you have to say about that well first of all just you know speaking of the economy as you well know not yet if ever there is no evidence to show that any such as gone out many times in the past and as it should it should have because you know  small minority of and you have to have the poor in order to have the right you have to have the poor in order to reach that's absolutely true and that's why you know when people so many people have people say oh isn't it unfortunate that when you have so much wealth you have so much poverty i would say differently under capitalism it's inevitable the great wealth that you see consolidated in the hands of a very few people that is because there is great poverty it's big that that well all those concentrated because working people want paid their are you know people who came before us they wanted they wanted despite the fact that gavrilis opposed it you know they had to fight against it but because of that we have a lot of evidence from the passion of this there's there's data that we can look at and we've looked at data from fifteen hundred different studies on minute increases and there's not a single piece of evidence that shows that when you increase the minimum wage something bad happens the reason they spread the lies is because because it's spread these lies is because when we do increase the minimum wage we when it's a very significant victory because it's us when we increase our wages of working people's wages we take a small tiny little the wealthiest you know to some of the poorest working people which i think is the right thing to do but that is not that is not going to impoverish the people at the top it's just going to take a very very very tiny slice of the massive profit that they make on the backs of our workers so so but but because they can't say that in the open they can say you know i'm being a real jerk i'm i want to take all of it for myself and i don't want to give it i don't want to change and i don't want to change stat quo i don't want to be uncomfortable because they don't say that and yet be respected they say things that you know there that are not true and i can guarantee you that no such thing level and you know another reason it won't happen is because at the end of the day businesses depend on customers and if they raise their prices dimmer dramatically customers will revolt and say you know i'm not going to buy your products so they can't really do that and one last thing i'll say on that if it let's say hypothetically speaking let's assume that that were actually true that just by raising raising the wage of the poorest workers a little bit so that they can actually live survive if such paying was to be so so detrimental to our economy what are we defending you system that can't survive if the lowest paid workers are going to be paid a little bit more you know we've been having a lot of such conversations within the east african communities in particular trying to hold panel discussions specific to that community because again outreach and maybe language barriers and such and so we've been discussing things such as relationships with the community and the police you touched a little bit on housing we've had a form of housing we also have one access to jobs as all and seattle is made up of so many communities even though i think what is the percentage i don't even care actually i know when i moved here four years ago they said i think in seventeen percent immigrants only reason i remember when i moved to the state of washington they said because i was living in maine before depending on the parts of greater king county that you live in you will definitely experience a lot more diversity so within all of the different immigrant groups who are seeking to establish themselves or themselves participate whether and politics school boards and such how is it that we can have these conversations and move forward where it's not just talk but it's also the walk i think though the most important thing is to i have these conversations in the can but in the context  of a specific political demand like you know so fifty dollars an hour wasn't the amount rent control is a particular demand so what other i don't know i don't know how many people are aware but just a few weeks ago we were able to win a significant victory in city hall where even so this resolution says that the state there's a state wide ban on rent control you know so the city can't by itself remove that ban because it's it has to happen at the state level but the resolution says that we demand that olympia repealed in remove the ban on gun control this was a very significant legislation that got passed because that's like saying the city of seattle has taken an official position we we want the city of seattle to have the right to discuss rent control and we don't want to sta know sonali change their minds and are now going to represent tenants are renters they're still many of them are still taking a lot of money from big developers and big landlords who are actually the reason we got that bad in the first place and the reason so many people are getting displaced and economically addicted and we have so many people of color having to move to south king county because they can't afford the rents here anymore and so we money's not because those council members suddenly had a change of that affects your life and not leaving it to the developer funded gunton members to make a decision because if you leave it to them they're not going to make decisions that are in favor of renters they're not going to make decisions that are in favor of renters so that's an example of how we can actually bring people together are not conversations but gaulish and that are geared towards action and one of the things we've done also is you know when we bring people into donal's we also have the next step already prepared in on the next step maybe a rally or a protest march and we make sure that people we know that that's happening we also ask people to play an active role in the organizing of it so we'll say you know if you're one hundred flowers with you you knock on the doors have those political conversation then it's through those individual conversations that we build the movement because then people feel like oh i should be invested in this i clearly need to be there my presence is important and every person who's watching this who is facing any kind of economic racial or gender struggle should know when the if they're watching the they need to be in want no matter where you are which it doesn't matter which country you came from or which language you speak but if you are a working person and your face you speak but if you are working person and you are facing the