[SEATTLE, Wash.] – (MTN) Despite COVID cases increasing in 31 states, millions of Americans will come together on Thursday to celebrate Thanksgiving. Established as a national holiday by the Roosevelt administration in 1941 to aid in economic recovery and boost morale as the nation came out of the grips of the Great Depression, the contemporary version of Thanksgiving Americans celebrate, bears little resemblance to its namesake feast attended by pilgrims and Wampanoags in New England in the early 17th century.
In a recent Washington Post article detailing Wampanoag feelings about Thanksgiving four centuries later, Mashpee Wampanoag Cultural Outreach Coordinator, Darius Coombs, stated: “For us, Thanksgiving kicked off colonization.” English settler-colonization produced devastating consequences for Indigenous peoples throughout the nation. It introduced deadly diseases, stripped Native peoples of their ancestral lands, aimed to eliminate Indigenous culture, and worked to erase any evidence of violence and genocide from its history.
The whitewashed version of the Thanksgiving myth told at dinner tables and at schools across the nation that portrays the relationship between pilgrims and Wampanoags as peaceful and reciprocal erases the dispossession and genocide of the Indigenous nations of the Northeast and other Native peoples that soon followed.
Indigenous peoples along the New England coast had already negotiated a series of encounters with Europeans by the time pilgrims reached Plymouth in 1620. Aside from encounters with the French, Spanish, and Dutch, Native peoples witnessed a failed English settlement attempt at Roanoke in the late 16th century and the establishment of the Jamestown colony in Virginia in 1607. Apart from Jamestown, most Europeans were temporary nuisances for Native peoples, as colonists often extracted resources and labor in service of the metropole—or home colony—before returning to their homeland. The English, however, never intended to leave, but rather to become permanent residents. This introduced a new and detrimental form of colonization Native peoples had yet to encounter.
While traditional colonialism generally resulted in temporary invasions, English settler colonialism had entirely different aims. As historian Patrick Wolfe explained, settler colonialism is a “structure, not an event,” whereby settler colonizers develop lasting institutions predicated on the elimination of Native peoples. Little did the Wampanoag know that the beleaguered visitors that reached their shores in early November of 1620 planned to stay.
Pilgrims reached the northeast at a time when Wampanoags experienced significant turmoil that included crippling waves of diseases introduced through contact with Europeans. Diseases dramatically decreased Wampanoag numbers and left the remaining population vulnerable to more powerful Native polities in the region, such as the Narragansett to the West. Wampanoag leader Massasoit, much to the chagrin of his people took a “wait and see” approach with the newcomers and hoped to create an alliance that offered a degree of mutual protection. With Tisquantum—a Wampanoag man who learned to speak English during his time as a captive—acting as a liaison, Massasoit hesitantly brokered an arrangement with pilgrims that later came back to not only haunt him but Native peoples for generations to come.
In the initial stages of this alliance, power swayed in the Wampanoag’s favor. As historian Colin Calloway notes, Europeans often depended on Native peoples “for food, information, and assistance in finding their way,” as well as “adjusting to a new environment.”
This proved no different for English colonists—especially relative to the environment. New England winters were unlike anything colonists experienced in their homeland. In fact, during their first winter at Plymouth, more than half of the pilgrim population died as a result of harsh conditions and resource scarcity. Thus, colonists were reliant on Indigenous people’s knowledge and hospitality to ensure their survival.
The fact colonists became dependent on Wampanoags is evidenced in a letter written in December of 1621 by Edward Winslow. Writing to a friend in England, Winslow noted how during the last spring colonists set “some twenty acres of Indian corn… and according to the manner of the Indians…manured our grounds with herrings.” Winslow also elaborated on colonists’ relations with Wampanoags, noting how they found them to be faithful allies and “often went to them” in times of need. Winslow’s letter goes on to demonstrate that during the early period of their relationship, the Wampanoags took on a paternal role: teaching pilgrims how to farm, gather food, and even hunt game in the wilderness—a place colonists often refused to go without the company of their Indigenous allies.
More interesting, though, are Winslow’s references to the first Thanksgiving. In this same letter, Winslow described the event that became a national myth as a “three-day feast attended by King Massasoit and some ninety men.” Winslow noted that Wampanoags “went out and killed five deer” for the feast “which they brought to the plantation and bestowed upon our governor, captain, and others.”
What Winslow detailed as a feast of celebration that included the Wampanoags and colonists leaves out one very important piece of information—pilgrims never intended to invite their Native allies to join in their festivities.
As many historians have documented, the Wampanoags only found out about the feast after colonists shot off rounds of celebratory gunfire. Concerned his allies might be in danger, Massasoit gathered many of his warriors and went to the colony to investigate. Upon arrival, colonists informed Massasoit they were celebrating a successful and bountiful harvest. In a demonstration of good faith and reciprocity, the Wampanoags gifted their English allies with five deer, which served as the focal point of the feast. Only after imparted these gifts upon their English friends, did colonists welcome their Native allies to join.
It is important to note that the celebration that became the root of the contemporary Thanksgiving myth would not have been possible without the Indigenous knowledge provided to colonists. And while the feast represents a cordial, yet unequal relationship between the two parties, English friendliness soon turned to hostility. The relationship once defined by coexistence ended, and a new relationship based on conflict and violence emerged.
Roughly five decades after the “first Thanksgiving” took place, an ever-growing population of colonists blatantly rejected the cordiality of their predecessors. By the late 1660s, Massasoit saw his people and territory shrink considerably—a consequence of the prolonged encounters between Native peoples and the English. Too old to continue in his position of leadership, Massasoit passed the torch to his son Metacomet, who is often referred to in the historical record by his English name “Philip.” Having grown weary of ongoing land encroachment and cultural destruction through religious conversion, Metacomet replaced friendliness with resistance, and in June of 1675, violent conflict broke out between Native peoples in the region and colonists that became known as “King Philips War.”
King Philips War lasted nearly three years and is recognized as “one of the bloodiest conflicts in American history.” This period of violence resulted in the destruction of numerous Native villages and the death of 2,500 English colonists equaling roughly thirty percent of the settler population. Native peoples in the region, however, failed to emerge victoriously.
Rather as violence and dispossession escalated, Metacomet watched as the English sold his wife and son into slavery in the Caribbean. Then, in an effort to deter further Indigenous resistance efforts, colonial leaders executed Metacomet. Viewing him as a “treacherous fiend who deserved a traitor’s death” the English quartered his body and cut off his head, placing it on a wooden pole at the entrance to Fort Plymouth where it remained for more than two decades. In the decades that followed, Native genocide exponentially increased as settler-colonists worked to dispossess Native peoples and gain control of valuable land and resources.
Despite this, Native peoples continue to find various ways to resist, rebuild, and heal from the generations of trauma settler colonization has produced. So, while many of us are actively and willingly participating in a reenactment of a tradition that has little basis in fact, Native peoples across the nation will reject the myth of Thanksgiving in favor of observing a day of mourning to reflect on all that they have lost—which all began with a friendly meal.
[SEATTLE] – (MTN) Malcontent News is conducting a series of interviews with 2021 Seattle mayoral candidates. We have contacted, or are in the process of contacting the most viable candidates, inviting them to answer seven prepared questions. Today we feature Seattle City Council President, Lorena Gonzalez.
For all candidates, the first interview will be about their platform and vision. Prior to the primary election, we will conduct a second round that will focus on differentiation, and challenging positions and visions. Once the final candidates are selected in the primary, we will invite them for one last round of interviews.
