tonight it's going to have to leave after the first hour or so we're we've changed up the format a little bit and at the end of the first hour they will make their closing both of them will make their closing remarks i'm it is great to be here thank you everyone for coming out to be part of this forum i'm excited because it's seven against two this should be really  interesting i am carrying i am running for mayor of seattle because i believe in the potential of this city we have incredible resources we have a spirit of innovation and creativity like no place else we have shared progressive values we have tremendous wealth and we have such a diversity of cultures in our city but we are at stake of losing all of that because our city is becoming  economy is building tremendous wealth for the lucky few well everybody else is slipping beneath the surface we need leadership we need strong broad solutions we need somebody ready to hit the ground running in city hall and build momentum and commitment from the eleven thousand and please in this city towards being a city that's inclusive welcoming diverse creative and committed to shared prosperity excited about working together with all of you on that one more time ok getting very confusing messages over here i'm really excited to work with all of you on that because i believe that between the communities between the folks who work in the city and between what we understand about what we want to be in our future we can build commitment we can build momentum and we can actually implement the solutions that we need to tackle all the crises i talked about earlier so thanks for being here and i look forward to the dialogue and let's get  third time down here this week and it's great that this is one of the big kickoff for the radio station share and congratulations on that what a great place to have this kind of format towards the end of election our city has changed so rapidly you know i was fortunate i was born and raised here my mom grew up here and i've raised my two sons here but if you look at what's happened to seattle just in the last five years it has changed as a city before  we really are tearing down the city and rebuilding it overnight and in neighborhoods like around here central district and rainier valley people been pushed out city is just not affordable you can't afford to stay in seattle because property taxes are going so high i mean if you're coming to seattle you can't get into seattle because it's so expensive the homeless problem we've talked about is really a heartbreaking one and one that i think defines our city in ways that it shouldn't we're the most prosperous city in the most prosperous country maybe in the history of the world and yet we have people living on our streets in cars and in doorways i think we can do better our transportation system is a mess and our country is really a crossroads nothing good is going to come out of washington d c in the next two years nothing good we're going to have to spend energy fending them off and we are going to have to lead because leadership is going to come from the states and cities and i believe it'll come from right here i think we're up to this challenge i think this election is not about who will be mayor for four years it's about what will this city be like for the next generation will we reclaim neighborhoods like around here and make sure people can live in them will we have a future that is better for climate than the one we have today but we have a transportation system that is built on buses and light rail and get people out of single occupancy vehicles but mostly we would be that city that is inclusive diverse and welcoming i'd love to be that mayor  ethnic communities and she currently works on what industry joe i thank you and so we hear a lot about how if we just bring more people to the table get all these voices to the table then we'll have a solution the problem is you can have all these voices at the table and if there's no clear decision making process that a lot of people feel unsatisfied and disenchanted and they may not want to come back so could you talk about a time where you were a new york handling a divisive issue and you were able to reach out to communities that might normally not participate and there is not going to be new that there is not going to be consensus is not going to be possible just so we have it clear this time there's one minute for each of you to answer after video in this city of people being abused by the police usually young men of color and then john t williams was killed in the streets we knew we had to do something different so we started an investigation of the apartment of justice but we couldn't just investigate we had to reach out to communities all over the city and the north and the south then and hear from people and get people to talk it required going to communities needing translators listening the people sometimes they didn't want us the department of justice there so we had to have credible messengers then we would bring people together to say ok as we move forward what are some of the solutions and requirements we will need in the consent decree we also reached out to the police department  officers and management in the like it was hard but at the end we had to have a process in place not just to talk and not just for process but to actually get something done which was i think the consent decree and i think brought all those so we'll talk about a slightly sideways story that i think gets at the answer you're looking for i have been part of a group called progress alliance which is a donor alliance that invests in progressive infrastructure in our state and like most organizations led by wealthy white people we thought we knew everything we thought we had a best the best strategy the best theory of change we knew how to make a better state and i along with two staff members who really pushed for rethinking how we operate and we went through