struggles you need to be involved and one of the easiest ways right now i would say is we have three weeks left before election day i really urge people to get involved in our people who have donated to our campaign have donated less than fifty dollars that gives you a sense of the grassroots nature of it it's not it's not bankrolled by big developers and big banks and asked food chain executives it's not executives giving us maximum donations it's ordinary working people making sacrifices and not only have they made financial sacrifices we have hundreds of people going out door knocking and format and phone banking it's very very important because this election is as i said you know i never ran for my own sake you know this is because we're building a movement it's important for people to get involved in this campaign right now because we have only three weeks left and the outcome of this election really will have a huge impact on how well are able to build the struggle if we win this election get real action campaign imagine the message that it sends that grassroots efforts can work and we have one son some huge struggle here the election campaign itself is a struggle if we win this what else could we do it will really send a message of empowerment for working people in our district working people in the city and working people nationwide and one thing i want to add in terms of immigrants one of the things that i am advocating for and i will be following up on next year is that it's important so it's important that we have municipal boarding rights for all immigrants regardless of your status meaning as far as city elections are concerned you should be able to vote and i think it is an important part of engaging the immigrant community making them feel like they have a say in it and that their voice is really important and the last day to send in our ballots is going to be november at eight o'clock  at six pm in city hall chambers i'm going to be hosting the second people's budget downhaul so this is another example of how a conversation is geared towards action last year we had the first people's bu after year after year the city elected officials pass a budget that themselves on the back of themselves on the back saying oh be that great we funded a little program here a little program there but overall the problems of our city go completely on addressed human services and social services are deeply underfunded they get cut every year and then for year after year does be no funding in the budget for affordable housing how can you have a budget that has no money for affordable housing that is the biggest crisis our people are facing it's absolutely a crisis so we what we're saying is that we refused to accept a business as usual budget and you can't make change on a business as usual budget human services coalition said that last year and we totally agree with them so as an alternative to that we have started the people's budget movement and to this movement one of the things we are arguing for is that we need elected officials to fight for progressive taxation because we need to generate the funds to fund these groups a little money going to come from the money's not going to come from sirius to access which is a the most regressive tax that we can have which ends up taxing the poorest because we've had you on the you know political hot spot for a long time but so your name tell us what it means my first name is sharma and it's an odd because it's  vote for that's ok for me to ask yeah yeah of course i'm open about it i wouldn't support either the democratic or republican party because you know both have failed to represent working people however it's much more class has electrified millions of people because he's saying something that most candidates i can remember the last time i spoke the language and i'm sure you watch the debate last night he talked about one of the things he said one of the things he said which is because it's a truth that we all know but we never hit he said that congress does not regulate wall street while street regulates congress but it's a brilliant way of saying that really our political system is completely controlled by what by by corporations by billionaire executives and by the super wealthy and in order to bring you know bring it out of that kind of deep entrenched corruption and really represent working people will will require be a change and it's not going to come from any one individual it's going to require us to build our movement so everything that we're doing to build our movement in seattle is really link larger larger movement and we could have huge impact if you're able to really build on this movement here and i would say that you know i believe that bernie sanders should run as independent if he does not become the you know the democratic democrat elect and as a matter of fact our our thinking should you know in addition to you know i know i know people are excited about it on is and they should be i mean this is the first time we have had any real conversation about the issues we also need to remember that at the end of the day the democratic party establishment will not be richmond will not be the beagle for change because they are completely be the wall street interests even though there is a difference between a public and an immigrant at the end of the day we have to rely on our our own strength and that is why we have to build a movement that is independent of corporate politics and it's important that we have our voices heard in the presidential election year and so it's important to look at specific issues so it's really important to recognize that when he's around us as oh you know last night he was talking about his calling for fifteen dollars federal minimum wage he's talking about end debt and making college tuition free all that all of that is very important and what we can do as working people as students as young people immigrants is organize around those specific issues so that regardless of who gets into the white house next year we will have made our movement stronger well and with that i mean i just think it's important to go i think a lot of play lined up feeling like you know the candidates don't necessarily represent  me and it's true i mean for the new how to vote for the lesser of two evils you've heard the whole thing you know it's one of those things that i feel like we still have to participate in we do have to participate in it i would say though that it is actually high time for us to not accept the logic of lesser evil is because yes as long as i expected it will yes well i don't yet understand but of the candidates that are there is it better to not vote at all as a statement i think is a better to