All candidates for the first round will be asked the same seven questions, and have received a copy in advance. These questions were created by our editorial board, and are aligned to topics of key interest to the residents of Seattle.
Malcontent News is committed to providing equal time for all candidates, and operating under a “fairness doctrine” for all candidates.
We are publishing a transcript of each interview. Transcripts may be lightly edited to remove, umms, ahhs, pauses, and aid in readability.
Jennifer Smith: Hi malcontents. This is Jennifer and I’m here today with Lorena Gonzalez. She is running for Seattle mayor Hello, Lorena, how are you doing today?
Lorena Gonzalez: I’m doing great, Jennifer. Thanks for having me.
Jennifer Smith: Well, thank you so much for being here with us and being willing to share your platform with our audience. Can I ask you what inspired you to run for mayor?
Lorena Gonzalez: You know, I get that question a lot. It’s an important question. Listen, I’m running for mayor of Seattle because I really believe in this city. I love the city of Seattle and I know many people, including many of your listeners and Watchers do as well. I have spent most of my life working through many challenges. I first started as a migrant farmworker out in central Washington, where at the young age of eight years old, I earned my first paycheck picking cherries in orchards in central Washington state and living in migrant farm labor camps. And I worked my way through that to eventually becoming a civil rights attorney here in the city of Seattle, representing women, families, children, and people and all sorts of civil rights cases, including in police brutality and racial discrimination cases across the state.
I want to be able to build on that work on the work that I’ve been doing on the city council for the last seven years to really deliver on this civil rights moment to make sure that we’re producing equitable community safety. And I also want to address issues of deep poverty and inequity in our city that are largely along racial lines. We live in a tale of two cities in many ways. And I think my unique lived experience and the fact that I’m still not benefiting from incredible wealth will serve the people well. Particularly those working families and workers in our city who continue to be left out of our economy and who unfortunately end up entering into a cycle of poverty and homelessness. I believe my record and my experience on the city council to deliver on big, bold, progressive ideas is exactly what the city needs in the next mayor as we come out of COVID. And as we look at an equitable economic recovery.
Question one – houselessness crisis
Jennifer Smith: I think that’s an excellent segue into our first question. Seattle is facing an ongoing crisis related to unhomed peoples Washington state experienced a 6.2% increase in homelessness during 2019-2020 and King County spends over $1 billion per year in public and private investment in support of approximately 12,500 houseless people with very disappointing results. If you are elected mayor of Seattle, how would you address this crisis and how do you think your plan would provide aid in resolving this crisis? Both in the short and in the long term.
Lorena Gonzalez: Because this issue is so controversial. I think it’s important to really start from a place of acknowledging where we have common ground. I think that we actually agree on a lot in this space. I think in general, we all agree that we want to create a system and a community in which people aren’t required to live outside because of a lack of housing. We want to be able to use our parks as parks. We want to be able to use our sidewalks and we want to be able to use other public spaces for their intended use. And we don’t want people suffering needlessly in our streets. So I think the reality is there a lot of interventions, a lot of solutions, a lot of ideas that work permanent supportive housing, transitional housing, rapid rehousing, increasing non congregate shelter options for people that’ll meet their needs, and providing people with mental, behavioral, and substance use disorder, treatment and services and healthcare that is linguistically culturally appropriate is what we know works and it is what we need to keep doing.
The issue has been that we are in a little bit of a log jam because of a lot of different personalities who can’t come together to set aside egos and to just get to work on those solutions. What is different about me is I have significant deep relationships with our city council, with our regional elected leaders, with our state elected leaders, and with our federal elected leaders, to really make a difference in this space and to shepherd forward all of the solutions I just listed in a way that is going to produce more meaningful results. I’m looking forward to being able to lead in that fashion and to walk into that challenge with eyes wide open, but also take advantage of all the opportunities I believe exist about the areas that we agree upon as it relates to addressing the needs of people experiencing homelessness.
Question two – infrastructure and economic recovery
Jennifer Smith: COVID of course has exacerbated the homeless crisis, but it’s also really something we need to discuss in the context of economic recovery and development, as well as addressing Seattle’s crumbling, transit infrastructure, such as the West Seattle bridge. It’s a great importance to many people. Some are also expressing concern about large corporations and many in the workforce, actually leaving Seattle. The question that is threefold, how do you plan on tackling infrastructure, aiding an economic recovery and what concerns do you have about the loss of corporations and workers.
Lorena Gonzalez: COVID is really, especially for communities of color, really highlighted some of the pre-existing inequities and made them worse. I think that COVID has left no households, untouched assuming you don’t live in the one percent in our city. Most households have been impacted in some way. My household is no exception to being touched in a negative way by COVID my own husband who is in the restaurant industry found himself unemployed for the better half of last year and most of this year – and just recently returned to work because of his restaurant finally reopened. So I understand how important it is to support our local economy and to make sure that folks are going to be able to not just make it through the next few months but to actually be able to thrive. So I think it’s important to make sure that we are continuing to provide things like rental assistance and eviction relief and other supports to our local economy to make sure that they can continue to weather the storm and eventually get to a place where we are thriving.
Reopening downtown is critically important. It’s important because there are thousands of workers in the region that rely on those jobs, hotel workers retail workers, other restaurant service, industry workers, arts, and culture workers. They all rely on a bustling moving downtown and that’s why it’s so important for us to continue to ramp up our vaccination efforts and to continue following public health guidelines to make sure we’re not rolling back our economic restrictions. I think this is a really complex issue. We have a little bit more of a storm to weather here before we are going to start seeing some uptick, but we are seeing that people, including corporations in our city, are committed to being here. And I really appreciate those corporations who acknowledge that taking care of their workers is part of a good business strategy. It means that they are going to continue to, in my mind, being good partners to us at the city to help us get workers back to work safely, but also to continue to be good neighbors and help us build the vibrant city that attracts their workers to come here in the first place.
Jennifer Smith: Back to the question of infrastructure for say lives in West Seattle. The other day it is an absolute nightmare up there with construction, and there’s so much being done. How do you plan on addressing issues of infrastructure, especially if we’re looking as an example, the West Seattle bridge
Lorena Gonzalez: Well, I live in West Seattle, so you don’t have to tell me more than once about the impact of the West Seattle bridge. It is the number one issue that people approach me about as I move about in my own community here in West Seattle. It is a regional asset. It was the right thing to close it down because of the significant public safety issues that it posed. But it is proven to all of us how important it is to maintain our infrastructure. Of course, the federal government is looking at funding infrastructure projects. It’s a little unclear to us what bridges will be prioritized. But in the interim at the city, we are looking at strategies to make sure that we’re taking care of our bridge infrastructure, including currently looking at a bonding proposal of up to $100 million to take care of the much-needed infrastructure need of bridges across the city.
So that’s going to be something that the next mayor is going to have to implement and execute on. As a sitting city council member, who’s being asked to vote and consider this strategy, I’ll be ready on day one to implement that as a priority to make sure that no other neighborhood in the city of Seattle is left effectively on an Island and isolated and having to deal with the immense amount of traffic that’s caused by rerouting. It has been really difficult for the entire region to deal with our failed bridge, and we can’t allow it to happen again.