a intense long racial equity training and realized we were doing everything wrong and we completely zeroed out our budget really thought about systemic racism in this city and rearrange how we do our funding to invest in empowering communities and building capacity building voice building power in communities because long term that is how we're going to change the stomach racism in the city and we have got to shift our model in government in the same way to change how we're investing how we're empowering folks and how we are listening to folks and being accountable to them all right our next question jess and feral she's a former representative from the forty six legislative district and was also a candidate for mayor earlier this year good evening everyone and good evening jenny and carrie it's nice to be up here with you again and so the question i know it's quite nice to be up here with you again actually from this perspective so my question is we are of course in the trump era and where we are really under a true threat of fascism and on the one hand it is strong institutions like a strong judiciary or strong legislature is that are able to  fight and defend from the federal government at the same time we have institutions that are deeply failing members of our community whether it's education or criminal justice and so i'm curious as mayor how you do both on the one hand strengthen and fight for institutions that are under attack and on the other hand transform institutions that are failing people and if you could answer the question maybe pick an institution specifically that you might want to on the one hand strength then and protect from attack but at the same time transform so that's a hard question just and so i would talk about the whole city because i think that in this time of fear when there's so much good stuff being dismantled and so many scary things rising in power like fascism authoritarianism i think the way you get through that is by naming a future vision laying out the action plan to get there and invite everybody to be part of the solution because if we are fearful if we are hunkered down trying to protect our private interests that's when we're weak it's when we are unified when we're fighting together towards a better possible future that we are strong because we have momentum we have energy we have locked arms together with one another towards what we're trying to achieve and that's what we need to do in our city and i think we have we've lost our way we haven't had a vision we're dealing with all this flux in transformation and no one knows where we're headed and that is why we've had so much in fighting and arguing i believe we need to pull together towards a better process possible future with the mayor leading that and championing that vision so that is a great question and i really believe that we are the leadership we need we have a obligation not just to our community but i think to the country to show how leadership can be done and show how we can both protect what we care about and transfer those things that need to be transformed so and protect you know what we care about i actually did that when the trump muslim ban came down the day it came down i drove to the airport and working with civil rights organizations was able to get one of the first court orders to prevent someone from being deported i couldn't have done it alone i did it because i was standing with others that's transformation and protection we have to be able to lead on climate change and wage disparity we can show that we can have an honest conversation in this city about race and how institutional racism has led to the lack of opportunity in much of our community and then we can transform that with real live economic opportunity so i think that we both can protect and transform and that seattle can be the leader on these issues all right before we go to the next question i do want to thank the rainier art center or the space that we are in it is the sister program of the reign of seed arts which is part of seed southeast effective development that's been here in the rainier valley for the past i don't know how many years since one thousand nine hundred five and we want to thank them for allowing us to use this space free of charge and also thanks very much to the cultural center who is helping us with the recordings tonight experience once you're in office you get to a point where issues come at you when you can't wave the magic wand of getting everybody to agree on what the right solution is and you have to make a choice you have to pick a side i had to with the end and handling statute and with to council members have introduced in this budget season what's being called an employee hours tax or a head tax it's a tax on businesses that make more than i think five million a year in revenue could be a tax per employee there will be a vote on that and the dollars will be used to help get people into shelter and build affordable housing and reduce the need or eliminate the swee so my question is this is an issue that it would be coming at you as mayor and certainly in front of the the civic life right now do you support taxing large corporations in order for them to pay for almost services and housing and i seen your ass in the context of the legislate the proposed legislation itself or just generally know the proposed legislation and then more generally if you want to expand it so i think that kerry and i have actually expressed very similar views on this in in forums which is taxing corporations when we approach that we have to make sure that we are not taxing small businesses and sometimes that dollar amount including the dollar amount that's been proposed by the two council members actually will bring in small businesses because our b taxes is based upon gross revenues and it is not based upon profit so if you have a high grossing business whether it's a manufacturing business or a restaurant you actually can