because it provides so many good things going on in seattle and also there are two other organizations to other does ation said i actually help promote this and i want always to promote them i know that i told them they could bring information if they wanted to so it the help of the public understand it should better make sure that legislation is passed so good jobs healthy families healthy living situations and as they say a dignified retirement for all which is becoming more and more difficult  effort that they've made teh want to thank both those two and then of course johnny high and tim robinson of tim still here are not the tim is the artist for these and both of the both of those people have been in the pipe place market for well over twenty five years could be thirty and one age are too much but they've been around for a very long time so i could you to go back to the market kids should be to both of them as artists to tim's work as is phenomenal type  miss running fine artist in the pipe waste market and i think it's the unique position to be in so i chose them because they have an interesting story to tell regarding the type place market a much net but also because they're good and i want to hear nice things with you and also i want to touch on the role of culture as being so they can activists or civic citizen activists because we often don't really think about it very much and  and continues to serve as one of the brightest people in the on the second floor of the legislative district working with lisa and frank video who has gone back to doing what he was and can continue to be while you work for me as an artist but as  has pointed out and i've worked with i'm very close over the years at you know art music literature the purpose is it opens up the world i believe for people next and look at things a little bit differently one of the things i want to have our music here is a little bit unexpected always good to jar people little bit because then they they sort of be a little off balance and start looking at things a little differently but seattle when you think about culture here we tend to think of major institutions and obviously grunge bands and things of that sort but we are a great city for culture with regards to marches and parades and there's just three i just want to mention yesterday m l k day right thousands of people turned up at low a lot of people don't know is that know one of the things i talk to people about is the importance of democracy the importance of participating in it but also and this is the thing that we don't have a thousand off you can't really have a vibrant accountable democracy once you have social justice as well the two go together we have to continually think about that life and then the other major cultural event gay pride march parade a should say over three hundred thousand people participating in you know your early but when mayor wes allman first started it a lot he started he approved it he put aside the last week of june to be gay pride week there were protests days four hundred fifty thousand people i think it's actually the largest in the world who are gathering on this but what's interesting is been there a number of times speaking they have actually more speakers and they have bands playing and it's really true and  speakers talk about drug reform and the kinds of things they point out things we sort of now but you know just tossing out one quick number as late as year twenty ten fifty two percent of all the drug in america were due to marijuana so it's more than just their what it was it was that as a gateway drug to hard drugs the gateway drug for arresting a lot of use and particularly unfortunately many many black youth in fact they were arrested at twice the rate of white youth and you can go on statistics about how that has impacted this whole country in a very negative way so but one of the things is that these three major events were all the result of community activists seeking to obviously change our society and that changes happen overnight that's one thing to talk about and in fact it took fo decades in seattle organizing to get legalization of same sex marriage and the legalization of recreational marijuana passed in two thousand and twelve by a popular vote initiative in both cases by eight to twelve percent margins and they went to a lot of struggles it wasn't easy as i like to say is that victory is it's often a marathon of incremental changes but in the end you have to have the endurance it continues to this way you do get that victory  and you know unfortunately we're not as close in the area of racial equality it's still a major ongoing struggle one of the local activists jesse who go be teacher at franklin high just recently in the weekly was interviewed he made a very interesting point he said you know we have to go in so many words that have to go beyond racial equality we need to start thinking of it  in the terms of restorative justice and the practice as a working together with people with those people who feel they've been hurt and those people being accused and together together you get into basically see the world differently and work is consciousness you know in a by the way we say i define a citizen activist not just someone is going to devote a life to it that someone has like a superhero or something that's right basically it's recognizing the you have the right and that you have the potential to improve your living conditions and that's a very important first step because a lot of people don't even get to that first step recognizing that they can improve the working conditions and they should and they have a right to it's funny  caught class consciousness you know and use the right carlos and say you know you work in a factory else you look around you realize you're not you know you're not getting very far in your life and so you need to organize with fellow workers nowadays modern psychology i think it's that impact your life and the life of others and that if you are not going to engage in influencing those decisions then your future is going to be created by someone other than you and i t of the example which i begin the book with with two people who i suspect most people don't know here but they were the people who got the ball rolling for the fifteen dollar minimum wage