Question three – does Seattle have a crime and/or inequity problem
Jennifer Smith: As a result of protest-related to the murder of George Floyd, for which Derek Chauvin was just convicted on all three counts, police violence and ongoing racial inequality is a major topic. Seattle has a national reputation as crime-ridden, dirty and unsafe. At one point it was labeled by the previous presidential administration as an anarchic jurisdiction. How do you plan on addressing the continuing racial inequality that exists within Seattle, how do you plan to mitigate those and make people see Seattle more favorably?
Lorena Gonzalez: I just want to sort of start by acknowledging how important it is to not only say the words ‘Black Lives Matter,’ but to effectuate those words in our policy and local jurisdictions are the ones who hold the most amount of power to truly transform policy, to produce equitable community safety. And by that, I mean, we have control of our police departments. We have control of their budgets, and we have control of how we leverage our dollars to invest or not in community-based safety initiatives that will help to reduce the need to engage in criminal behavior because of a lack of opportunities. SoI want to acknowledge that this is really important work. It is not going to happen overnight. It’s not going to happen in one mayoral term. It is long and steady work that is really important for the next mayor to fulfill and continue.
I think that the reality is Seattle continues to be a vibrant city. That doesn’t mean that we are crime-free. It does mean that we have an obligation to make sure that we are meeting current public safety needs with the tools that we currently have while also working on continued investment and scaling up of human service-based programs that are really going to produce more equitable community safety. That means that we’re not flipping a switch, right? We’re not flipping a switch overnight on 911 or pulling away from public safety services, but we are doing the slow and steady work of making sure that we are meeting the 911 response needs of the city while also investing in communities who have been starved of investment for far too long. I think that’s just really important work for the next mayor to understand, and to be committed to, and to make difficult decisions about what our police department should and should not be doing in terms of their bodies of work. It is going to be a significant challenge for the next mayoral administration.
Question four – police reform
Jennifer Smith: Speaking about SPD when compared to the West Coast cities of Portland, San Francisco, San Jose, Sacramento, Oakland, and San Diego, Seattle has the second-highest cost for police officers tied with Oakland and the second-highest officer per capita behind San Francisco. Additionally, the average officer makes $153,000 a year before benefits, according to the Seattle Times. Despite the large force and supporting budget, Seattle police report, slow response times and claim the issue is a lack of staffing. The budget was cut by approximately 18% and staffing levels were adjusted to support roughly 1,325 officers. How would you define defund the police and what is your position? How do you restore community trust, especially within BIPOC communities with SPD?
Lorena Gonzalez: I started kind of answering that a little bit on that last question, but I think the concept of defund SPD is for a lack of a better description, it’s an oversimplification of the issue that we’re talking about. I think it’s really important for us to stay focused on a concept of what it looks like to scrutinize police budgets, which historically have not received scrutiny. I know this, I can speak from a place of knowledge because I have served on the city council and it has been incredibly difficult to scrutinize the police budget in large part because there isn’t a lot of transparency. I think it’s important to start there, right? We have a responsibility to take a closer look at every city department’s budget. And just because you’re a police department, [it] doesn’t make you exempt or give you the privilege to not have that level of scrutiny.
The second thing is we’re talking about an allocation and relocation of city dollars to programs that will produce truly equitable communities. Things like gun violence prevention, things like youth engagement. Jobs for youth. Particularly black men between the ages of 18 and 24. These are all programs that we know if we invest in them as the need that exists, they will make a difference. They will interrupt cycles of violence and they will interrupt the cycle of poverty that oftentimes allows our children to be victimized by criminal elements. I think it’s really important for us to have a conversation about, what does it look like to scale up programs that do not require a gun and badge to respond and how do we get our police department back to core law enforcement functions that are appropriate for them to respond to. They are not equipped and don’t have the tools nor I believe, should they be responding to people in a mental health crisis with guns. We should be looking at how do we get to people who are experiencing mental health crises with better systems in place. And once we identify what those systems are, and once we’ve developed those systems, we can start pulling back a law enforcement first approach.
Question five – mental health crisis
Jennifer Smith: Mental health crisis has been one of the things that COVID has shed so much light on. And we recently had a man in the throes of a mental health crisis get shot by SPD on the waterfront. Would you be open to implementing something similar to the STAR program in Colorado, which replaces traditional law enforcement responders with a medic and mental health professional, on some emergency calls as a way to deescalate situations when there is a clear mental health element?
Lorena Gonzalez: I have great news. We have our own version of STAR in the city of Seattle. It’s the Health One Mobile Unit. We have just announced that we have deployed our second unit. But that brings us to a total of two and the need is much greater obviously than a total of two. But that model is exactly what you’ve described. It is designed to respond to people who are in crisis, who don’t need to have necessarily a law enforcement intervention but needs somebody who’s going to help them deescalate and to approach them with the behavioral health needs that they need in order to calm down, take a moment and survive at the end of that experience. I think we need to do more of that kind of work. We need to take that to scale so that we are actually seeing good outcomes for the people who are experiencing a mental health crisis. Obviously, somebody ultimately dying, being killed as a result of being in a mental health crisis. I think we can all agree that that is not the outcome we want to see.I don’t think police officers want that outcome, and I don’t think anyone else in the city wants that outcome as a result of that interaction.
Question six – zoning and Seattle housing crunch
Jennifer Smith: So shifting directions a little bit, I want to talk about land use in Seattle. Eight-Eighty percent of Seattle’s land that is zoned for housing is zoned for single-family housing. Over the last five years, most of the new construction has been centered in the 12% that supports high density. Housing developers and builders focused on small footprint properties with minimal parking and luxury appointments. Housing affordability is a major problem for Seattle, which you already referenced earlier. Do you support changing zoning rules for ADUs and more dense construction to alleviate the housing crisis? And what changes do you support?
Lorena Gonzalez: Let’s start with the fact that Seattle is progressive as we are, is not immune from the vestiges of racial discrimination in our land use policies. In fact we still have defacto redlining across our city and it shows up in the fact that we have effectively banned multifamily housing in a vast majority of the city. Exclusionary zoning laws, like those laws that exist in the city of Seattle, have a direct connection to redlining laws. I think it’s really important for the next mayor, and I’d be committed to doing this to finally reforming our exclusionary zoning laws to allow for increased development capacity in every neighborhood across the city.
We need more housing choices, and we as people of color in this city, deserve an opportunity to be able to live in a neighborhood of our choice. I shouldn’t be excluded from living in a neighborhood by virtue of the fact that I have historically lacked access to wealth and capital and financing to be able to get into a home. Currently, right now, I think we can all agree it is way too expensive for anyone. In my neighborhood, it costs $850,000 to get a small three-bedroom house. That is just not okay. And we have to allow for affordable housing development to occur in areas that aren’t just restricted to urban villages. Everybody has a responsibility to do their part. We all should be absorbing development capacity, and we are way far behind the nation as it relates to this kind of reform. Even President Joe Biden has put as part of his platform, the need to radically reform and abolish exclusionary zoning laws, and I couldn’t agree with him more.
Question seven – taxation
Jennifer Smith: Seattle has a reputation of having high taxes compared to other Washington cities. A number of initiatives have added incremental taxes to fund transit, homeless programs, education, and the general fund. These taxes are small on paper, one 10th of 1%, for example, but most of these taxes are regressive due to Washington state’s tax structure.Will you pledge no new taxes on the citizens of Seattle?