be grossing the amount that would bring you up and then there would be double taxation so i want to look at what the cut offs are and make sure that we're not impacting i'm not necessarily opposed to a tax on corporations if it can do more funding i've said consistently in this election that i want to hold off on any new taxes until i'm sure that the budget we have is sufficient not sufficient to meet what we need the one area i've talked about and why i was very glad to see that this is where the two council members were pointed is in the area of homelessness and particularly in drug addiction services and mental health services that's where i think we're going to need more revenues and i'll look at all options you know anything about my activism in the city you know this about me that i am not afraid to say difficult things to powerful people whether that fighting for a transit based solution instead of a bypass highway on the waterfront or whether it's calling on  step down months ago i have a strong backbone and i am ready to push for both the high earners income tax and tax on large corporations because we absolutely know that the problem we have in our city one of the main problems is that too few people have access to power in city hall we are listening to lobbyists and corporate special interest and blocking progress on solutions we know we all need so absolutely i would work to refine the head tax make sure are only approaching only only taxing the top few percentage of businesses not all the small businesses that need help not more taxes but absolutely would push forward with taxing corporations taxing high earners because we simply need more revenue for the solutions we all know are necessary i think you've seen a pattern here in who the journalists are who are here we and quite intentionally invited community journalists who work in southeast seattle and question which is of particular concern to people in the chinatown internationalist sorry but international district but throughout the city and the question is about the mandatory housing affordability policy or  a this is a policy that allows developers to build taller projects in exchange for setting aside some percentage of housing as affordable for paying into an affordable housing fund many people are concerned that this does not go far enough and that it will lead to an increase in development that is not affordable for low income communities people are concerned but it will contribute to displacement of people businesses and non profits my question is do you agree that the mh a requirements the mandatory housing affordability protect against displacement that it's true when you're offering up zone it causes speculation it causes property values to rise and people to be pushed out of date hoods and well the m h a up zone are good tools they're one of many tools we should be looking out for adding increased affordability in neighborhoods is specially in the south and so i would sit down with community groups and say we're trying to add this much more housing in your neighborhood here all the tools that we could be using whether it's doing stacked flats or row houses or duplexes or backyard cottages or of mandatory housing affordability up zones in certain parts in the urban village expanding the urban village i would sit down with the neighborhood look at all the tools that do the best to bring affordable housing without destroying the culture or the character and places like chinatown id are incredibly fragile the this is an ecosystem of community and we absolutely can't afford to make a mistake because it's a treasure it's part of our soul in seattle and it's important to protect the folks who live there so we're in a housing crisis we need more affordable housing i was talking to amazon employee last week as part of an endorsement interview and he was i think it was employee number thirteen thousand and they're now up to employee number fifty thousand or something like that we have over forty thousand amazon employees making over one hundred thousand dollars a year that's about forty million dollars a year being pumped into our economy they can go to housing that something most people in the south end just can't compete with because those those jobs have not been spread throughout our city we need more housing and one of the only ways we can do it is through the m h a agreement because that's the way we get developers to pay for the fordable housing it's not enough it doesn't go far enough and we have to wait watch out how it does on the placement because i don't think there's a one size fits all for any neighborhood and how we do up zones as i've done business walking tours i've actually walked with up some maps and sometimes you can see why we can put a taller building here but not there so i think we have to be very sensitive to international district and other districts like that have historical importance but we have to have them ha to meet our goals next person to ask questions is sophia she is a volunteer at the multimedia resource in training institute that works with the east african youth and young adults to train them in media production and have a regular show on cable t v and sophie is on her way to medical school actually but in the meantime she's volunteered to help those young folks have their own voice high my question is regarding small minority businesses such as m r t i which is the multimedia resource in training institute which is also a nonprofit organization and a voice for the african american community and the east african immigrants in the area and they're moving out towards the end of the year from the central district d to judge for cation and what is your view of plans to address that issue i think this is one of the critical issues that the next mayor is facing and we have to take action and very intentional action both for small businesses and to fight gentrification and those have a little bit different strategies