and they were both fast food workers one was martina phelps and i was jason harvey martino was twenty one years old she had been working at mcdonald's for over a year and she began to notice that her paycheck number of hours she was put into the classic case of wage that after right and she would govern complain to the manager and they're just brushed off continue to do so and in that situation she realizes she was living in an intolerable situation i'm just i don't read much of the book by pick up quotes and this is a quote from her after well it got so bad she realized she had to take it upon herself as a quote i just didn't care what they thought of me they were not part of my family no one cared and i had to do what was necessary to do and this is a really heartfelt this is someone who obviously is very buff the family very thinking of people as being kind to people caring and realizing in this work situation people didn't care about her she had to sort of break out of the mold that she had been raised to actually do something something it was very sick frightening and jason who was an early forty's had worked eight years at the burger king had never received a raise and when he pointed out to his boss the boss said oh you do get a raise every year because you're on minimum wage and there's an escalator clause for inflation so he was approached by squeeze the workers even more they were going to exclude trainees from the minimum wage and therefore reduce his hours and he was barely hanging on so he was very frightened about talking to anyone in a work situation so he agreed to meet this person off away from work and he agreed to sign a petition very frightened about that and then both him both he and martina learned about this one day work out that was one day walkout in may of twenty th e twenty twelve and he talked about what it took for someone who worked eight years in a low paying job to make up his mind to potentially risk that job but you know what's interesting he pointed out what really motivated him besides being a bad work situation and this is was important but having victories he said he really knew he realized that the paid sick leave legislation had passed in seattle and for the first time he was getting paid sick leave he had never had before and he realized that only was accomplished because people reeling to stand up organize and fight for and that gave him the credit a gun in the courage to do something so h quote was part of me was scared out of my wits to do something like this as necessary as it was to do and then he looked at me he was really proud he goes you know but courage is not the absence of fear it's telling fear what its place is like well and he walked out you know it's interesting he was the only person to walk out from his place because most of  fellow workers only spoke spanish and he didn't speak spanish he was only person walk out but when he came back the rest of them were so proud of him there were so bold and they started making planes and management retaliated by laying off a couple of them they took one troublemaker and they made him a manager twenty cents more an hour and because of that he could go on strike as benjamin so you know the point being that you aware of your situation you get organize with others and you can get something accomplished the second step is know what you want the politicians to do doesn't do any good is going to point because they will say yeah that's that's  situation sorry about and i heard that a lot and i give you two quick examples one is you may want to stop something bad from happening an example going to use is building a new waste transfer station georgetown happening over years ago or you want you may want to replace the status quo with something new and give an example of the self self manage homeless encampments that replaced individuals who are sleeping under bridges and doorways with a place to go twenty four seven with protection having other people and being self managed in the transfer station it's enters the citizens to lead the way there and after two two residents to find a new dump ground oregon and then of the sort of funny with a simple answer was like well why don't we just reduce the waste like da and then another train came along who was a researcher with a nonprofit she volunteered her time and then she started the group called zero waste seattle they hooked up council member richard comment who always wanted to push through zero waste but felt that the bureaucracy wasn't there he didn't have enough support in the city council was supportive ban and then a fee in plastic bags it took about a year over year we did it was only one vote against it and this is the next thing there will be opposition and you will have to struggle for the base of the plastic industry came to town spent over a million and a half dollars paid for signature gatherers and they won the initiative got you know a referendum basically we said we passed a law that would have the people vote on it they hammered home all these lies distort everything and they won so that was not the of the story right because you know in the end the only way you get to victory is by getting to the victory which means you have to continue the struggle and there was a watching going on other candidates came forward who were going to support richard and push the issue even further michel bryant came on he were the community along with richard much of us we came back we said ok we won't charge you a fee on the pack of bags which is banned  and you know is actually a stronger legal position to take and we passed it and we wore them down and ran to a fact and other cities started doing it as well worked with the mayor at the time norm rice who is supportive they found the where the gates foundation is now there was an old bus bar and they moved in with the city's blessing and they were able to create a self managed encampment in this case was actually in a building and eventually they had to move and they were asked to move by the chamber the interesting of the residents there did not ask them to move but when the mayor did they did they did not want to create you know basically they struggle and they have continued cameras until mayor nagin supporter that the council sort of dragged their feet never really came through