Lorena Gonzalez: I cannot make that pledge. I can make a pledge that I do believe in progressive revenue taxation. I have been a long-time supporter of progressive revenue taxation and do believe that there are people and corporations in the city who can afford to pay more in taxes in the city of Seattle. I think that it’s important for us to acknowledge that not all residents of the city are created equal and we have to be able to craft any future progressive revenue to acknowledge that fact and to try to the greatest extent possible hold harmless our lowest-income residents in the city so that we are not exacerbating the realities of our regressive tax system in the city of Seattle. Our tax code is upside down in the state. We have made some progress in the state legislature this year, which I’m really excited to see the capital gains tax in particular. But I think that we need a lot of help and relief from the state to be able to truly meaningfully provide tax relief for those people in our city who are [at] lowest income and who are being taxed at a disproportionate rate in comparison to our wealthy residents and corporations.
Additional Questions
Jennifer Smith: And we know that Seattle has been home to native peoples long before settlements.Sovereignty is always an issue for both tribes that are nations that are federally recognized and those who are not like the Duwamish. So as mayor of Seattle, how would you continue to support indigenous sovereignty for native peoples living with and around the Seattle area.
Lorena Gonzalez: Tribal relations and representation within a mayoral administration are very important given where we are seated. I think that we through our office of intergovernmental relations used to have a representative who represented the interest of tribes and made sure that we were honoring those really important principles of conferring and consulting with tribes. I also think it’s important for us to remind our colleagues at the state level and at the county level that they have an obligation to do that. We have a native council member now, councilwoman Debra Juarez, and she has done a really tremendous job of making sure that policies are centering the needs of indigenous people in our city and also leveraging her position to influence how other agencies that we work with elate to and interact with and do business with our indigenous community. The last thing I’ll say is that we have an office of economic development. We have many public works projects, and I think it’s really important for all of our public works projects to acknowledge hose land we are on. But I also think it’s really important for us, as part of our community benefits and community workforce agreements, to make a commitment to hiring and creating economic opportunities, whether it’s jobs or business opportunities for indigenous people whose land we,e are benefiting from.
[SEATTLE] – (MTN) Malcontent News is conducting a series of interviews with 2021 Seattle mayoral candidates. We have contacted, or are in the process of contacting the most viable candidates, inviting them to answer seven prepared questions. Today we feature Colleen Echohawk.
For all candidates, the first interview will be about their platform and vision. Prior to the primary election, we will conduct a second round that will focus on differentiation, and challenging positions and visions. Once the final candidates are selected in the primary, we will invite them for one last round of interviews.
All candidates for the first round will be asked the same seven questions, and have received a copy in advance. These questions were created by our editorial board, and are aligned to topics of key interest to the residents of Seattle.
Malcontent News is committed to providing equal time for all candidates, and operating under a “fairness doctrine” of equal time and treatment for all candidates.
We will be publishing a transcript of each interview. Transcripts may be lightly edited to remove, umms, ahhs, pauses, and aid in readability.
COLLEEN ECHOHAWK
COLLEEN ECHOHAWK, 2021 candidate for Seattle mayor
Jennifer Smith: Hello, Malcontents! This is Jennifer and I’m here today with Seattle mayoral candidate, Colleen Echohawk. How are you doing today, Colleen?
Colleen Echohawk: I’m doing great. Thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited to be with you.
Jennifer Smith: We’re really excited to have you here. So just to kind of start off, what inspired you to run for mayor?
Colleen Echohawk: Well, thank you so much for asking. This is a beautiful, wonderful city. I have lived here now for over 20 years and I care deeply about our community. And I have seen, along with all of us who live here, the tremendous frustration around some policies that are just not working for our city, specifically, homelessness. I have been working in homelessness now for over seven years. I believe deeply in our homeless community. I believe that they can get to wellness and stability and housing, but we have not set up the structures that will help them get to that place of wellness. As the pandemic came crashing down on us, I saw our homeless community really suffering. And then I also saw that our city was not responding in a way that serves them well and serves the rest of our community.
I think those of us who live in the city, it’s so frustrating for us because we, we cared deeply about, our community, including our homeless community. But when we see that we’re not getting anywhere, it is incredibly frustrating. So, that was one of the big reasons. The other thing is COVID-19. I [have] served our homeless community and our native community for a very long time now. I know very, very well that we have some incredible disparity, some health outcomes around COVID-19 that were really hard to hear and see, in the native community, we were, 1.8 times more likely to die of COVID, more likely to be hospitalized because of COVID. And those kinds of numbers were already there before the pandemic. And then as I thought about what would happen after I realized we need leadership that understands equity, that understands racial justice so that we can come out of this pandemic stronger, that we can address these inequities and be the kind of city that we say we are. We are a progressive, compassionate, generous city. And I look forward to the opportunity to lead with a lens of equity and justice.
Question one – houselessness crisis
Jennifer Smith: Well, thank you very much for that. And I think this is an excellent segue into our first question. So Seattle is facing an ongoing crisis related to unhomed peoples. Washington state experience to 6.2% increase in homelessness during 2019/2020. King County spends over $1 billion per year in public and private investment in support of approximately 12,500 houseless people with disappointing results. If you are elected mayor of Seattle, how would you address this crisis? And also as co-founder of the Coalition to End Urban Indigenous Homelessness, which aids unhomed urban indigenous people, can you speak to the unique challenges indigenous people living in urban spaces like Seattle face.
Colleen Echohawk: Thank you so much for the question. And one thing we know about our homeless community here in Seattle and around the country actually is that people of color are way overrepresented in the community and the homeless community. So for instance, native people make up less than 1% of the population, but in our homeless population, we make up 15%. So an incredible disparity, that’s about a thousand to 1100 people, who are of native people who are experiencing homelessness on the streets of Seattle. And then you think about, the city we are named after a chief, we are a Coast Salish city at the heart of who we are, who we are as a community. And so, it truly is unbelievable that we have such high rates of native people experiencing homelessness and even more unbelievable than that in a city like Seattle, that’s very prosperous, innovative, and entrepreneurial.
We have so many of our community experiencing homelessness around 12,000 folks are experiencing homelessness. And about [3,000] to 4,000 of those are people who been asleep outside at night, every, every single night, it’s, it’s truly horrific. In my opinion, it is a humanitarian crisis and we have to do more. And as mayor of the city, I have a unique lens of actually being a homelessness provider and also a builder of affordable housing. So I know, that we’re going to have to take many approaches. There’s no one solution to solving homelessness in our city. It’ll take many approaches, excuse me, the moment I am elected, I will be jumping into finding solutions that are going to be kind of the all of the above approach. We need more tiny houses. We’re going to need more hoteling. We’re going to need safe, lots for RVs and other vehicles.
There will be a variety of different things for people to choose. We also need culturally appropriate case management and services. When we think about the native community, many of our native folks, because of the fear of government institutions, which we get, we come to legally, we have not found many solutions in the mainstream organizations. So I would be thinking about and supporting and innovating around Black-led services and native-led services so that we find cultural approaches that would serve our homeless community. And I believe that’s one of the reasons we have such high rates of native homelessness is that we haven’t had those culturally specific programs, the same for the black community and the refugee community who are experiencing homelessness. I think that this is an exciting opportunity for our city.
