Okay, let's start.
Good morning, everyone.
Thank you for being here for the People's Budget Rally and Press Conference, and thanks to the media for attending.
Last week, Seattle had an election.
And as activist Imogene Williams just said, the people spoke.
Voters have rejected the campaign of fear and hate propagated by the corporate executives and billionaires of corporations like Amazon and Starbucks and Vulcan and the Chamber of Commerce and their political allies like Tim Burgess.
Voters have rejected candidates who peddled more sweeps and more police.
I think you can say the sweeps candidates got swept.
There was a poll that was released yesterday which reveals, as no surprise to our movement, that the people of Seattle overwhelmingly support taxing big business and the wealthy to pay for vital services and affordable housing.
And yet, Rather than deliver a budget proposal that is in line with the majority of our city and adequately funds or begins to adequately fund basic human needs, Amazon's Mayor Durkin has delivered a sweeps budget, a cops and mass incarceration budget, a budget that protects big business from paying their fair share or indeed any share in taxes.
The mayor has also shown that she is not willing to stand up for good union jobs in the film and music industry and has taken steps to exclude union participation.
And despite this, because we have been organizing for now our sixth People's Budget campaign since we began in 2014, this year we have, in Chair Bagshaw's proposed budget, our movement has already won many of our demands.
We have won $1.8 million for new tiny house villages.
And we're going to make sure and hold the line that not a penny of taxpayer resources is spent in dismantling tiny house villages.
And I thank my colleague, Council Member Mosqueda, for supporting our movement and helping us win the $1.8 million.
We also have $3.5 million to expand the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion Program.
And our movement appreciates the support of council members like Gonzalez, O'Brien, and Herbold in pushing for this.
We have also, thanks to the advocacy of Real Change and other homeless services organizations, won $1.2 million for five mobile pit stops.
Because as Real Change said, everybody poos.
We have won $10,000 to expand Vietnamese senior services funding, and the credit entirely goes to the organizing by our Vietnamese senior community members.
We've also won $15,000 in permanent funding for Indigenous People's Day celebration.
But let's be so, and also we have won the maintaining of funds for one eviction defense attorney, which is $115,000.
These are all important victories, and they are entirely and only because of the result of grassroots organizing through the People's Budget Campaign.
But let's be sober.
This budget that the council is going to vote on soon is still, not today, but in the coming weeks, is still overwhelmingly an austerity budget, and that is shameful.
It still maintains the destructive status quo of inequality in one of the wealthiest cities in the world.
It still maintains deep and chronic underfunding of social services and the chronic underfunding for affordable housing.
There is little money for restorative justice while there is a generous expansion of funds for the mass incarceration system and the police department.
And there is grossly inadequate funding for renters' rights, especially renters' rights to have a defense attorney when they are facing an eviction notice from their landlord.
That is why we stand here together as a movement.
Because in the next few weeks, even though we know that we are not going to solve the inequality crisis of our city in a few weeks, we know we can win much more than we have already won.
We are fighting for another $8 million for tiny house villages, and we demand that the city stop the sweeps of our homeless neighbors.
We are demanding that the City Council fund five more attorneys to help renters facing eviction.
We're demanding at least half a million dollars to fund restorative justice and diversion programs and we can fund that by cutting the police recruitment money by that much.
We're also demanding money for legal support for sexual assault survivors.
We're demanding that the mayor's office involve the unions in the film and music industries when hiring a creative industries director.
We want to fund a report to a study to make transit free in Seattle.
And we want to continue renters organizing as done by the Tenants Union, the Washington Community Action Network, LGBTQ allyship, and Be Seattle.
And this can be funded by cutting hiring bonuses for police officers.
We have various speakers today who will be sharing their thoughts on these topics.
I just wanted to add one thing before they come on.
I have yesterday asked Chair Bakhsha to move public testimony from at the end of the meeting, which we don't know when that will be, to the beginning of the meeting.
And our movement has always maintained not allowing public testimony at the start of the meetings is an anti-democratic measure by the chair.
When working people fight so hard to make time from their busy lives, lives busy putting food on the table and paying their rent, their skyrocketing rent, the very least that the highest legislative body of the city can do is respect our community members' time and allow public testimony before the meeting begins.
Today, we are joined by Edmund Witter, who is a senior managing attorney at the Housing Justice Project, which is the organization leading the fight against evictions.
Please come, Edmund.
Thank you, Council Member Sawant.