and very was elected he did follow through on his promise and now we have three locations and we're they're not living under anything right now what are you talking about you know at least have a place to go around and have protection have a place to keep their goods but now there's actually turning into not tent camp and so using what they called many houses and working with moving up the  has stayed as well and you ask you know you have a you have a problem right and you're not complaining and you want a specific thing it want that's important and if they say i'm supportive that basically is zero ok because the time anyone is supportive if they're not support is there you know they get a dead heart so you know so you really want to put him on the spot you want to basically go will you sponsor this legislation i want you're not just your name so you'll vote for it we want your name upfront and watching the sale sponsored nine times out of ten or nine out of nine would ever you may not get that the nasa be a co sponsor but if you get a was a pleasant one but what you get someone here is doing one of the first three or support of the something strong asked to keep in the loop now legislation changes all the time there's always going to draft as always you make changes but try to to make sure that you're in the loop as much as possible and that really helps the legislature as well the council member craft something fact one of the successes i had the paid sick leave was i just worked very closely with the advocates day in and day out every change we've measured is going forward trying not to run too far ahead of the of your supporters because i've seen that happen and you end up making people upset and not really moving the ball forward you have to be team player fourth make allies ok you can't do it alone you need allies in paid sick leave look for the broadest sort of allies we really were closely with main street and main street coalition which is a small businesses use those businesses that supported pake paid to sick leave to write editorials make sure that they were in many ways also part of the public face we used health officials to point out that you know if you're in a restaurant something coughing easy you need allies because they are often will be able to provide research and you need a constant give and take to go back and  narrative and paid sick leave as well you know all the small business will fold we found a research done in san francisco had their eight years before that in fact restaurants of their favorite got a business did better in san francisco with paid sick leave than those that did not so you need to get the truth that which often will support progressive changes we're talking about here and also with allies between situational allies ask if the devote staff staff is critical you can do a lot with is very good in a short campaign period but also it with staff that means that you can go back and get something done right away better than you know unfortunately all tears have otherwise it's media media's not them if they're willing to outsider be go for a coffee find out what makes in tech what they're interested in particularly columnists columnists as you probably know the stars in the media will because they can basically write whatever they want are them if you can convince one of them that this is an important controversial topic they can take off and write about it so work the media and then also getting more sophisticated has assignment editors particularly for t v and radio find out who they are in other words do the research on media learn how to work with it and how to direct them corporations do it all the time fat step is a said using data make sure you get it but also review the data that the other side is using in the area of for instance there was legislation being promoted by one of the council members to basically ban panhandling downtown that you would ban so much as the large fines for aggressive pan honey which is already a lot of books but it was basically brought across as this will stop panhandling because a lot of people are concerned and they came out with an opinion poll showing that see people are really frightened about paying him like well we got to hold the polls that's my analysis and that was not shown to be true and then we discard data crunching because the whole thing was panhandling breeds crime and then we looked at where you know the people who are receiving food stamps human services  receiving basically overnight shelter tend to be paying here in those areas compared that to the nine one one calls and crime data there were some of the lowest in the city i was a very powerful data we released that data we were basically going toe to toe sumi looking at your opponents what are their arguments get the data that is looking at and i'll tell you it's like people drowning in an average you know three foot river it's there's always another side to data you go deep enough you could always find some kind of addictions and some something doesn't fit and that's what you're going for and then don't be afraid to ask for public disclosure request we did that instance there it turns out we came across an e mail from the police chief to the prime sponsor of this legislation that said you know him he's not a problem for the police it's not a crime that pretty much ools that are available to you for getting your word out and for organizing now you know go home chapter all kinds of tools but there's let's start with protests protests are important or critical you know a lot of controversy about you know black lives matter disrupting a bernie sanders speech here and you know that's not my personal style but i and some people came and said well is that right or wrong just look tax not the issue right or wrong these people are angry these people are upset it's going to happen but what you need to figure out is where do you go afterwards and where do you do as well as that it doesn't have to be disruptive and in any sort of disruptive in any sort of bombing other people in fact i used the example there are many people remember tommy smith and john carlos one nine hundred sixty eight at the olympics we're talking about you know when the games they had just won the two hundred meter race tommy smith had set a world record and they