asked today's guest why is the city council even relevant anymore i mean after all he's a candidate for city council albert chen right here in public exposure welcome thank you very much for having me i got to ask i mean that's the first question why is city council even relevant well i think it's relevant to all levels i mean it represents the people of the city stablish is the budget you know comes up with innovative ideas to help the city and its should set priorities of what the city needs to be a continues to grow i think where we are at right now is a result of city government at a level for good or bad so it's important that you know people take a step forward and run for office and that's what i'm doing and actually my head is off to anyone that runs for office it's a very difficult thing for sure and clearly it's difficult to govern as well because we see how difficult it is all right so let's just get right into what the people want to know the people want to know about you they want to know about your issues so we're going to do this through issues ok and i'm going to go through the issues right up your website ok shanae did you say on your website i want our children to be our cities trop top priority ones that me well i think what we're seeing right now as a trustee for the community colleges we're seen seventy percent of the kids come out or k through twelve system into our system failed basic math so this is all not only a national problem but this is a local problem and really if we're going to have a strong economic base we have to make sure kids are educated and they all get the equal education but ability to get education that will develop a good job and eventually a good career so they can have a working family support our local economy so what can the city do about that i mean it isn't it's the school system's job well you know i'm kind of tired of hearing that always the school system is a city you know i think it's now to a point where we have to take some sort of action now not talk about operational control i think the city council has a role as well as the mayor is for establishing the metrics and priorities for what we want the city to do for education my idea is that we do a education committee on the city council if you look through the list of committees there is not a committee at that level will be should be there to structure so we get there early learning or k through twelve for community colleges or for institutions all together at the table and sit together a strategic plan and develop metrics and some accountability for everybody on where we want education to go and how it's going to get us through this twenty first century table story i live within walking distance of two award winning elementary schools we visited them both for our daughter who now is a fifth grader we looked at him and said there's no way there's absolutely no way and so we send our daughter to a private school now i believe at those both those schools that the principal and the teachers are probably doing as good a job as anybody could possibly do but the environment the parents that aren't there that's obviously aren't there the school system can't do anything about that how can the city address that well i think it's yeah i mean i hear it when i'm on the trail i talk to every day every day voters were knocking on doors and is probably the number one thing in this same thing i hear is that they're tired of the public system they're sending the kids to private school i think that's what we have to drive that discussion to is how if we have everyone that the table to address all these needs and all these stories are part and brought out you know collectively the hasn't worked how can we expand there are certain communities did not get the funding that they should have got so i think as long as we can have some platform to have these honest discussions collectively and not in silos that is clearly step one that we have to be able to take discussions not in silos that's an interesting concept because we do seem to have a lot of them and i think that's just the nature of the beast that we have right how can you take those discussions out of silos well again if like i said if we can bring it up as a priority at a council meetings a continuous one you know like i said working with the mayor's office as well you know then we can set those parameters on the metrics it is imperative that we start doing it and i'm really tired actually of hearing us we can't do anything about it you know if i agreed the teachers  principals doing the best job they can i have friends that are teachers you know and they're doing the best with the resources that they have but it is time that we take a step forward and get a backbone and address our education policy start about public safety you say this we need to move away from technology driven policing to a more basic and proven model of community policing i've heard lots of candidates say that and they keep saying it and now you're saying yeah well i think what we're seeing right now is a dependence on data and technology to get it now i have friends and family there on the force in different law enforcement capacities technology is a tool to be used this should not be a policy to be used to address or public safety you know now that you know with the stabbing just the other day of a community college professor there's a very tragic event and i think what we're seeing is a diversity of problems on the streets of seattle there are those that truly do need help there are true those that have mental illness and there's just open air drug dealing and just vagrancy so how we target our funds to be able to reach each of those is critical the city has a fifty eight million dollar health and human services budget how we best utilize that money so my my philosophy is the city council would be let's get those the people they need help but let's also make sure that those that are criminals actually are prosecuted and go to jail recently i  did a ride along with the police and it was very evident what was going on they drove me around so albert would be here on our radio right now i said nothing says this is the status of our day is because the oversight they are now feeling compelled empowered trusted to do their job so when they see these type of things out in the streets they're really not going to react as they don't want to be you know lambasted on t v or in the media so step one we have to show give the police the empowerment and the respect and trust that they're going to do the job i don't understand what you're talking about right now i mean  here we are at impact seattle at the rainmakers t v studio and so we're in the pioneer square area and if i go up stairs i will see a lot of things that probably shouldn't be happening and probably are illegal i don't see police hardly ever is that which that is what i'm talking about you know they're there is because this oversight go on they're just really not feeling compelled and i mean they'll take nine one one calls great but that's really