vote for here's what i would say yeah i would say that if every individual should do what they feel comfortable with in terms of you know voting for the lesser evil i wouldn't vote for the lesser evil this is what i would say however i would say that regardless of how you decide to navigate the the actual ballot issue the most important thing is building the movement thing is building the movement so regardless of which particular candidate we might be supporting let's not be divided on that in as far as the building the movement is concerned because as i say regardless of who goes in the white house at the end of the day the biggest change will be made by social movements just to give you a concrete example if you look at the ending of the vietnam war the formation of the environmental protection agency the when women got their reproductive rights to the roe v wade supreme court decision all of these things happened under richard nixon under richard nixon not under a democratic president and the reason it happened was not because he was supporting at least things he waited and right wing president but the reason it happened was because movements were on an ascendancy at that time and that's they were talking about in the seventy's you know it was really incredible and that's that should be a reminder for us that ultimately we have to rely on grassroots strength nor none of the individual is going to be some sort of messiah is going to lift us out of our problems we have to be our own  solution victory itself was very much relevant for young people in two ways one is the the people who will benefit from the increased minimum wage are primarily young people because young people are coming into an economy filled with low wage jobs and really there is no middle class for them to going to any more than the middle of being completely decimated so i would say that trend the primary beneficiaries of the new wage as it goes into effect will be the younger people who are entering into the job market but it is also that struggle has also benefited young people another way is by giving young people of the first taste of organized movement that  so important i would say that more than anything else that that experience is something that will empower young people to go forward into new struggles and the other things a bit have been doing  around affordable housing are also extremely relevant for people because you'll see that the people who are facing the biggest struggle in dollars in market are people who are newly trying to run or buy a home and you find a market which is so completely  reach and it is especially impacting younger people younger families especially you know people who have just had children and are looking to somehow find a foothold in this economy and they are the most some of the most impacted people so i would say that overall the way that we have changed the political atmosphere in this city is something that has energized young people the most and in fact that's why even though you know people felt that oh maybe you shouldn't call there's a socialist it will anyone people it has an alienated especially young people feel no this is actually something we need yet yeah so outside of seattle because seattle gets a lot of has probably some of the best services i've seen around the country in any candidates and outside of the seattle area as voting occurs or are there other politicians that we should be on the lookout say in rents in federal way  if there are and i think of how large the movement and as we air and i and our community is rather spread out and to keep you know our communities involved are there any other politicians that we should be on the lookout for and other politicians that we should be on the lookout for outside seattle actually none none really come to race i am the candidate of working people and my opponent is a get it of big business similarly in that race jonathan ground is the god of working people and then burgess is the candidate of big business you know he's be bankrolled by why big corporate donors and because everyone because he's running citywide everyone in the city can work for him so when you're on your ballot it's very important that news you make a choice informed choice and one one website i would suggest for everybody to look at is run for the money dog orgy i thought one would run for the money to orgy that's developed by a nonprofit called working washington which is which helps workers they play a big role in winning fifteen dollars an hour and then done this as a they have established this website as a public service because they want welders to be able to not have information on who you know which candidate is supported by whom i think it's very very not going to stand with you in your needs as a working person so go to the website and check it out for yourself there's all the candidates are covered there  congratulate you all on your effort i mean this is incredible just being in the studio and the extent to which you're able to use your know limited resources in order to get the word out this is really really important we're you know we were talking earlier it's extremely important work and it's especially important because outlets like this are an alternative to corporate media corporate media does not tell you the truth you know it's often a really fuzzy yet it's selling a sounding exactly where do ordinary working people go to get reliable information and information that is actually going to guide them in making their own lives better it is it is media outlets like this one you know where you all were running this viewers the contact information of king county election because it's really a resource for them to go to and one suggestion i would make for it to make to increase the watertower not immigrant community and indeed in any community such a pleasure learning about you and learning from you i thank you for your hard work and your heart work clearly it's also that and thank you to believe in my little sister hi sisters and brothers i'm shy muscle and i'm on the seattle city council i'm also a member of socialist alternative and you might know that we are in a really exciting period of political change in seattle we have just won the historically high minimum wage fifteen dollars an hour last year we're also making sure gains in affordable housing and housing justice for everybody but we have a long way to go and it's really really important that you all get involved and that's great work is doing here having a media center or truly grassroots media center and using the media resources specifically with the go off and engaging youth in political activism and it's really important that they're doing this new district