so in the small business what we have seen is the economic vitality has drained out of the central district and rainier valley largely after i two hundred which was the informant in ferment of action initiative that we had here and before that passed something around twenty or more percent of public dollars actually went to minority businesses there was a study about two weeks ago by the state department of transportation it's less than one percent now and the businesses hurt the most are african american businesses so i have promised mayor i am going to be very forward leaning and make sure that we actually put money into the pockets of minority businesses i'm not afraid of i two hundred we have a disparity study that we can do it now and i think we have to build up wealth  gentrification we have to have more projects like africa town that really are going to be on or the community controlled by the community and then you have other ones like the stop sign thank you so you know i think we often talk about gentrification like it's just something that happens and we don't know why and we don't know how and we're all victims to it we've got to reverse that way of looking at it gentrification is intentional  policy that says whoever has the money wins and the city needs to do a much better job working with communities to protect what's important to the community protect the capacity for the community to own property own businesses own housing in community because we know long term that's how you keep intergenerational wealth that's how you keep economic security and resilience so we need to do a much more intentional job and not be so laissez faire about letting people just come in and invade and push out existing communities so the liberty bank project is a great model we have about eight other projects in the pipeline that would like to do what el centro de la raza did or liberty bank is doing the city needs to be at the table creating those agreements community benefit agreements putting together those deals that's the only way we're going to stop this before you have to run but carrie moon is welcome to comment as well jenny conversations in the community or word on the street is that you have often been labeled the business as usual candidate who has a history of not being firmly rooted in principle and changing position based on what's popular most recently being wait to ask for ed murray's resignation and having a long list of wealthy donors what is your response  i'm really glad you asked that because you hear that different kinds of word on the street and the best dancers are the people who support me i am really proud that i have over thirty four hundred people who have stepped up and supported my campaign and people like kerry moon always want to point to the big aeration less than one percent of the people who have contributed my campaign are companies ninety nine percent of them are individuals and i've had volunteers out every week in every part of this town and those volunteers come from every part of this town and they have knocked on thousands of doors and made thousands of calls which i have to and i think the best guide to what someone will do as a mayor is what they've done in the past and i would ask you or anyone i'd sit and talk to you about over the last thirty years what i've done to stand up for principle because that's who i am i stood up for years for l g b t q rights when it was hard and when we didn't have many allies doing it and yes it was for myself because i was gay but it was for others too i also was not afraid to stand up to the police department and to mayor mike mcginn when we needed police reform and i just posted today on medium to remind people what it was really like in this town after person after person was beaten by the police and no one was doing anything about it and i was able to work with community groups under a lot of pressure and i'm not afraid to stand up to anyone and i will do that for the city every day ok so we'll have about thirty seconds extra if you'd like to answer ok so you know i am a first time candidate i have been an activist and a planner in this town for twenty years they haven't run for office before and as anybody can tell you there's a steep hill to climb if you're a brilliant community activist like nikita oliver who's an educator and has such strong networks in this community you can activate those networks and build a strong grassroots campaign which she did beautifully and effectively and working with people's party to create a much better city and balance power in city hall and build black and brown power in this city for so someone like me in a field of twenty one candidates i didn't come to this with ed marie's donor list and ed mary's political machine i didn't come with a background of community support but i am working so hard to build that right now and i when our office we joke that the chamber of commerce contribution to jenny's campaign or her independent expenditure five hundred twenty five thousand dollars we call that the five hundred twenty five thousand dollars panic button because they are afraid of sharing power across race and class and gender as i've promised they want to keep the status quo and i think that's what we should be focused on you know i need to respond to that because if we're going to do this fairly i think it's time to be able to respond to that directly because if you look at who is funded their campaign with what i was a first time candidate and i had no donor list and in the first weeks of my campaign i had an enormous response from across the city but one thing i haven't done with my wealth is from my own campaign and kerry moon has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of her own money money she got from a family corporation that then had to end where everyone lost their job so let's at least be honest about who is stepping up and getting support from other people because i'm proud of all