We have the American relief program coming in. We have FEMA dollars that we can use. We have other federal, we have a friend in the White House who believes so much in taking care of this issue, that’s not just here in Seattle, but around the country. I have worked on the national level. I founded the National Coalition on Urban Indigenous Homelessness. I am a new board member at the National Low Income Housing Coalition. So I understand what it will take because that’s the final part is we have to build enough. I would say to anyone who lives in Seattle, like let’s put our frustrations behind this and let’s join a campaign together to serve our homeless community and get them out of our parks and out of our, right-of-ways. Our homeless community is not a place that they can thrive there. They need to thrive in housing. And then we all can use our parks and use our greenways. And, it’s gotten really out of control and we have to have leadership that will, understands the issue and knows how to solve it. And I’m that leader.
Question two – infrastructure and economic recovery
Jennifer Smith: As a result of the ongoing COVID pandemic, economic recovery development, as well as addressing Seattle’s crumbling transit infrastructures, such as the West Seattle bridge is of great importance to me, moreover, some are expressing concern about large corporations and many in the workforce meeting in Seattle. The question is threefold, how do you plan on tackling the infrastructure issue, aiding and economic recovery and development as we move beyond COVID. And what concerns do you have about the loss of corporations and workers?
Colleen Echohawk: We know that in our city, we have some pretty severe issues around infrastructure. We have the West Seattle bridge, the Magnolia bridge that needs to be replaced. We have streets that need to be supported. We have garbage on our streets that, I think it’s unacceptable. I think we should not have that in our city. And as, an executive director of a pretty large nonprofit, I understand the role of the mayor as being the executive to care for our city to care for our whole city. I have a lot of experience in homelessness, but I also have experience in management and taking care of our community. And I look forward to putting those skills into place because we need to have shovel-ready projects.
Like I mentioned earlier, we now have a friend in the White House. We have President [Joe] Biden. When he comes out with infrastructure packages, which is, happening right now, we need to be ready. We need to go. I would work really closely with Patty Murray. She’s the number two Democrat on the Senate Appropriation Committee. I would work very closely with her and let her know what our needs are in Seattle. Also, Senator Cantwell, she chairs the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. We are so lucky to have their leadership, and I would just be excited to talk with them and, and share with them about what the opportunities are here in Seattle and what we absolutely need. I have a lot of experience in going after the dollars that we need to be able to take care of our community. We also know that Governor Inslee has an infrastructure plan and I would be active in reaching out to him and ensuring that we get our needs met here.
Jennifer Smith: The second part of the question deals with aiding and economic recovery and development as we move forward.
Colleen Echohawk: We have a real reality ahead of us that it’s going to take some time to recover from COVID. And we nailed that. Our economy needs to recover and our community needs to recover in many ways. We need an opportunity to heal, and we also need people who are going to jump in and get to work immediately. About nine months ago, I started to really understand that, we can’t just be focused on economic recovery. We have to be thinking about an equitable recovery because when our economy is equitable, then we are truly going to be able to support the whole community. So I co-founded the Equitable Recovery and Reconciliation Alliance. The idea behind ERA is that the BIPOC community, the Black indigenous, and people of color community, we have a policy-driven solution that needs to be implemented.
But we often don’t have the voice that we need to have. And then, my co-founder, his name is Ben Franz-Knight, and he is the previous executive director at Pike Place Market. His role is to help our community who is really working to understand what it means to be equitable in our recovery. His role is to help them come together. So we’re looking and working with things like the downtown Seattle Association, Greater Seattle Business Partners, and the Chamber of Commerce to think about what it means to support BIPOC led solutions. And so this is, again an opportunity. This is a once-in-a-generation chance to do the right thing. so I look forward to doing this in partnership with [the] community. And I do also hope that our corporations come back into downtown Seattle and see this place as an opportunity to continue our legacy of innovation, to continue our legacy of entrepreneurship in this region. And I will be there to support them and to ensure that when we see corporations and businesses coming back into our city, that we see it with a lens of equity and racial justice. It’s really an excellent and exciting opportunity.
Question three – does Seattle have a crime and/or inequity problem
Jennifer Smith: Moving on to the topic of equity and racial justice. Protests related to the murder and George Floyd, police violence, and ongoing racial inequality. Seattle has earned a national reputation as crime-ridden, dirty and unsafe. At one point the previous Presidential administration labeled Seattle an anarchist jurisdiction. Are you concerned about this narrow view of Seattle? If so, what will you do to shift this perception and how will you address the ongoing racial inequality that exists?
Colleen Echohawk: I don’t know about [you], but I had people calling me from around the country, friends, and relatives saying, “What’s going on in Seattle? It’s like an anarchist takeover is happening. and everything is burning,” and as you know, that is not true.
I think that we really do need to be thinking about changing the narrative around Seattle. If I was elected mayor, I would see myself as an ambassador to the rest of the state and the country and the world to say, this is what Seattle is about. This is a community of amazing, progressive, generous, compassionate, entrepreneurial community. And we warmly welcome you to our city. I think that there is [an] amazing opportunity around tourism. I hope that our Black and indigenous and people of color-led organizations see this opportunity to think about ways that we can support the tourism industry and incubate business that maybe hasn’t happened before.
I think that we absolutely want to change this weird narrative that’s happened around Seattle and show who we really are. I’ve also talked to people in the suburbs of Seattle and they say things like, “Oh, Seattle, traffic’s too bad.” This kind of complaining about Seattle. I want to change that narrative too.
I want people to remember that we have the Kracken and we have the Mariners and the Seahawks. We have a thriving nightlife and restaurants that people want to come to. And let’s make this a great place for people to celebrate big celebrations. They come to sporting events and to be coming to our wonderful arenas. I just think it’s a really cool opportunity that I look forward to jumping into. No one loves the city more than I do. My sister, when I was thinking about running for mayor, and I also had an opportunity out in Washington, DC, she [said], “Colleen, you love Seattle. Why would you go to Washington DC?”
You’re totally right. I love this place. I’m just going to do the best I can to lift it up and celebrate the city and let the world know what a great community we truly are.
Question four – police reform
Jennifer Smith: In addressing the racial inequality piece. How would you work to kind of move beyond that and think more critically about, solutions for the ongoing racial inequality that exists within Seattle?
Colleen Echohawk: We have some significant issues in our city around this. We are a progressive city, but we don’t always live out our progressive values. And I hope to really inspire, encourage, and envision with everyone about what that could really look like. I can give you an example. We struggle right now with housing for our Black community. Our Black community has been pushed out of the Central District and we also know that essential workers can’t afford to live here. And a lot of them are people of color. If we believe that Black lives matter, we believe in our progressive values that means we believe in housing for them. That means we believe in the incubation of small businesses that are owned by Black, Indigenous, and people of color communities. And so I hope to truly help our communities, our neighbors understand that value and understand that when, when we do practice equity and racial justice, that it’s good for our whole community. It’s not just good for the Black and indigenous people of color communities. It’s good for everyone. And that’s going to be exciting for us as a community.
Jennifer Smith: So when we look to the West coast cities of Portland, San Francisco, San Jose, Sacramento, and San Diego. Seattle has the second-highest cost per police officer tied with Oakland and the second-highest officer per capita behind San Francisco. Additionally, the average officer makes $153,000 a year before benefits, according to the Seattle Times. Despite this large force and supporting budget, Seattle police report slow response times and claim the issue is a lack of staffing. The budget was cut by approximately 18% and staffing levels were adjusted to support roughly 1,325 officers. How would you define defund, the police? What is your position and how would you go about restoring community, particularly BIPOC community trust in the Seattle police department?