to which is in south seattle and includes the chinatown international districts georgetown beacon hill soto all the way down to through the rainier valley i have been in seattle for fifteen years i've been doing community development work working on affordable housing issues working with small businesses i've worked with a lot of neighborhood grocery stores trying to increase access to healthy food  and also just working with with community on environmental justice issues on community policing so i'm excited about the opportunity to take my passion for our neighborhoods to city hall and make sure we have a families have a voice at city hall and so the issues that i'm hearing as i talk to people knock on doors i've been knocking on thousands of doors people are very concerned about public safety and so i want to make sure that we are moving our police department towards more of a community policing model i worry that right now it's a little bit too much of a warrior mentality so i want to make sure that we're implementing reforms in a way that serves the community and help our police force understand that they're there to serve the community and to serve our neighborhoods i'm also hearing a lot obviously we've been having a community wide conversation about affordable housing and so making sure that we're protecting renters that we're protecting homeowners because we've also had a lot of homeowners lose their homes due to foreclosure and i'm still putting policies in place that protect people so that families stop getting pushed out of seattle that's really one of the things that pushed me to run for office is i feel like we don't have a good strategy for helping people stay residents or businesses so i want to help put in place an economic development strategy that serves our neighborhood serves our residents and our small businesses and and part of that is providing access to training and education so i'm also very excited about the pos ability of bringing a community college to the south and to give people neighborhood access to paid apprenticeship programs to general education programs you know we do have new hallie we have some that is set aside for higher education but it's pretty limited to english as a second language instruction so i'd like to see it broaden so that people have more opportunity that's great for you like a vicious because it's all very important issues think thank you i think you know the east african community has suffered tremendously this past summer was very tragic and i think we need to acknowledge that the community is in mourning and and figure out what is the right path for helping young people find opportunities so i do think that part of it is the school system we need to change the way young people the opportunities that they have it make sure that their families have an understanding of how to engage with the school system that parents know that it's ok to go talk to the teacher talk to the principal and understand how to support their children in the school but we also need to invest more in afterschool programs in you know the basketball tournaments the soccer tournaments for boys and girls so that they do have something to do after school and i think connecting the older kids to mentorship programs to job training opportunities summer job programs is something that we particularly need to recruit for those programs are there a lot of them are already established in the city in our neighborhood teacher myself this last september we have a strike going on at the time because the teachers and i get paid much and the council on the council member was supporting us i just want to know about you how you going to support the teachers when it comes to this kind of issues like salaries and all that sure well i was on the picket line i went to the john sanford center and i walked with the teachers and took my kids down there to walk with the teachers and you know i absolutely agree that our teachers need need a lot more support the legislature needs to do its job of fully funding education in the city in the state and we need to make sure that our teachers have the resources they need to teach in the classroom and the other supports that they need you know i have a child who's on the autism spectrum and so i know how to challenge and it is because the special needs special education programming isn't as fully resourced as it should be so i absolutely agree that our teachers need they need more support our schools need support and and particularly for the south and you know the families and education levy is kind of the one tool that the city council has some control over has some leverage with and so i do think that it's really important that the with that money go allocated is done in a much more equitable way i think a lot of it's very complicated to apply for that funding and so for the schools that may not have a full time grant writer on staff it's we just need to make it easier for the schools that clearly need the money to get the money so that they can do their job because really a good way of doing it because know you probably have about three or two very important issues that you want to help can you tell us about those very important issues that you want to really focus and sure well i mean they are in the flyers so you know i really i want to make sure that as the city grows that we are managing the growth that's coming in a way that's equitable and fair so that people stop getting pushed out of the city one of the ways we do that is by making housing more affordable and there's you know the next city council will be having a lot of conversation about what those policies should look like but the other side of it is that we need to have people connected to better job opportunities to better training so that they can find a living wage jobs  and i think there's a lot more work to do in that regard so as we grow as a city i think we need to put in place policies that help our neighborhood businesses grow so they can employ more people  policies that attract the kind of industry the kind of you know manufacturing or different kinds of industry that can create living wage jobs for people good paying jobs that allow people to stay in the city so those are my we have we have a huge gender gap in the city seventy seven cents in make for you know every dollar that men make and and what that really means is that we have really high child poverty so i think we need to expand you know the city council recently was talking about four weeks of paid family leave but i'd like to see it expanded to twelve weeks we have to address the gender gap issue we have to make sure that women that families have access to affordable childcare so there's a lot more