the unions that are supporting me the workers that are supporting me and the thirty four hundred people have stepped up to support my campaign so as a person i grew up middle class yes i had privileges many doors were open to me and i own that privilege but yes we built a successful family business that shared profits and shared ownership with the employees and after my parents died i did it here at some money and i would like to ask everybody in this room to imagine what you would do if you were lucky like that i have spent the last five years devoting my time my resources my energy and my capacity towards building a better future city in seattle because i'm committed to this place and i want to do everything i can out of a sense of duty and responsibility to build a better city so yes i own the privilege but i want you to understand it as an investment in the future of our city because i believe it's my responsibility and i believe that changing power in this city is part of the solution and i'm happy to invest in that next question i just want to alert the panelists that we have a little bit of extra time so i am going to ask for about four more questions after the next one so the next justice a word from the columbia legal services i want to acknowledge that there was a decision made around sky chefs to not to give back the wages that those workers deserved but to give us clap on the wrist to a corporation that is brutalizing workers in our city that's the question i was going to ask but when i was sitting here listening to you all talk i was thinking about the question i keep getting repeatedly asked even though i'm no longer in the race which is which candidate will you endorse nikita and my answer continues to be endorse either and it has been something that myself and the people's party have taken quite a bit of ridicule for because people believe it is our job to direct our voters to the candidate that will represent them and if i what would you actually say outside of campaign platitudes what practical solutions but your answer to the thirty one thousand plus people who voted for myself and the c e o peoples party right on because this is it this is where the rubber hits the road we know in our city where people show up politicians show up down south every four years make all the promises use all the pretty words and then never come back so my commitment is to make sure that we are sharing power across race class and gender in the mayor's office in our departmental leadership teams and in every board and commission in the city because that's the first step is to have people at the table and hear them and let them shape solutions together second use a racial equity lens in every allocation of resources because that's the other ugly side of systemic racism is you ever see the table that we ran out of money we can't really invest in your projects so we've got to use a racial equity lens for our allocation of funding third we've got to use the race and social justice to work it and double down to make sure we're actually using it to make decisions in how we implement the policies of the city so that is my commitment my commitment is to be available to hold myself accountable to have you are people in my office holding me accountable and i've already started on that process by offering you two seats on the transition team and i will keep going showing that i'm accountable i believe in this change too so i think the real question is now will you show up and how will you use your privilege i think the test is having a showing up and how have you used your privilege i don't deny that i have had incredible privilege in my life but i've been showing up in this community for a long time for thirty years you know i started as a criminal defense lawyer representing mostly people of color when we had the failed war on drugs and had a front line to seeing how the whole community was being devastated by the drugs and by the criminal justice response i fought for treatment alternatives instead of incarceration alternatives as bronco bombers united states attorney for the western district of washington and only started one of the first federal drug courts so people could get treatment instead of being put in jail i also founded a civil rights division right here to go against housing discrimination and every other kind of discrimination we went from one case to one hundred cases and then i did the hard work of police reform not alone never alone and we're not done yet but if you want to know who will show up you should look at who's already shown  needed but you got to have it into it so i think when we're aiming towards it identify girl it's great when we're having an open process where people show up that invites people who have complaints who want to talk about their own private interests and want to get something from the city that doesn't work because that's when you devolve into everybody arguing polarizing and protecting private interests so as long as we are aiming towards a constructive future goal and inviting people too can contribute constructive answers it's great we invented neighborhood planning i think we need to bring back a twenty first century version of neighborhood planning because people in this city feel we have a right to shape our destiny to me it's one of the most fundamental human rights to decide how we want to live in relation to one another what kind of economic system we want to participate in and if you don't have neighborhood planning if you don't have dialogue about that we are leaving it to the most powerful people who can show up the people who can pay lobbyists the people who know how the halls of government work and that's where you get the problems that we have now so absolutely yes process but well designed so mike you have a question  response to an earlier question you said that one percent of your donations had come from corporations and the last i saw you would raised approximately