not where that's how the status of our relationship with the police department has vote last minute and i think that's partly why we are where we are at today so so again i think it's a matter of targeting our social resources to those that need it but then there are those that actually need to be prosecuted arrested in and taken the full extent while for the  public's standpoint mr shand opponent is incumbent michael bryan and so you will have an opportunity i'm sure to review the stances of michael bryant and we will invite him here on the show as well with regard to public safety again i've got stories yes that's what i'll do here's here's the thing that really really bothers me off a lot i'm driving down the road and all of a sudden we stop and this can be i five this can be a city street it doesn't seem to matter there's an accident there's two police reviewing the accident  seems like they're basically taking an action to report i'm not sure that i want my taxpayer dollars go to pay police to help somebody a civil lawsuit that yeah i agree i mean is that the can we change that yeah i think again it's going back to you know the police and how we interact will how we give the legislation how we give them the empowerment the trust to do their job i mean like i said right now they really you know they're reacting to phone calls but whether it's stuff you see on the street or just you know we need to get push him out and the community policing is clearly one we're going to have the opportunity for a new police chief you know or this existing one so you know its inability to find a chief that embraces diversity embraces our diverse communities and believes that community policing involves and back to the basics as far as getting our police back out into the community integrated with the focus of business communities community leaders the social service agencies so they walk the beat and they know you know i've talked with them before they would love to do that so i think we can get there and that's what i want to push for so i want to continue on with the theme about community policing and with regard to community policing you say this we need our police patrols to be visible active part of the community interact with the community members and essentially you talked about walking beats i have lived in beacon hill now for thirteen years never seen a police walking our beat and i'm not being critical i just have never seen it if you know what you're talking about though yes yeah it's not happening you know they've talked about city councils talked about the mayor's talked about when it comes to the implementation side is we just need to do it you know we haven't seen it there are more by cops around you know we see those but the floor is you know when i was on that right along one thing was very evident that you know there was a pretrial cars out and everyone time but there was almost twice the amount of parking enforcement cars out so that's what they told me is as you know the city is focused on raising money through parking enforcement is that the best use of our resources on law enforcement you know we have to ask that question therefore i can tell you that when no yeah exactly so i think it's just kind of the opposite i would rather let people park a little bit longer and then spend their money in the businesses that's exactly you know what we're i want to see from economic development perspective and helping our local industries here by this eight o'clock parking policy you know i think during the recession i think hurt our restaurant retail fifty your vision for a real transportation system one that fully incorporates transit into our transportation plans i'm not writing a bus here in seattle so i'm not part of the plan right now a lot of people are that's it yeah yeah so why should we spend all that money to do all of this planning and then you know frankly what i see out of sound transit is that i mean it's a great idea and all but it seems like more of a jobs bill and if that's what it is that's ok just let me know there don't sell it to me as a transportation bill because it's not working right now i agree i mean i think the rest of the world right now is moving ahead with mass transit even our domestic systems of washing d c metro new york city say a long old system though correct where there's been development has happened as a result of it that's correct where you had your transit system is trying to force develop it happened it happens that right and that's where we are mis was it was clear where our best was on i mean those systems the d c metro moves over two hundred million annual passengers sound actual you know mass transit systems in the rest of world as they develop they're having the foresight to put in real mass transit which moves hundreds of millions of people years so yes we're playing catch up game but i think we're actually going to solve a regional transportation problems we have to find some sort of system that will move people quickly and efficiently in x not period of time you know i completely agree and i'm not being the devil's advocate here but it instead of trying to make again city council relevant yeah and my relevant question with regard to this is how relevant is it to have a fixed rail system in today's world world where people go multiple places it's it's just different at the time than the subways were developed yeah well it's a layered thing i mean you've got you've got different multiple layers of transportation about it so we need an integrated plan that does these different transportation plans but not one overall in or greater one to say this is how we're going to move people for this twenty first century you know from all parts of the region is that something though that the city it's up to you what the city or is  that you know is that sound transit is that the puget sound regional council is that king county who is that i think it's everybody but you know the city's got to take leadership on it i mean this is still the economic hub for the region you know between us and the b side most jobs are still in downtown seattle right now so we have a vested interest in this and it's important that leadership at this point has to set the priorities for what we are transmission to be we tend to think right now only seattle centric we will look at our boundary and we look at that way we don't think people working families live in seattle work on the east side or vice versa they come in from all parts of the city region to come here we have to think are our translation to think that way right now it is very seattle within its borders and that's where city council has to work with the local region and the state level you know the governor's office in the legislature and those other agencies you know to make transportation a priority for city we will get back to transportation because that's one of your big issues as well but i want to continue on who said we should welcome companies developing new solutions and have seattle take the lead in developing our new green economy