got to the platform they bowed their heads with the anthem was being play and they raised their black leather fierce in a power salute and later they described it as a human rights salute captured not just u s international attention it was so totally broken the mold and protocol there immediately called back united states they were stripped of their medals they received death threats and sports illustrated i'm a cover wrote black athlete by shame but you know they created a positive history came across athletes like myself who can only aspire to up to their example of putting principle before personal interest that's what consented it's a very scary but very thing to do for the number of people who died outside in this year in cold due to being homeless and i have first in the with what they were there for i'm sure a lot of people then start asking a reminder that we are a society initiatives i want to talk about an issue just briefly to very important tool sometimes it is used by the enemy i mean when i say the enemy i mean people who want more power take power away from folks we know who those folks are and they use paid signature gatherers and that's another with they were a lot of talk about but one of the other reasons i had both johnny and tim from the pike place market because the pike place market everyone is taking on sort of  was saved it wasn't perceived that way nationally there was a huge federal grant available to the city i've heard this before and i'm hearing it now often for other projects this is free money all you have to do  x with this free money what they're going to do with the high place market is here down ninety percent of the buildings and replace it with spanking new hotels offices and restaurants sounds good to me these buildings are falling apart right and eight of the nine council members are in favor of it as well as the mayor as well as both newspapers and even some of the small businesses said hey you know i can take advantage of  know we all know that you're steinbrck a professor sometimes grumpy but stubborn which is what you need to be and other people joined him in that watson and things of that sort journalist within three weeks they gathered twenty five thousand signatures they put it on the ballot that passed by close to seventy five percent of the vote were the highest ever the leaders of this city were out to lunch when lasting public forums think of holding a public forum if you need momentum you know invite the elected their senator  a citizen nine eleven occurred muslim community in particular was being harassed listen teachers being harassed in school police are doing raids didn't run the market in the in the central in the rain or valley and in that instance what thousand people showed up it was packed and they had testimony council listened and from that came hate and then one american and one america which we place that i worked with them passing legislation some of the first the nation passing a code that said our police officers in fact known no city employee would cooperate with ins to check on whether someone was did not have the proper pay or papers thank quickly i'll get through this out media tools i would just say that you know books are great for in depth long term organizing but don't forget posters member fifteen now poster  day of of social media the fifteen now porter poster was probably one of the most powerful images out there to organize people around tweeting still very good things excellent for getting people out really for demonstrations and movements and getting the word out of hundred forty characters has its limits blogs are good for disseminating information you have to drive people to the blog they don't they're dead so they have to be hooked up with something i actually like email list it goes a little fashion that you can it's a good way of keeping people informed the last weapon or whether tool i should say have been told keep away from military examples elections vote it's important to vote because voting determines who controls government that determines whether you build schools or you build for profit sports stadiums that decides whether police are accountable or not whether people can find affordable housing or do some paint jobs it's not the marketplace that's looking out for the community that's not the purpose of the marketplace purpose the marketplace is a sell something make a profit the purpose of a democratic government is to protect its people and that's what voting is all about is making sure that we control the government and i want to successful right wing organizations united states called alec that you know had the amazing job of controlling state governments that he had i said you know despite the political differences between conservatives and liberals or right wing and left wing activists the have voted suppression and assuming also that they have good information but given those seattle police officer who attacked c l city government for violating his liberty by requiring him to attend social just training because it violated his liberty he wrote to his fellow police officers watch out the elections have consequences be heard both of them understood where the power for changing the world lives why is it us in making sure we get out and the last step and i mean with this is it's attitude it's important the first sort of basic attitude is listen because you learn more by listening than by talking knowledge is power that's what you're searching for know what your opponent opponent  know what he or she is promising to deliver listen for inconsistency is in their message and listen to what people want and what they need they may not be the same often and you may  create the future belongs with the citizens you have to recognize that the strongest tool is a functional accountable democracy and that is that we must always strive for because the libertarians the koch brothers the far right their goal is very simple it's essentially to shrink government to the point zero because they will have the playing field to themself they continue began with the began but ron reagan popularized it by mocking government and making a joke and mocking public service making them as lazy and basically saying you can't trust government they want to feed the image of government being cap and