eight hundred thousand dollars i also saw the chamber of commerce  independent expenditure it's going to put in over five hundred thousand dollars into a campaign isn't five hundred thousand more than one percent of eight hundred thousand yes and as mike knows that unfortunately under independent exposure i have no control over it they're not to my campaigns we can't control and i called for them not to do it i publicly said i wish you would not raise money and i hope you don't spend it all i can control is my own campaign i think we should also note so people know mike mcginn has endorsed kerry moon has been at many functions supporting her and tweeting for her and so he's not exactly your neutral panelists here so but the real question again is if we want to get money out of politics you know we should have everyone have to raise the money and go out in the community did it and i've worked hard to do that and i've been very pleased by the response and my donors have come from every part of the city more important my volunteers who can't give money have come from every part of the city and there's hundreds of them on the weekends in the rain knocking on doors i am super proud of that and while we are both very wealthy women carry moon and i have put four hundred dollars in she's put hundreds of thousands of dollars in that if she didn't spend it probably being the key to all over and i sit in here and she'd be on that panel you know i'm not going to comment on this all save my extra minute for another answer because i would like to hear if the key to wants to speak please do if you don't that's fine too uncomfortable for me to see you being used and so i'd like to hear what you have to say i do have a question if that's ok so my question is around so in the courts there is this idea call judicial notice which means suddenly new information has come out and there's something new that the courts should consider i bring that up because i think about things like the use jail and how over the past few years communities have had to rise up and tell our story time and politicians have actually changed their story and said we'd like to do something different because now this information is actually really got to us and we think we can make a better plan what i want to know is is there a time in your work since we're talking about track records when you did something that harmed a community or was a mistake and what would you have done differently i think important mark of a strong leader is our willingness to admit when maybe we have been going down the wrong path and how we will transition to one that actually honors the most impacted in our city so if you don't mind i'd like to just talk about the youth jail itself because i was one of those voters who was barely paying attention and i saw the paid media and the paid marketing for the proponents of the project and didn't understand that it was all dishonest and all a lie so i did vote for it and because of epic because of black the bunker because of black lives matter because of the you know all the organizations that were fighting against the use jail i recognized i was wrong and i have become a vocal opponent of this so i would make sure i think i think what i want to say so i will own that mistake and i will do the same as mayor because i think sometimes you get you get more information and you realize you were wrong and so for the jail i would keep fighting for resculpting that project yes we need a new building but it needs to be truly devoted to restored of justice diversion programs and caring for young people and not as not for incarcerating them so i will keep pushing to go redesign that project and go back to the voters so i think that's a really good insightful question i will say that most truthful answer would be probably in the area of the youth jail you've heard me answer at other forums about that and my initial take was it and parts of it i still really believe which is the current facility i think is reprehensible and screams to children you don't matter and we've done better at moving those detention numbers down and i believe strongly in the restored of justice programs and have worked with the courts and talked about what kind of programs need to be there to really disrupt it but i was not as thoughtful as i needed to be on the system itself and has so have spent the last many we takes actually sitting down and talking to people like a team child with families with the court and with council members and the like and we need to do better particularly on detention predisposition because kids of color don't have the advantage that other kids have and they are being detained when they shouldn't be and so that's an issue that i want to continue to work with everyone so that we can do better on that and i i was too hasty in my response so do you have a question ok something goes on in my community who do you have any suggestions for after school programs because you just mentioned about the youth in your jail that could keep them you know engaged in the community or busy really yeah i think that is you know one of the great programs i was able to be involved in when i was u s attorney was the youth violence prevention initiative and then i was at the beginning of this campaign return and sat down with the folks at rainier beach to see how things were going and they've developed some fantastic programs down there to really engage youth with with you know credible messengers in the street greeters and activating things but the youth were there too and so i was talking to him and said you know what what what would make a difference to you and i learned that you know we had made a lot of promises around employment and summer employment and we didn't follow through a number of them had gotten to the point where they applied and then didn't get the jobs so i think we really have to make a promise to those kids and then deliver on their promise it's one of the