Colleen Echohawk: This is something that is of grave concern for me. I got my start in working in the police reform arena. After the murder of John T. Williams, it’s still jarring. It’s still kind of just unbelievable native people have the highest rates of being shot by police around the country. And we’re a very small part of the population we have to do better. And, as I look at our whole city, we need to make sure that our police department is accountable and transparent. We need a reset of the police department from top to bottom, and I’m always open to looking at our pay structure – absolutely, I also believe that part of the mayor’s job is to find an excellent chief of police and hold that chief of police accountable for our police officers that are out there.
I’ve also been on the Community Police Commission and I know the issues really well. I mean our reform, since again, the murder of John T. Williams and the consent decree, it’s, it’s been, a decent start, but it’s also failed us as we saw over the summer. We have a real problem when we see officers hiding their badges during protests, we still see incredible racial disparity in arrest. And this is one of my top priorities if I’m elected. We will find a chief of police to hold our Seattle police department accountable. The issues of racial disparity in our police department. We do absolutely have to think of a cultural shift in that department and that starts straight from the chief all the way down to every single police, to someone out there on the beat. There is an accountability that absolutely has to happen from the community. And I look forward to continuing to evaluate our reform system as is.
I think that there is a lot of room for us to strengthen it. And I would look forward to hearing from the community about community-led solutions that will ensure that we have a police department that is not just, they’re not warriors, but they are guardians. So they are there to support the community in times of incredible significant need. Until we get there, we have to have a mayor that will hold them accountable. I can tell you that that is a passion of mine, something I look forward to doing, and if elected, that would be one of my top priorities
Question five – mental health crisis
Jennifer Smith: On the topic of police, accountability, and reform. One of the many things COVID has shed light on is the ongoing mental health crisis in the country. Seattle is not exempt from this. Recently a man in the throes of a mental health crisis was fatally wounded by [Seattle police] near the Seattle waterfront. Would you consider implementing something similar to the STAR program in Colorado, which replaces traditional law enforcement responders with a medic and mental health professional for some emergency calls as a way to deescalate situations where there’s a clear mental health component?
Colleen Echohawk: Absolutely. I support finding new ways to support folks who are experiencing mental health crises. I can tell you from personal experience, working with someone in our homelessness community that pulled a knife, in the day center of the Seattle Club, and I saw a social worker deescalate the situation in less than a minute. So it was heartbreaking, cause I’ve seen this with my own eyes, it was incredibly heartbreaking for me. When I saw [a] son, uncle nephew down there on Alaska Way with a knife who was many feet away from these officers, and then he was shot and killed. That was heartbreaking for me. And those are the kinds of things that should be taken out of the hands of our Seattle police department. I absolutely support community innovation around new ways to support mental health in our system. And I’ll also say that we have to get to the Washington state legislature as well.
We know that Washington state is vastly behind in supporting mental health in our system. I think that as we work so hard to support our homeless community, it hit me [as] absolutely heartbreaking when you see someone who needs that support and we have nowhere to send him, we have to fix that and that. It’s going to take courageous leadership, it’s going to take decisive leadership and it’s going to take innovation. And I believe I’m the right leader for those kinds of issues going on in our communities.
Question six – zoning and Seattle housing crunch
Jennifer Smith: You talked a little bit earlier about the necessity of affordable housing. Eighty-eight percent of Seattle’s land that is zoned for housing is zoned for single-family housing. Over the five years, most of the new construction centered on the 12% that supports highly dense housing, Developers focused on small footprint properties with minimal parking and luxury appointments. Housing affordability is a major problem for Seattle as you’ve noted already. Do you support changing zoning rules for ADUs and more dense construction to alleviate the housing crisis, and what changes would you support?
Colleen Echohawk: Absolutely. We have a lot of competing challenges before us like we haven’t really talked yet about the climate crisis, but there are intersections there. A housing affordability emergency is upon us right now. And we need to be thoughtful and creative about creating more density in our city, creating opportunities, for more housing that really truly works for our community. I absolutely believe in transit-oriented development. I think that our backyard cottages are amazing. And then I think we need to think about how we build affordable housing, that that truly does not encourage gentrification, but encourages, our Black, indigenous, and people of color communities to come back into Seattle. I have worked on the community preference policy. I think that that is a really excellent way to get started. And I think that there is just tremendous opportunity around affirmative marketing for some of our affordable housing that’s being built. We have to change our zoning laws if we’re going to truly address our climate crisis and our housing affordability.
Question seven – taxation
Jennifer Smith: Seattle has a reputation for having high taxes compared to other Washington cities. A number of initiatives have added incremental taxes to fund transit, homeless programs, education, and the general fund. These taxes are small on paper, one 10th of a percent, for example, but most of these taxes are regressive due to Washington state’s tax structure. Will you pledge no new taxes for Seattle?
Colleen Echohawk: I take a people-first approach on this, and I think that we absolutely need to understand the impact of a sales tax on our community. And it is not fair. It is not just, and we need to do better. Now, we have certain legal issues around an income tax, and we need to find new ways to generate revenue. So I would not say no, I will not incur any new taxes, but I think I want to incur the right kind of taxes, the taxes that are fair. I think a capital gains tax is really interesting and something that I would absolutely explore, but I believe that we in this city understand our responsibility to our homeless community, to [a] community that is hurting and suffering. In a city like Seattle, we should not have the amounts of poverty that we have in some of our communities. We should not have health inequities that we have, and that’s going to take some money and we need to that. And I look forward to working with [the] community about the kind of investments that we want to make.
Additional Questions
Jennifer Smith: Indigenous peoples are leading the efforts to bring about many meaningful changes globally, nationally, and locally. If elected, you would be the first indigenous mayor of Seattle since the office’s inception in 1869, something that is long overdue. Can you speak to the significance of what being elected mayor of Seattle will mean both to you personally and what it potentially signifies for native nations and communities more broadly?
Colleen Echohawk: I started thinking about running for mayor because I care about the city and I care about our homeless community, and I know I have the right kind of solutions. Being an indigenous mayor kind of just was part of like, who I am. And as I started thinking about it and understanding it more, it’s become more important. I have two amazing, beautiful children, and I want them to understand and know that it’s normal for a native woman to be the mayor of a city, because I didn’t have that growing up. when Sharice Davids and Deb Haaland were elected into Congress, I have goosebumps thinking about it now. Like it just was so unbelievable to me, people who I know understand where I come from, to have that kind of representation? It matters.
Before I announced, I talked to, leaders of the Coast Salish communities because I’m in their land right now. I am not Coast Salish, I’m Pawnee. Then I also talked to some of my elders, and one elder said to me, “Colleen, you need to remember that in our language leader means servant. And you need to remember that as you are trying out this new thing, that you are a servant to this community.” I take [it] seriously, I take that soberly, that if elected mayor that I would be a servant to this community. I would lead from a place of humility and, a place of understanding the issues that are in this community. That I have the right kind of solutions and [these] are different solutions. I think it’s time for new ideas and new people. To be in elected office, it’s exciting, and I take it seriously. I hope I win! I [hope] I’m that first person.
[SEATTLE] – (MTN) Malcontent News is conducting a series of interviews with 2021 Seattle mayoral candidates. We have contacted, or are in the process of contacting the most viable candidates, inviting them to answer seven prepared questions. Our first interview was with Andrew Grant Houston.
For all candidates, the first interview will be about their platform and vision. Prior to the primary election, we will conduct a second round that will focus on differentiation, and challenging positions and visions. Once the final candidates are selected in the primary, we will invite them for one last round of interviews.