as of corporations don't go bankrupt that they want to feed the image of government is not helping you is of corporations  hope weakness displaces strength and those who benefit the dysfunctional democracy reap the rewards at the expense of the rest of us and lastly enjoy life and pursue happiness because if you're afraid to be positive you're always groping your eyes complying how can you expect others to be positive but going for it right you have to realize that if if you if  you realize that it's right to create your own future then you become a citizen acting thank you we invest our money can't we be activists with co ops and social responsible investment i mean government i'm sure i'm totally with you but we can be activists in other areas too oh absolutely i mean i was with wash per bunch of public interest research group and that's all about basically protecting consumer interest i mean this is a market economy we're not going to change it l k and we have the ability to enforce our market positively in fact some of the people here if you're a social investing you know it's critical where you put your dollars and who you support obviously there's multiple issues everything we stop the urban or the development people from giving these huge sums of money to corporations and others to win them over prime minister paddy subsidize you know as we have in seattle with these tall skyscrapers and i want everything we can to get a decent transportation system how can we get that money flowing back to small businesses that really deserve it and make your betters and collaborative systems working with people how can risk involved in stopping the money games well that struggle has been going on for a while i was at it for eighteen years it's interesting i  was being interviewed me asked me you know how do how do people in the community see the the consul you know there's a spectrum right left i said you know my experience going out the community groups in particular neighborhood groups they don't think of it that way it's basically proto delap are not critical per because they they recognize how often the impact is to their neighborhood and how unbalanced it is often i'll tell you that's going to be an ongoing struggle it's not going to end any one particular time ok i think what's i mean there is going to be a major struggle and debate coming up this coming  not the best bargain we could have made but any case i don't get to walk a sure but with a good example most cities our size require developers to put in between ten twelve sometimes as high as fifteen percent low income housing a new development in seattle we barely have got to five percent ok and this the whole arguments plus the push it up higher that my mind is one of the major because if you do that throughout the city you in fact assure and this is how it works that you have people in the neighborhood supporting local businesses if you're just going to be looking at high end housing you know you're looking about people who basically are not  local store they want to go hide that in stores and expensive places more or that buy stuff offline so that's that's one important struggle the other is in the area transportation of thankfully the  system that we passed a tax on that but one of my pet concerns is that we do not pay enough attention to how we get people to work using public transportation  spend too much time thinking about the next fancy project particularly fixed rail which i've always been i would say a skeptic about its cost effectiveness and if you look at the the  transportation buses i wanted to make sure that we were not going to disarray siphon off large amounts of that or any money to the first car street first avenue streetcar i could not ring out that i had to the director  transportation a commitment that they would not happen which concerns me and this is the classes or i brought up the pipes market there is it perhaps as large as a seventy million dollar grant from the federal government to to build the streetcar where people don't talk about is probably going to cost close to two hundred million it's like where does that other money come from you know and you know street cars have a function a positive function they generally help the retail businesses along the line for that mile line and i never argue against that they don't if they're not incorporated they don't provide reliable fast service they don't help the whole system and you have to think of a system of transportation so that's my major concern about that project and i would encourage people to watch it closely and put pressure on the council members to asked right questions and not go blindly down a very deep hole that they may not get out of easily so so i can be more specific but those are two items you keep your eyes on yes this is a habit i i just don't want to let go of right yet you know in addressing you i still want to say council member like otto what are your thoughts what are your thoughts on the subject you've raised of voting today voting participation has just just drops off every year every year it gets worse and worse and it relates i think to how people perceive that government and elected  with all the things they juggle their own careers and elected the other politicians they see politics as something that really does not lead to solutions  and this is talking to people that are very involved in their community they're volunteers they care about issues but they've lost faith in politics what what in your experience can help turn that around and could you solve the traffic problem walk to work yeah well first of all you know actually even though our latest turnout was lower than typical in seattle i don't want to grade on a curve but if you did seattle actually is doing amazingly better you know new york even when the blasio one that i think they're churning out with is less than thirty percent i think twenty five percent los angeles was down in the twenty's as well unfortunately it's come in a lot of cities and one of the problems is there is truly there's some structural things you can do to increase voting for one thing people have done the registers important do same day registration you can basically do in europe they have election day holidays to turn out so there's a lot of structural changes you can do