things that led me to say that for seattle public schools if you graduate from seattle public school you will get two years of college tuition to any community college we've got to fix the opportunity gap so more kids get there and there's a ton of work to do there but i think we have to make a promise those kids that we will if they deliver we will deliver so i think this is another one of those areas where the city has taken a top down approach and we need to listen to communities more and educators more we through the families and education levy have a nice chunk of money set aside it's a great levy it does good work but i think the city keeps too tight a control over how the money is spent so we need to work with educators the public school system in the community groups that understand what programs are most effective and listen to them and use our research sources to support them so some schools really need help with with sorry excuse me medical care in the school system so others are really focused on arts and education afterschool summer focused on mentoring programs i think we need to work with the school system to identify the most effective programs for each population each school and make sure we're also continuing to fund the other programs like career bridge and pre apprenticeship programs that are helping kids get ready for what comes after school ok before we go to another question we've been asking for the last two weeks for listeners to cable where you want to five point seven f m to send us your questions because this is a radio program we can't have people from the audience you know taking a minute to get to the microphone and so forth you have one more question here this is a question about the budgeting process and we can file it under maybe more seattle process decision so one of things i'm really interested in political leaders do they have guts and are they willing to make tough decisions and i think the budgeting process is a place where that happens because there is finite resources and in the case of seattle the next mayor will be having to look at things like investing in the trail miss link which has a lot of stakeholders who are very invested in it but the critique of course is that you're investing in a one tiny part of town a lot of money there are other issues around do you give employees of the city raises who for ford who had forgone raises during the recession there are all of these pressures in the budgeting process and i'm curious about how what principles are you going to use who is going to be influencing your decisions around budgeting and what happens when you make people that's a lot and one minute they can do it so i think i've said many times that we have to use a racial equity lens every time we allocate resources in this city because we need to correct decades of disinvestment in the south and disinvestment in communities of color and we need to catch up we need to reverse that and invest in the south and and that's the technique to do it i think the you know the principles i would use is first we have to tighten our belts i think we've had such an influx of funding in the city mike mcginn always said the budget is twenty five percent higher than it was four or five years ago so we've got to first look at tightening our belts understanding how we can get more effective programs scaled up and the ones that are working shut down because we need all the resources we can get to invest in all these solutions we've been talking about tonight so tightening our belts inviting every single department to identify strategies to be more efficient more cost effective and then using that additional funding to fund some of the things that we're talking about tonight and also i believe because i'm not taking corporate money because i don't not working with public affairs consultants and lobbyists that i would be beholden to the people of seattle in these budgeting decisions so i think we would i just and we've talked about this i think your budget is a values document and how you spend your money shows what's important so the first thing the mayor has to do obviously is the core city services there's things that people just expect to happen in a city you know fill the potholes when you turn on the lights the lights come on fire service in the end that like but after that then you have to start making decisions and for me the decisions will always be how does that help people so it's going to be the human services things i'm going to try to protect every way i can because i think that is the fundamental thing that government can do to help people the second thing i'm going to be asking is how does it help the people who have been left out because this prosperity in seattle has not been shared i was over i had a one round table and someone described the said you know everyone keeps calling it growth but growth goes this way i feel like it's this way it's smashed us and so i think if you look through the city there has been a huge part of the city and people who've been displaced and left out so my next priority is going to be how do we make up for that and how do we make their progress and economic property real for community all right this concludes the first part of our program we are now going to have both of the candidates make their three minute statements and closing statements so to speak except that kerry is going to stay for another hour or so jenny has to leave so we'll let you go first you can either use that microphone thank you very much again to all radio listeners and to people in the audience for the spirited debate thank you kerry i would very much love to be your mayor and i hope that we can build a better city together as i said at the beginning i think we've got some significant challenges we have right now a city that has changed and become less equitable every day and you see it in the pains of the faces the start all over again the pain in fa everywhere you go in