So I'm Edmund Witter.
I'm the senior managing attorney of the Housing Justice Project at the King County Bar Association.
uh...
i want to emphasize the importance of right to counsel in preventing eviction other cities like new york city cleveland san francisco have passed right to counsel to be able to prevent evictions and they see it as a leading method of preventing homelessness when we've done our own uh...
surveys of our clients we found that three out of four tenants who are evicted are unable to procure permanent housing oftentimes they end up in shelters are completely unsheltered and this is preventing eviction by funding attorneys is a a proven method of preventing homelessness and helping end this housing crisis at this time.
Some things I would emphasize is that we, at this point, we're working on a shoestring budget to provide counsel.
We provide representation to about 2,000 cases a year with just a few attorneys that we frankly have on staff and also with some of the support from the private bar.
We have about 130 pro bono attorneys.
But three quarters of tenants who are being evicted in King County do not get any type of representation whatsoever.
And that's unsustainable because that's a number of tenants who are losing their homes.
When we do have representation, we're able to prevent the eviction almost three out of four times now due to new changes in the laws that have helped prevent that, both locally and at the state level.
And frankly, we've seen more support from private businesses than we have from the local city of Seattle at this point.
So I emphasize that this is an important issue to prevent homelessness, that the city really cares about preventing homelessness.
This is something that they're going to take up like other cities as well.
Thank you, Edmund.
I think it cannot be overstated the importance of having a legally trained attorney to protect tenants from having evictions.
Whether you have an eviction on your record or not is often a life and death difference, and so it is really important that we fight for full funding for legal defense of tenants facing eviction.
I would now like to invite Maru Mora Villalpando of La Resistencia, a longtime community leader in the fight for immigrant rights and justice.
Thank you.
I'm here representing La Resistencia.
We are a volunteer grassroots organization that is fighting to end detentions and deportations in Washington State, along with the incarceration of any human being.
We're here to fully support the restorative justice budget requests.
$300,000 for Community Pathways Youth Consortium Program to develop black and brown youth from diverse social, economic, language, ethnic, and educational backgrounds into politically engaged community leaders.
We support $122,600 for Creative Justice, a community-based arts and youth developing program that also serves as a recognized alternative to incarceration in King County.
$100,000 for the youth-generated Rainier Beach Action Coalition Corner Greeters program, a non-arrest crime reduction autonomous community safety project that transforms spaces most relevant for youth crime and organizes around restorative justice issues.
I actually got the chance to see that program being developed by the same youth when I had the chance to live in Rainier Beach.
While at a national level we have nearly 7,000 babies, children, and teenagers held in immigration U.S. custody, we believe it's time for Seattle to back up the progressive values that were supposedly known for at a national level and now clearly backed by the voters last week.
Seattle cannot be a safe place or a place for sanctuary for black, brown, and immigrant youth if we continue to allocate most funds for quote-unquote safety to policing, jails, and surveillance.
These community programs which have been built by and for communities that are the most targeted deserve investment.
We call on city council members to fully fund creative justice, community pathways, youth consortium, and Rainier Beach Action Coalition Corner Greeters program in the Seattle 2020 city budget.
No funding for more police state, no more funding for mass incarceration, yes to funding for restorative justice.
Thank you, Maru.
I would like to invite Doug Duma, a member of the Seattle Film and Music Coalition and Motion Picture Liaison for Teamsters 174. Thank you so much.
Hi, my name is Doug Dumas.
I'm a film professional, a member of Teamsters Local 174. I've been working and living in Seattle for the past 40 years.
In those 40 years, I've seen film and music here go through many economic struggles, but the current state of affairs for our industry is the worst I've ever seen.
Seattle is hemorrhaging jobs and businesses in these industries and like no time in the past.
While those industries are booming in Vancouver and Portland, Seattle has become almost a backwater for film and music nationally.
Look at all the television series set in Seattle, like Grey's Anatomy and Station 19, with the exception of a few days every few years.
Those shows are filmed completely in Los Angeles and Vancouver.
This is due in no small part to the amount of state and municipal support that these industries get, which is almost non-existent in the state of Washington and the city of Seattle.
Thanks to Shama and Councilmember Herbold, we do have champions on the City Council.
Shama has introduced a proviso into the Mayor's budget proposal that would require union representation in the hiring of the new Director of Film and Music.
Thank you very much, and our industry thanks you.
These industries create vibrant, active, and exciting environment that makes city life fun.