as one of the things i'm interested working with are some national groups trying to do that type of thing but so the structural things you mention mostly attitude people you know losing confidence wherever there is a contested race generally it's higher so you do want contested races and that's one of the reasons why public financing campaigns is important because you allow candidates to to run that may not run and offer different ideas the other two is the other issue to the other way to get as candidates who are sensible but are willing to take strong positions on is a good example tremendous turnout for her in west seattle i mean overall you could say well they're higher both in the past but you know they outspent her three to one and she won and there isn't and the reason there are so much money spent against her is because initially can do something and so basically what it comes down to is you want to vote for people officer not the side nice people ok that's i mean be nice if they were but with support and is it are they had to whatever early actually going to be out there and win the fight and i think that to a certain extent there's an obligation on activists to actually as you throw your support to someone just don't endorse or walk work with that person and don't abandon that person with an office that's the next they process a lot of people want to do office well intentioned and really positive values and they feel lost partly because they don't have a strong support system here are extremely well known and apparently the courts are going to make their decision thursday morning and then all the legislation is going to get voted on in the senate thursday at ten am so the question is  and that's the legislation that is sort of change the constitution so that a very small minority can decide about any tax increases that's one part of it and the other part is a loss of samskaras for you know one point seven two billion dollars so both of those are going to that so far is happening on thursday so what and most people don't know all that is all happening on thursday so what do we do salon is without doubt and i have the numbers you know i forget the powerhouse in getting the word out and she works with people and she has her own party which is good but you work you can create your own message should be really simple if you're going to vote coming out unfortunately publicans you know are in there but yet they make sure that you get whoever's there to vote against it yeah and makes you have a good argument you might lead to different argue for democrats republicans but yes thanks for coming you began with a very heartwarming appeal to a culture you know calling out the artists you invited and everything but then you sort of transitioned into a series of descriptions of marijuana gay marriage fifteen dollars all this sort of legislation and then you walked us through the whole sausage making of legislation yeah and so due respect to the sausage fans out there what would you say to those people including for example the black lives matter activists who say what we don't need is a series of further laws what we need is transformations of mindsets transformations at the cultural level so do you agree with those people and if you do so what would you say is the role of citizen activists in and in acting that social justice change at a cultural level as opposed to strictly legislative piecemeal way well i thank you know i am very conscious star of the cultural because i i think it's important to think that culture shapes how we view the world and i think that's what you're saying and so how do we change people's view of the world and that the sausage making is maybe seen as sort of not directly approach addressing the issue of well you're not changing people's views the world is changing but they go hand in hand and that's the point i'm trying to make is that you've got to do both you just doing without the other it doesn't work you  enforce laws that people are not going to believe in and if you can't often change people way people see the world if they are limited in the information they get and if they point of trying to change the way we look at the world change the culture where we're in is in men's task it's something that does not happen rarely happens overnight  the whole issue black lives matter is unfortunately been around a long time and in different different ways the formation now ago next month and they were arrested for obscenity they objected to they were arrested for obstruction they resisted the rest of her restriction handcuffed and beaten two months later they if they were in the black panther party for self defense you know they they're very much in the wave of changing the way we look at it look at the world but they also believed in political organizing and trying to change the laws so i don't have a short answer for i mean i think you have i think you have a legitimate issue i think that issue that we all struggle with i think part of that is like that workshop i went to  the m l k workshop is teaching social justice one of the things that i think we need to do is look at the educational system one of the things i tie it back to democracy a lot because the point i'm trying to get at is trying to redefine or highlight citizenship being a citizen is that we all have value and that we all have some control over our future and we all have some control over government that's the value i'm trying to get to work with because i think that value will get us to the point of recognizing that citizenship in a democracy is based on social justice and i think that's a door opener for a lot of people who if i go and talk to just about social justice right away and i know a lot of the group a very conservative household their minds are opened some trying to open their minds  and all the john birchers would get their hair cut there for some reason i don't know what and then leave the pamphlets my dad who never went beyond eighth grade but read a lot would read him and bring him home so and i you know and i so i understand how those people view the world and they're still out there they're called john birchers but a lot out there i want to crack that that group i want to open up their minds i want them to to understand that there needs to be a cultural change so