to  we've kind of done that we've kind of done that yeah and we're on that house so we have to find ways to make sure that we have great business is here and you know other industries you know the industrial manufacturing maritime now we have this emerging high tech about take industries so how are we going to actually make sure the city you know makes these industries a priority to make sure that they can throw and continue to grow to grow here and attract more this you know where we don't have as much v c capital here as down in the bay area and that's probably one part that actually drives a lot of high tech markets so we i want to build a drive that  type of funding in that type of you know marketing to drive companies to come here to do that kind of build up of economy you know our industrial maritime is a very key part here down in the so doing there i mean there are seventeen percent of the family with jobs thirty four percent of our being no tax revenue are industries that clearly helped us you know as far as the recession our maritime seafood industry is huge half the seafood in united states comes through seattle so these are all core economic engine that we have to protect but we also have these you know great emerging technologies that you know we're we want to be able to program for this region with regard to the port itself because you're talking about seafood the port of seattle is in a very difficult position in the sense that it has competition that's thousands of miles away that it really can't do a whole lot of whole lot about is is there do you think that there should be more thought about merging the port of seattle with the port to kill tacoma yeah some point the ports have to start engaging you know an honest discussion of what's best for the region you know  you know trade exporting them keep big things for the washington state here so how the port and see our ports come interact and how they're going to work together is absolutely fundamental you know the ports been one of my biggest clients from my business side you know and i think the there are key economic engine for us here so we have to find ways between the city and the port to work together to identify those priorities and maybe facilitate discussion with the port of tacoma so while there are a lot of jobs that arise out of the port the ports really highly skilled labor jobs have been shrinking for quite some time there is that something that you feel like that we can turn around or is that just again the nature of the beast that technology allows us to have much less employees do much more work well  program i think that fits into what the ports needs here and there's a clear demand for it i mean they're going to we're going to train thousands of workers to be welders and that shows a fundamental base of those working family jobs that we really do need so i you know it may be there may be some transition but what i see is a more demand for maritime industry here in seattle let's go to jobs in economy and you say this as a city council member i will i will work with our tourism industry for to seattle and state agencies to develop actionable plans to attract more tourist oh those are great dollars to have yes what are you what are you being what can you do well i think it's partly you know you know i am chinese american you know i can speak mandarin so it would be great to you know help any trade delegations go overseas and say hey i want to promote you know you know overseas travel to come to come to see l a area i mean we're seeing that right now but the more we can do to promote that the better we just passed equal gay rights in the state that's a clear opportunity for the community as well it is the fourth seattle is the fourteenth ranked city for l g b to travel to this region to seattle i want to be able to actually help the market to be able to even attract more to make sale in the top five so hospitality industry clearly is very interested this is direct economic money into our region directly and i think that ties into our public safety issues that we're just talking about how do we make the city safe and visible and make people feel when they come here so those are two things i believe that go hand in hand going along with the parking issue to you know to help to help attract a so it's a very complex you know multiple pronged policy that we have to come with but in the end or tourism industry is a very easy one that we can actually hope low hanging fruit to get revenue into the city i've lived there for twenty one years now and i absolutely love the area but there are things that i just look at and i shake my head and i know that in other cities that case they would just never tolerate a lot of it has to do with the situations that we briefly talked about but with regard to tourism though i've had friends come and visit me and they are surprised by what they see appears to be a lack of love for seattle a lack of care of the streets and a lack of taking care of making it safer tourist yeah you know i her leg you know when i've been on my tour and policies in talking to folks specially in the hotel hospitality industry one very good example is they showed me a picture of elderly woman in a wheelchair you know down on the waterfront holding the sign of a disabled vet please give me money you know a few hours later they took a picture of her walking away and someone else coming in and sitting in his her place and doing the same thing so there's like i said there's multiple layers of issues going on from a public safety perspective so those are examples of targeting the hate what is going on here how is this person get away with it you know do they need actually need help let's get them help or if they're truly doing you know scamming the public then they should be prosecuted so so all those feed into what we're just talking about into the perception that we're feeding out to the rest of the country for visitors and we've all heard candidates who have talked tough during the campaign but then it comes time to govern and things change and i'm not be impersonal or anything but what makes you different i would hope i'm a bit different because you know i'm in the business of project management and that's what my business  what you know and it's about measures and outcomes you know i want to see measures and outcomes i don't think any of the council members especially my opponent right now has actually had to run a business during the worst recession in our history so i've been in down in the trenches they've seen what's going on you've have to take decisions you have to take actions that is what i'm going to do when i get in office is to make sure we take decisions you know i'm doing what's best for the city you know political consequence whatever but we have to do what is right something with regard to jobs and economy also say this we need to roll back the nighttime parking hours on strategic nights to a time to bring people downtown into our local businesses excuse me i couldn't agree more i would like to come downtown but