we could do to support families better so that they can stay in the city and that's good point because i says a lot of stuff from women sometimes you know they have like three four kids and they can come to school for the meeting sometimes and they go to work there you don't get paid so much you can afford the gas card all those things you know because the payment is so low they do raise you know they don't make that much money and then that's going to affect the whole to not only for immigrant community or for our community just in general you want to say something that makes you different from the other council of people running for the discounts and sure well as i said i've been doing a lot of work in our community for the last fifteen years i've worked with different stuff organization puget sound sage got green you know organizations that work on environmental justice issues and i i come from a place of wanting to s community that's what i do and so i want to take that commitment to our neighborhoods to our working families to city hall because i don't feel like there's anyone speaking for our community members right now the focus is on downtown it's on big business it's on you know developers and making a lot of money i feel like we need to shift our focus a little bit and reprice or ties the way we spend our money and the way we make decisions so that we're putting that and think we don't ok well thank you very much thank you for having me i know you've been running now on how many months since you started this roof it's been almost a year almost a year out which tell us your experience running through this whole year trying to get to this point right now where yeah it's been a journey so i have as i said i've been knocking on doors for months now and it's been a real privilege to talk to people one on one on their doorstep and hear from them directly about what's important to them what issues concern them you know one thing that has surprised me in this campaign is how many times people call me asking for help because they get no answer when they call other council members and so i think i think there's a real frustration in the community that people want a leader who will be responsive who will call  back and even if you don't have an immediate answer to process the acknowledge that people are looking for help and and that you will try to help them so you know as i said i'm really excited about the opportunity to represent this community are our new district too and as i've progressed through the campaign and it's been exciting to get to know different neighborhoods you know it's a big district and there's different issues in different neighborhoods so it's been it's been really fun getting to know different neighborhoods and the people in them and and and i feel i feel really privileged to have had this experience it's great good for you having a lot of good experience things we know about voter turnout in august for example was that it was twenty two twenty four percent so very low turnout and this is important you know city council makes decisions budget decisions about our senior services about you know human services homeless services they make decisions about how our roads will get repaired and so it's an important role that city government plays and i think people get excited when it's a presidential election but when it's a local election maybe not they don't pay so much attention but it's right here it affects your everyday life and so so i do think it's important for people to understand the process and to be participating and be active in it you know this is my first time running for office never thought i would do something like this but i think i saw a need for my community and i would to see more people of color more immigrants get involved working on campaigns running for office themselves we do have some east african folks who are now serving in the mayor's office serving in different leadership roles and that's you know right now my focus is on the public safety issues so i think it's going to be really important that we make sure our reform police department reforms get implemented in a way that the community wants to see them a little bit frustrated right now that the community police commission is getting dismissed their recommendations seem to be getting dismissed so i think it's really important that we have civilian oversight of the police department and i think it's important that we pay attention to the recommendations that the community police commission is making  well i think you know there are many organizations in the city that are actively recruiting young people to get engaged in the political process so washington bus is one that really works with youth to figure out what is what are their agenda items i'm going tonight to a meeting at the rainier beach high school the youth there have organized a town hall and it's not a chance for politicians to come talk it's the youth who are going to be telling the community what's important to them so i think any opportunity whether with your school with your community organizations or just reach out directly to your representatives and volunteer on a campaign intern in an office but the more you understand how the process works the more you realize that it's really important to be involved in that process and to vote  like you say it i like what you say this is what matters right now it's not about the presidents and everybody that wants to vote for a president who has been that but i think this is very important for our community because like you said a lot of decisions made here in the council after like the bussing all those things you know i think we need to focus and we need to vote for discounts of the days of november november third third yeah let's are in the mail they are due by november third and you know one of the things i've noticed is that i'm talking to people in the door i've had people say i already voted for you but they don't realize that they have to vote again so you know we voted in august we're voting again for november and you have to moralists and i am a candidate for seattle city council i was invited here to m m r t i to participate in an interview in their great studio here in the central district and it has been a wonderful experience this is a great  opportunity for the east african community to have a public communication venue and it's a great place to come i would encourage folks to check it out the studio is wonderful and it's a really important medium for this community to have access to to public officials to and to share with their community things that are very important and it's a great tool for sharing public information so please come by and check it out