All candidates for the first round will be asked the same seven questions, and have received a copy in advance. These questions were created by our editorial board, and are aligned to topics of key interest to the residents of Seattle.
Malcontent News is committed to providing equal time for all candidates, and operating under a “fairness doctrine” of equal time and treatment for all candidates.
We will be publishing a transcript of each interview. Transcripts may be lightly edited to remove, umms, ahhs, pauses, and aid in readability.
ANDREW GRANT HOUSTON
andrew grant houston, 2021 candidate for Seattle mayor
Jennifer Smith: Thank you so much for being here with us today and, you know, coming to share your vision with our viewers. We really appreciate that.
Andrew Grant Houston: Yeah. I really appreciate being offered this platform and I really appreciate the work that y’all have done throughout the past year.
Jennifer Smith: Thank you. Can you just tell us a little bit about yourself and what inspired to run inspired you to run for?
Andrew Grant Houston: I am a queer Black and Hispanic architect originally from Texas and moved to Seattle at the end of 2016 to common design housing to get my license as an architect. And what I really realized is that over time, the progressive and more sustainable city that we always say that we are isn’t quite true once you kind of get into the weeds. And so after having a lot of frustration, trying to support and organize around land use reform climate issues after the last round of wildfires and seeing the city response, which did not feel appropriate, especially given that we have been in a housing emergency and a homelessness crisis since 2015, I finally said, okay, this has got to stop. We have got to stop talking about the city that we say that we are and actually become that city. And so that’s what I’m focused on.
Question one – houselessness crisis
Jennifer Smith: Seattle is facing [an] ongoing housing crisis related to unhomed peoples Washington state experienced a 6.2% increase in homelessness during 2019 and 2020 King County spends over $1 billion per year in public and private investment in support of approximately 12,500 houseless people with disappointing results. If elected mayor of Seattle, how would you address this crisis? And how do you think your plan would provide aid in resolving the crisis both in [the] short and the long term?
Andrew Grant Houston: Well, I really glad that you asked the question specifically looking at a short term solution and a long-term solution because that long-term solution is driving down the cost of housing, which is really tied to allowing for more housing to happen across the entire city and not just in Black and brown neighborhoods like we currently have with the urban village strategy, but in allowing for more duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, and even larger, permanent supportive housing to happen in every single neighborhood in Seattle. And so that is how we really focus on that long-term solution. But I know firsthand as an architect, that even if we were to cut every single piece of red tape tomorrow, that it would still take about three years to build all of that housing. And so what that short-term solution really needs to be is tiny homes. If we allow for tiny homes, I know I’m proposing 2,500 tiny homes, that that is our short-term solution, how we truly address the crisis as the crisis that it is because we currently have 5,500 unsheltered people still in King County. That is really how we stem the bleeding.
But at the end of the day, something I really want to point out is just that we had some recent numbers come out from the last point in time count. So that’s where they go in one night and look over everything and see who is unsheltered and who is currently unhoused. It seems like the numbers in King County specifically are fairly stable. And so what that means to me is that as much as we are being successful in taking people out of being unhoused in a houselessness, that people are falling in at the same rate. And so we really need to focus on those preventative measures in order to ensure that less people fall into houselessness. And then that way we’re actually going to start to see some change.
Question two – infrastructure and economic recovery
Jennifer Smith: It’s actually gotten worse as a result of the COVID pandemic. So as a result of the ongoing COVID pandemic, economic recovery, and development, as well as addressing Seattle’s crumbling transit infrastructure, such as the West Seattle bridge is of great importance. Moreover, some are expressing concern about the large corporations and many in the workforce, leaving Seattle. The question then is threefold. How do you plan on tackling the infrastructure issue, aiding economic recovery and development as we actually start to move beyond COVID? And what concerns do you have about the loss of corporations and workers in the city?
Andrew Grant Houston: What I really have seen is not necessarily that we’re losing corporations. It’s more that people are recognizing that during the pandemic, they’re not able to enjoy the things that really make them want to live in a city in the first place. And so if you look at some of the numbers, especially in some of the movements happening in some of the other high-cost cities, like Los Angeles and New York and San Francisco, they’re actually people from those more expensive cities, particularly San Francisco that are moving here. And so we have actually seen a slight increase in our population during this time, even though it doesn’t quite make sense, like in our minds, like it does not quite compute, but it’s because they are having similar issues where they’re saying, look, San Francisco is just way too expensive. We need to go somewhere less expensive. And that’s here.
What we are seeing is that people from Seattle are actually moving to the suburbs in the area of moving to Kent and Renton and Auburn. And one of the reasons for that is because they’re looking to purchase homes. And so in that way, like I said before, we really need land-use reform so that we can allow for more people to purchase condos or townhomes or row houses. So in that way, they start to enter homeownership because that’s the thing that many people want to do. And as much as we know about the history of the United States, that that is how you build generational wealth for yourself and for your family. And so in that way, hopefully, we can bring people back to the city. Once we start to open up. My solution for a long-term strategy is really related to building more housing. And so in that way, investing more funds into not just housing, but also streets improving sidewalks and actually building sidewalks where we currently don’t have sidewalks. And all of those things that we have to do, all of those construction-related jobs are great living wage, union jobs. And so in that way, we are taking people from our communities and telling them, you can be a part of the positive change within your own community and build wealth that way as well.
Jennifer Smith: One of the things too that happens is when people start to migrate to these places like Kent, and Auburn, and Renton is it drives up the rent. It drives up the price of housing and it exacerbates the homeless crisis. It makes it really difficult for people who were living in those areas because it was reasonable to continue to do so.
Andrew Grant Houston: And in that way, that’s kind of why Seattle, as much as we are dealing with a regional homelessness crisis, that a lot of that crisis came from us because what ends up happening is that people move to those cities and they don’t have the same kind of protections that they have here as renters in Seattle. And so in that way, we do need a regional response, but a lot of the origin of our current crisis in the region is directly tied to the exclusionary policies that we have had here in Seattle for decades.
Question three – does Seattle have a crime and/or inequity problem
Jennifer Smith: Police violence and ongoing racial…inequality. Seattle has earned a national reputation as a crime-ridden, dirty, and unsafe space. At one point, the city was labeled by the previous presidential administration as an anarchist jurisdiction. Do you agree with this view, what will you do to shift perceptions? And do you feel racial inequality exists within Seattle? And how do you plan to address it?
Andrew Grant Houston: I would say that we’re not necessarily an anarchic jurisdiction as much as we are an anti-fascist jurisdiction. And I really say that with a lot of heart because I am a huge Seattle Sounders supporter. And I just remember whenever we were having a lot of the protests, especially within June and July of last year. And the president was complaining about Antifa and you would see Sounders supporters and the Emerald city supporters come out and say, no, yeah, we are Antifa – like three arrows down. Like we are going to be a part of this and support and really recognize that a lot of this police brutality is in essence state-sponsored violence. We need to provide methods of public safety that ensure people who look like myself are actually able to go out in public and feel safe themselves.
