out when we see injustices, when we see sexual harassment, when we see people of color being treated differently, when we see and hear xenophobia, it's our responsibility to call it out and push back.
And don't ever underestimate the power of that small moment, the power that you all have every day to say, that's not OK.
I don't like it when you call me that.
Please don't do that.
That is powerful.
That begins to change the culture.
And all we can do is set policies.
But we really rely on people, individuals, to accept those policies and to put them into practice.
And it's our challenge to figure out how we best equip everybody in this room and outside of this room, in the city family and outside of the city family, to have the tools they need to be able to put those values into practice.
If I could just add something real quickly.
I don't think there is a city council anywhere else in the United States that has new Americans in their committee title.
So Council Member Gonzales, this is such an important issue to her.
To welcome native residents or native committee.
We're the first city to ever do that.
This is a demonstration.
We talked about the importance of language.
This is a demonstration of how important these issues are.
To the council and in particular to these these council members here.
Good afternoon.
My name is Angela Wallace.
I work in Seattle public utilities and solid waste.
So recycling and composting.
Yay.
And I had an observation about today.
So I was really excited when I got the email notice, all city broadcast email last week about this event, put it on my calendar, talked to my supervisor, and then got a little less excited when the second email came out that it clarified that today's time, if we were to choose to come, was either unpaid or required vacation time.
And the reason for that is the built-in, inherent, implicit inequity and having to use unpaid time, in my case, because I'm a new employee and have two small children, and have no vacation time left.
Or your vacation time, which is very precious to all of us, especially women, as Teresa Mosqueda, thank you, very clearly articulated.
Women are disproportionately impacted by having to take unpaid or paid leave.
So I just wanted to make a request that we review that city policy about how cool events like this are paid or not paid as part of being an employee.
And also just recognize and thank everyone for putting it together.
I know these take a lot of thought, a lot of effort.
And my question and my point is not to take away from the beauty of today and the importance of it, but just to say there's even inherent inequity in today's event.
And 95% of the people sitting here are female.
So thank you for considering that.
We have time for one more question.
There was one over here.
I'm going to just take a quick second to respond to that.
We don't follow directions real well.
Thank you for calling that out.
I really appreciate you putting that on our radar.
I think this also goes to the question that was asked earlier about what can we do to change systems.
And absolutely, I think you putting this on our radar is helpful to know that this is unpaid time.
This type of conversation is not optional.
It's not optional for us to have these conversations with each other or within the city or within the country.
The time is now to do it.
So I really appreciate you being here and also recognize if this is unpaid time, that's an additional burden that we put on workers, especially, again, majority women workers here.
I also think that it's important for us not to just evaluate that policy, but every policy.
When we say to folks, hey, we have protections against discrimination, just look at the personnel policy.
The personnel policies are decades old.
That's not okay.
When we say, as Councilmember Herbold said, that we have protections for people who've been harassed or discriminated against, yet there's a statute of limitations that doesn't allow for people to be in a place to come forward, that's not okay.
When we say to folks, hey, this is about economic opportunity and just go get a higher degree or go on to college, but we don't make it affordable or accessible or look at the barriers like child care and actually recognize the institutional barriers that have been put into place, that's not OK.
So I think the answer from us is absolutely an interest in looking at policies across the board and also the barriers that prevent equity.
The last thing I would say is when I was thinking about running for office, I always thought, There's no way I can do that.
And what my boss did at the time at the State Labor Council was he said, I don't want to lose you, but I know that you've got to do this, and I'm going to do everything that I can to make it possible.
I worked full time, and I only took two weeks off before the primary and before the general.
And when I was out talking to other union members, what I heard from union leaders, the leaders within those organizations was, we have to figure out a way to write into our contracts and into our policies the ability for people to take time off, paid time off so that they can run for office so that we can create greater representation.
And I think paying for things like getting elected, paying to make sure that people can have opportunities like this are absolutely part of how we create greater equity.