Sadly, these industries are left behind in the wake of the tech bubble in which we now live.
We see many in our industry being priced out not only of Seattle housing, but also jobs.
More and more of the young people film and music so desperately need are finding work vanishing and housing costs soaring.
Ours is a family wage industry.
While it can be exciting and glamorous at times, at the end of the day, many of those struggling to survive here are firmly in the middle class and most just barely.
Housing availability and affordability are the key elements making it so difficult for the young people in our industry and throughout the entire base of the workforce in Seattle to stay and work here.
Look around.
How many of you know a young or elderly person living in shared housing or on the street because they cannot afford an apartment?
much less a house of their own.
How many have moved back in with mom and dad because they are priced out of the Seattle rental market?
I know I could never buy the house I live in today.
This is why rent control and a serious program of building of affordable housing is so desperately needed and why I support Shama's struggle to inject something to make it possible for the ordinary working person to live here instead of Federal Way, Kent, Tacoma or Everett.
Close to their place.
close to their place of work and not spending almost an entire workday commuting.
Rent control and housing affordability are needed now, not 20 years from now.
We have to stop saying it can't be done.
It will destroy the economy.
We must do something and Shama is trying.
I support her struggle and ask everyone who cares about the future of our city to do so.
Thank you very much.
Absolutely agree with Doug.
Our movement rejects the can't do attitude.
We can do this and we will fight for it and win it.
I would like to now invite two representatives of the struggle for homeless neighbors' rights and for expanding tiny house villages, which have proven themselves as a very effective measure to provide dignity and humanity to homeless people while they are homeless, with very successful transitions to permanent housing.
And that includes the Low Income Housing Institute, and we have Sharon Lee and Josh Castle and other representatives from that organization.
And we also have representatives from Nicholsville.
And so I would like to now invite Bruce Gogel, who is a resident of Nicholsville, Othello.
Good morning.
I'm Bruce Gogle and I was elected to the position of head of security at Nickelsville Othello tiny house village.
I am still a Nickelodeon.
Nickelsville supports the people's budget we are gathering for today.
Nickelsville has supported the people's budget every year since they started being a people's budget.
We also support rent control.
We are part of the housing for all campaign and supported the Ted tax.
It's time to put that up for a vote again.
Before that, Before that, we were part of the Trump-proof coalition.
It got a city income tax in Seattle that is now tied up in courts.
We also opposed Mayor Durkin's nomination of Jason Johnson to be director of the Human Services Department.
With Kshama Sawant making sure that the facts came out about Mr. Johnson, the mayor had to withdraw that terrible nomination.
The reasons we take these stands and back them up is because all of us deserve more than a mat on the floor.
That's why we are part of the People's Budget Campaign.
Many of us know from personal experience why an attorney should be available for tenants facing eviction.
We know that public housing and affordable housing needs to be dramatically increased, and there needs to be more public restrooms.
So, of course, we support tiny house villages.
I've lived in one for a couple of years now.
It's so much better than a mat on the floor with 40 other people.
Kusama proposed allowing 40 tiny houses villages in Seattle instead of the four the present law allows.
The people's budget asked that 20 be funded and placed on public land.
Today 14 tiny house villages are up for consideration and with that funding coming from money saved by canceling the sweeps of homeless people living in unsanctioned encampments.
It is important that these new tiny house villages are varied.
There is a temptation to make them all the same and run them all the same and direct them all from the top down.
But monopolies in anything are a mistake because they stifle creativity and innovation.
Nicksville started the first tiny house village in Seattle a decade ago.
We were the pioneers and are operate well.
They are democratic and self-managed.
Not every new tiny house village should be run by Nickelsville.
Neither should they all be run by a one top-down corporation.
There needs to be a fair allotment.
When Mayor Durkin ran for office, she said that in her first year, there would be 1,000 new tiny houses.
Well, even after two years, there's less than half than that.
One reason is because she's relied on one corporation to work with.
That's a mistake.
Let's keep all of our tiny house villages open and pass the people's budget.
Thank you.
I would also like to now invite Donna Anderson, who is a resident of the Georgetown tiny house village.
Welcome, Donna.
Hi, my name is Donna and I live in the Georgetown tiny house village.
Tiny house villages really, in my opinion, boil down to one word and that's hope.
They give somebody who's been on the street, who has been out there alone and thinks no one cares, thinks there's no way up and out of the situation they're in.
Then they get a tiny house.