instead it's far easier for me to go to a mall or to go to the east side because  parking yeah and you know since already said i'm not taking a bus you know primarily because of timing i mean it's i mean do you really think that you can take this this huge amount of revenue that we're getting off of parking and roll it back yeah i think it's priority one you know is helping our businesses be able to throw and drive here you know we have a lot of diverse restaurants here and you know it's just endorsed by the cell restaurant alliance and that's a huge concern for them is our parking policy is inhibiting them and even for workers to come into town where are they going to park to go to work so the access for workers and for customers are paramount you know you know at some point there's other ways to use our resources wisely and this is one where let's stop the parking policy on this attractive business and find other ways to generate revenue or find waste that we don't need to have big bertha is here in town hoping to drill through the hole so that whatever happens out there underneath the viaduct happens at the same point time there is a labor dispute over a believe it's for jobs for jobs so i mean we've gone to the trouble of spending an awful lot of money rightly or wrongly to get big bertha here is it how can we allow for jobs to hold that yeah that's a it's an interesting dilemma here with especially within the union community so i don't exactly know what's all going on behind the scenes on this thing but i would suspect that you know there's actually a much bigger picture of what's going on so i find it hard to believe that a big project like this  being held up for jobs so it's just it just it just seems inconceivable so you know i would definitely want to research that little bit more before we come to that decision but i think it is it is also technically one of the most challenging jobs and it's a it's a difficult once so in actually make sure this job gets going because there's going to be ups and downs on this project and there's just the nature that these this is a downright this is so you know but you know let's get this out of the way now and make sure it's clean all the way through right transportation by twenty forty i want to see a seattle where anyone can travel from north gate to west seattle on transit for less money and less time that takes to drive them to do that this sounds good sounds good yeah you know from a candidate standpoint but if you got to go from candidate to office holder yes well i think it starts with that discussion  vision you know we have good federal partners that we can work with you know with great senator patty murray has been inspirational for us on getting light rail funding but i think you know the federal market there's i think there's opportunities on the private side too with foreign direct investment opportunities you're seeing more money used for transportation projects from foreign direct investment on the b five programs going foreign investors on our transit system is that what you're saying well no they invest in the infrastructure so then what they get back is you know revenue so it's just like it's a private public partnership a lot of  so we have to capture those type of opportunities given a sense that there's just not as much public dollars so there's other public other financing out there we have to look at to be able to build what we're going to need because everyone has a vested interest i'm wondering if rail is particularly relevant anymore and here's and here's why just the other day i was watching a program from an mit professor who was or working on the basically it's a replicator out of it out of star trek and he was lamenting the fact that it's going to be twenty more years until this is actually like in china has the highest or has the largest high speed rail network now you know it's in shanghai recently and it's just amazing this is some they've put in obviously came with the development but the thing is we have to live up to that challenge if we don't we're going to fall farther and farther behind than what we're going to be left with you're still not go ride the bus so yeah so you need something i got to ask you this how are we going to get high speed rail to go through the hills and valleys that we have this this is just not a city that's made for rail direct as much as i would like for that well you know we're telling right now so we have room to tunnels and we're doing the biggest tunnel right now so there's a technical expertise there there is you know the ability to do it it just comes out of political will and funding and how to find it funny ok let's get to the how to find the funding how to find it funny we  got incomes are still not going not great it's not likely that we're going to get excise tax incomes you know into the city's coffers and the state coffers like we used to get right where we're going to find funding with that giant tunnelling yeah i mean i certainly recognize i mean the economic behind so we have a lot of catch up here too and people's ability to upward mobility has clearly been challenged and you know people have lost that so you know to continue to tax that base is that is that going to be workable you know it is it you know we have to let the you know the economy get back on its feet so i understand that part but i believe that there are federal partners there are private sector partners and other foreign direct investment to be able to get let's start the funding you know and start that discussion on how we actually it's going to put a real system in that's going to get us to what to only have about two minutes left and so this is kind of a it's a personal question why should the public trust you to question well you know my i'm going to this is you know as a as a father you know i want to raise a family degree a washington state my mom had two small businesses i grew up in the restaurant industry so i bring that kind of diverse background of immigrant family coming here building the life here in america you know learning the language and you know being part of society and getting my education and now i feel proud to be able to take this opportunity to run for office and do what's best and i think this is a story amongst lots of other friends of mine who want to run for office that are doing it and it's part of that same you know immigrant because my parents never had that experience too they had to escape china and you know years so they didn't have the opportunity to do that in in the country that they were born so i have that opportunity now that's why i want to do it what's the first thing you do if you get elected corrector public safety that is number one that's the number one thing i want to streets to feel safe with that thank you very much albert and really appreciate it good luck to you in the in the campaign because it's a very difficult thing to go through that's been our show you can go to his website we've had it up several times during the show and be sure to vote on election day take care