The woman.
Hello, my name is Donna Brown and I work for the Seattle Police Department.
I'm a civilian and my question revolves around the reclassification process.
I went through that process about two years ago and I felt like there were barriers and obstacles.
And I wonder, is there a way to do that without having your Your supervisor has a lot of input.
And I read a lot of reclassifications.
And it seemed like if the supervisor said, oh, this person's great and said all this stuff, the reclassification was approved.
And if the supervisor said, oh, this person volunteered to do that work, or this person got overtime, then it was denied.
And going through that process, I felt violated.
So that's my question.
How do you get rid of the roadblocks and barriers to that type of situation?
Is this a citywide reclassification policy, or is it specific to SPD?
Do you know?
All I know is everyone goes through the reclassification process, and you send it to the same place by the same people
It's central Yeah, so I
Yeah, I think it's SDHR.
And I think depending on which agency within the city you work for, there might be some added layers, depending on bargaining units and other issues.
But I don't know enough about your specific issue or the reclassification process.
But I think, I think what you're highlighting is something that we tried to work on last year and the year before in my committee through the workforce equity plan and strategies of the city.
And one of the recommendations that was lifted up in that body of policy work As we were trying to develop an expansion of paid parental leave and in addition of family leave to our city benefits, was the concern around sort of spotty implementation and interpretation of our citywide personnel rules and practices and processes.
And so one of the recommendations that came out of that work was to begin the effort of trying to create some sort of standardization in that area and making it more easily accessible and understandable to our workforce so that they understood where the promotion opportunities were and what needed to happen in the event there was a reclassification or a shift in position because of our bargaining contracts or just because there's a different direction aside from a bargaining contract.
And so that work has clearly not been completed.
by SDHR and I think it's not a secret to folks in this room and in the city that we have a lot of work to do in terms of correcting course with SDHR and that's an important priority of mine and I think it's an important priority of the city council as a whole is to really work collaboratively with the new mayor on what the future of SDHR will be because you all as the workforce for the city are put in a position of having to interface with HR quite frequently and It is a place where, if we're not careful, does create institutional barriers and disproportionate impacts for ongoing success, for professional development, for leadership opportunities, for moving from one position to another.
You know, pay bans, all of those things are really managed by what was an effort to centralize SDHR.
And so I think there's a unique opportunity in the midst of a transition of administrations in the executive to really take a critical and serious look at those particular issues as it relates to HR.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
And we have some reports that were done, I think, as early as 2000, as far back as 2014 under the leadership of Council Member Godden that talks about that.
So lucky for you, there are some central staffers in the room who help staff me on Seattle Police Department issues.
Because Seattle Police Department falls under my committee.
And we'll make sure to take a look at that body of work and see if there's follow up that's needed.
And I appreciate you lifting it up.
And if I could just add a little bit to that.
As it relates, Council Member Gonzalez obviously has got the SPD stuff firmly in her fine focus.
But as it relates generally to the SH, S-D-H-R.
S-D-H-R, thank you.
You're welcome.
Consolidation and the review of personnel policies that are implemented there.
Council Member Mosqueda, myself, and Council President Harrell wrote to the mayor a few weeks ago asking that the mayor consider reinstituting a sort of a working group that was referred to at the time and has been in place and where the members that the council has designated to be on this body.
It's the Labor Management Leadership Council.
And so it has department heads, It has representative of the city unions and it has three council members on it.
And we propose that we reconstitute this body precisely to look at some of the issues that you're identifying now across the city.
And so we've gotten a favorable response from the mayor and I just think that's going to be a really productive relationship.
that will include policymakers, the management, and your labor reps to bring these issues up and moving forward.
Well, I want to just thank everybody for being here.
We have to let our council members go, because we'll keep on time here.
It's 1.33.
Thank you, everybody, for participating.
Sarah, I think, has some quick wrap-up for the group, but can we let them dismiss the panel?