They may not know what to do at first They may not even know what they want to do in general, but all of a sudden there's a sense of community.
There's a sense of safety There's a sense of pride because now they have something they can be proud of and that people Listen, it's very simple.
That is the key to ending homelessness.
Hope we just all need hope that's it So we should have as many tiny house villages as can possibly be fit anywhere.
Thank you
Let's have a cheer and applause for everything that we have already won this year in the budget.
We have one more speaker, Shirley Henderson, but before that I would like to invite the press if they have any questions for me or any of the speakers.
focus camps.
I mean, in order to support tiny house villages and other solutions, people don't seem to like our illegal camps.
They don't like the litter.
They don't like the mess that these particular unsheltered people create.
If they're not to be swept out, and there's no place for those folks to go, what's the solution?
That's exactly what we're talking about.
If we can push the city council and the mayor's office to create many more tiny house villages, they have proven, these tiny house villages have proven to be an effective place to go so that people are not unsheltered.
and there's no litter on the streets.
So for everybody, no matter what your point of concern is, if you're concerned about litter, then you should support our movement for tiny house villages.
If you care about the humanity of homeless neighbors, which I hope you do, then you should join us to fight for more tiny house villages.
If you don't want to see tents and unsheltered homelessness, then you should join us to fight for more tiny house villages.
and at the same time as we have said tiny house village funding is urgently necessary and heading into early next year we absolutely need to make sure that we ramp up our struggle to win a tax on big business so that we can expand the funding for all kinds of homeless services that we need and most importantly expand the funding for city-owned publicly owned, high quality, affordable housing.
Well, right now we have
As I mentioned earlier, strong support for tiny house villages.
As I said, Council Member Musqueda and I both together fought for the funding that we have now won, thanks to the People's Budget Organizing, 1.8 million.
We also have strong support among myself, Council Member Musqueda, O'Brien, Gonzalez and Herbold, most of whom are going to come back to City Hall next year for expanding the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion Program.
But at the end of the day, what our six-year track record, successful track record of our movement, using my office as an organ for the movement, has shown that we can get unanimous votes on the City Council for progressive measures, for bold progressive measures, if we have a powerful movement that's pushing for it.
So that should be our priority.
Powerful.
Powerful.
Any other media questions?
I have one more, I guess.
Yeah, please go.
Well, obviously, cash money was a central issue in this recent campaign.
Regardless of how successful it was, we didn't really see the outcome.
It's not going the way we expected, I assume.
Your observation is totally spot on that the corporate PAC money is not going anywhere.
We still have Citizens United and we have capitalism that is still intact, which means that the overwhelming amount of wealth and power still resides in the hands of a tiny sliver of billionaires and millionaires at the top.
So while we should really celebrate the victories that working people and voters have won in this election, we also know that the struggle cannot end.
In fact, we have to keep building a more powerful struggle.
And as Council Member, I strongly support my colleague Council Member Gonzalez's ordinance, proposed ordinance to limit corporate PAC money.
But we also know that that kind of ordinance, while it is a good idea, it will still need a movement to fight for and win it.
And also, even if we did win it by itself, it's not going to be enough.
Because what we showed this year and what voters have shown this year is that we can overcome corporate-backed money.
We can overcome unprecedented amounts of corporate-backed money, but only when ordinary people get organized.
And I think it has been also a powerful testament for socialist-led movements, because that is what has helped us come this far, and I want to make sure that that's the message that resonates as we come into next year's organizing.
Any other questions?
Okay, I think we're running late for the meeting, so I want to invite our last but not least speaker, Shirley Henderson, who is the owner of one of the most beloved coffee shops in the Central District, Squirrel Shops.
And she's a member of Socialist Alternative.
And she also, as some of you might remember, wrote a very important opinion editorial in the Seattle Times in favor of the Amazon tax last year, in which she said, among other things, she said, yes, Jeff Bezos and I are both business owners, but our similarity ends there.
My friends, my fellow activists, people's budget movement.
These gains that council members want has listed is because of our powerful voices.
Council Member Bagshaw does not want our voices to be heard and as usual would like public speaking to be at the end of the meeting.
Are we okay with this?
No!
Are you going to join me to demand that we as working people with overwhelming lives be allowed to speak first?
Yes!
Let our voices be heard.
How about we march up to council chambers chanting, let us speak.
Let us speak!
Let us speak!
Let us speak!
Let us speak!
Let us speak!