the cities they sit and talk to you you know i have sat with people in every part of this town who feel like there's no place for them anymore you know you go to the ethiopian community center and they talk about how so many of their community have been pushed out they want housing for their elders to connect them back up to the community and they have a trouble because the city is not their partner all they have is obstacles we have experienced i think in the last two administrations the last eight years in this city have been too much top down we have forgotten about the power of community we have solutions and community based solutions to out this city that the city has not been good partners with in rainier beach it's the youth violence prevention initiative which when i sat down with people i said how often does a city come and talk to you about how this is working and how it's doing with the youth how often does that happen and the answer was zero it's like they fund it they disappear and then they don't care if i'm mayor that's going to change you look at central rozza it is a fabulous community based place a school wants taken by roberto my s to say this is our place and they've made it their place but they didn't do with that much help from the city the city fought them and said no that's the not the kind of housing we want but they pushed on and persevered and now it's a fabulous anchor for that community we can replicate that in the filipino community association we can replicate in the ethiopian and we can represent it with out throughout this town but we're not empowering the community or listening to the community and if i'm mayor i will do everything i can to continue listening and that means also holding me accountable because mayors can't get stuck in city hall what they have to do is keep going into the community in get the tough questions sometimes get the boos you know that's part of doing the job and that's what i want to be if i'm your mayor and i want to say one last thing you've heard a lot of talk up here and questions rightly people are like oh she's the business candidate i think that does a real disservice to the people supporting my campaign and particularly to the many many unions in their workers who are supporting me the dock workers the firefighters the nurses the women who are providing the mental health treatment to the homeless you know i sat down with them before they gave endorsements and they asked me some of the same questions and they decided i was the person who could fight for them and i will fight for them because i want this city to be the city that my kids can be as proud of and love as much as i have love seattle so please support me as your mayor thank you for being here i appreciate it very much keep talking well we are but we're going to make your statement for her state ok sorry so thank you all for coming out tonight this kind of dialogue about the future of our city is really important and i'm so glad at how many people are engaged how many people care how many people are putting forward solutions because this is how we build the city we know we need for the future in this time of trump when we are watching in dismay and anger at how many good things are being dismantled and how many scary things are building momentum rising in power we know we need to do something i think this change that we're talking about tonight is happening across the country citizens are rising up reza it's our rising up to say we need to save democracy we need to get into the halls of power we need to change who has power so that we can lock down the institutions and the systems that build a city a society that is healthy that is inclusive that is fair that is just for everybody and i'm proud to be part of this movement i'm proud to be one of fifteen thousand women who decided in january to run for office because it's time for all of us to step up so in this city i believe we really need at this time to confront openly and every single day systemic racism and how it works we have gone for too long thinking that because we're liberals because we don't have the k k k here we're fine but we're not fine look at the outcomes that get worse and worse every year look at increasing wealth inequality that we used to be the number one city in the world for african american homeownership  are fifth worst we look at we used to have seventy percent of our cd was african americans now it's seventeen percent our housing affordability crisis is hurting so many of our friends and neighbors and family members but there are people who are benefiting there are corporations who are benefiting off of this crisis so we need different kind of leadership that's ready to stand up to corporations that's ready to say nope the more corporate corporations own our building stock our city own our businesses the more the city's going to feel like an office park and we need to stand together and say no to that we need to focus on local ownership local community building local projects designed by the community supported by the city funded by the city because that's how you build wealth that stays in community that builds intergenerational security and resilience we lost sight of that we treat the economy like it's just the weather like it's something that happens that we don't quite understand and we're all victims of it certain people are benefiting tremendously and the rest are falling behind we have to acknowledge that the economy is a man made system we control it we the people control it and we need to put in the right structures to stop this concentration of wealth concentration of power and reclaim authority for the future of our city with local ownership with local power with local solutions and a mayor's office that's committed to making that happen so that's the mayor i want to be that's the way i want to work with community and i hope i have your vote and i look forward to working together with you for the future