In that way, really thinking about how we redefine public safety, how we address our current methods of policing and say, this currently is not working. And I recognize that someone who is not just an architect, but an urban designer, that part of the safety is actually redesigning how our streets work and function. And so that is why I’m making not just policing, but also transforming our pedestrian infrastructure, transforming our bike infrastructure because there are a lot of deaths currently happening on our streets that are completely preventable. And then that way we’re really focusing on a true vision zero, that anyone can be outside in public space and feel safe at any time, day or night
Question four – police reform
Jennifer Smith: When compared to the west coast cities of Portland, San Francisco, San Jose, Sacramento, Oakland, and San Diego, Seattle has the second-highest cost per police officer tied with Oakland and the second-highest officer per capita behind San Francisco. Additionally, the average officer makes $153,000 per year before benefits, according to the Seattle Times. Despite this large force and supporting budgets, Seattle police report slowed response times and claim the issue is a lack of staffing. The budget was cut [by] approximately 18% and staffing levels were adjusted to support roughly 1,325 officers. How would you define defund the police? And what is your position? How do you restore community trust in SPD?
Andrew Grant Houston: Well, what you’re really talking about are two things you’re talking about reforming, and then also defunding. And so in essence, these two decisions that people are kind of going between when I say it’s more of a yes, and. I pride myself on wanting to become a mayor that is the “yes and” mayor that we both need to reform our current police department so that we can restore trust. But also during that process, we have to start redefining what public safety means. And that means 100% public safety, but less than 50% of that is the police. The number that really draws my attention that comes from the work that has been done for many, many years here in Seattle, since the start of the Consent Decree are from groups like Decriminalize Seattle, as well as the no new youth jail movement. So in that way, coupled with the King County Equity Now Coalition of which I am a member, as part of Share the City, looking at the nearly 70% increase since 2010, in terms of the budget.
I don’t know about you, but if I look at numbers and response times, I don’t feel like there has been a 70% increase in the effectiveness of the Seattle police department. And so in that way, we really need to focus on more of a model that looks at preventative care that looks at harm reduction that looks at really addressing the issues that a lot of people are facing before they enter into an event of a crisis. Because it’s not just about not responding to a crisis with a healthcare or someone or mental assistance, someone that is not a person with a gun. It’s also about addressing the instability that has created these crises. So in that way, that is why housing is such a big part of my platform is that if we reduce our number of unhoused individuals, we reduce the number of times that those people are facing the police or engaging with the police. If we reduce the number of people who are just getting by just struggling to survive, that commit crimes of poverty. Then again, we reduce the reliance on our current policing systems. And so in that way, it makes a clear message that we are working in ways that are.
Truly creating public safety has nothing to do with [the] police. And so it makes it that much more possible to be able to do the deep work, which has been asked for by [the] community for many, many years. But I’m really saying to people, especially as the only mayoral candidate who has committed to continue the work of defunding the police is I am listening to the community, especially those who are most impacted. People who look like me, fear for their lives every single day, they go outside that we are going to address this issue, head-on. We are not going to walk back any promise. I am committed to defunding the police and establishing a new method of public safety.
Question five – public mental health crisis
Jennifer Smith: So one of the many things that COVID has shed light on is the ongoing mental health crisis in the country. Seattle’s not exempt from this. And recently a man in the throes of a mental health crisis was fatally wounded by SPD near the Seattle waterfront. Would you consider implementing something similar to the STAR program in Colorado, which replaces traditional law enforcement responders with a medic and mental health professional for some emergency calls as a way to deescalate situations where there is a clear mental health component?
Andrew Grant Houston: Yes, 100%. And I feel like that model in particular is an excellent example of how we can provide public safety and maintain our public safety levels while also shifting resources from the police department into our new emergency center that has been established by the Seattle city council. And so just in that way, we are providing different types of public safety, different types of care that can address crises when they happen. Because at the end of the day, as someone who watched that video, someone was in crisis and was really, truly suicidal. But if you’re not addressing those issues head-on and directly engaging with that person, even though he did have a weapon, then we are never going to get to a point where we will truly address a lot of the trauma that we know is coming from COVID, like you were talking about specifically.
I know even for myself, there have been many days, especially as a high-risk individual, someone who just got my first dose of vaccine, so really excited, but I have spent as long as six weeks indoors without going outside, even once, clearly that is going to have a mental impact on myself that I don’t even fully recognize, but I know for myself and I have the privilege to have healthcare, to have mental health services so that I can go and get help. And so in many ways, when we talk about true public safety, we need to be investing in mental health services for those who can not afford it currently. And then that way we can avoid issues and incidents like the one that occurred on the waterfront.
Question six – Zoning and Seattle housing crunch
Jennifer Smith: I know this is another thing that’s in your platform – land use. Eighty-eight percent of Seattle’s land that is zoned for housing is zoned for single-family. Over the last five years, most of the new construction has been centered in the 12% that supports high density, housing. Developers and builders focused on small footprint properties with minimal parking and luxury appointments. Housing affordability is a major problem for Seattle. Do you support changing zoning rules for ADUs (Additional Dwelling Unit) and more dense construction to alleviate the housing crisis? And what changes would you support?
Andrew Grant Houston: This is something very near and dear to my heart as someone who is a lifelong renter. Since I was born and raised by my mother, a single parent, but also something that I have direct professional experience on. Before I moved here to Seattle, I was a land-use consultant. And so in that way, I was actually working with cities and aiding them in rewriting the rules that really define how their cities would develop. And so truly understanding the system that in many ways was established solely as a way to keep people of color out of neighborhoods in cities. Zoning in general has a very long history, but it does not have a history that has existed the entirety of the lifespan of even Seattle. Zoning that has become restricted and restrictive land-use codes in general in Seattle did not start until the twenties. And so what you see in a lot of neighborhoods that are currently zoned for only having one house per plot of land is that there are actually a lot of duplexes, triplexes, small apartment buildings that exist in these neighborhoods.
And so what we are saying is that this current system is not only a continuation of the white supremacy of the past, because that’s exactly what it is. We are saying that this is not sustainable environmentally, economically, or culturally. The thing that you really touched on is the urban village strategy, which focuses a lot of the density into areas, which are effectively either industrial land, downtown, or communities of color and the “gayborhood,” which I know firsthand because I live on Capitol Hill. I cannot tell you how many bars we’ve heard of during the pandemic have essentially shut their doors. Not because they could not afford to continue paying their rent, but because their landlord said, sorry, your lease is up and we actually want to redevelop a piece of property. When we allow for development to occur across the entire city, we are not going to see the displacement, and why I don’t call [it] gentrification. I call it “communacide.”
The cultural destruction of our Black and brown neighborhoods of Capitol Hill. That when we spread out that development across the entire city, not only will people then get to choose where they want to live, because I know a lot of people who want to live in Wallingford. And I know a lot of people who want to live in Laurelhurst and other places in the North End. There just is nowhere for them to be able to afford [it]. We will also be able to have a more sustainable city for everyone else that we will relieve the pressure that we currently have on our Black and brown communities, especially. So that they can also continue to enjoy their lives in the communities that they have developed there over time.
Question seven – Taxation
Jennifer Smith: So moving on Seattle has a reputation for having high taxes compared to other Washington cities. A number of initiatives have added incremental taxes to fund transit, homeless programs, education, and the general fund. These taxes are small on paper, 1/10 of 1% per example, but most of these taxes are regressive due to Washington state’s tax structure. Will you pledge no new taxes on the citizens of Seattle?
Andrew Grant Houston: No. Because we are going to shift to progressive taxes. We are going to establish an income tax and I am specifically establishing an income tax because legally we’re allowed to. A flat tax of 1% that I am calling the Just Transition Tax. In establishing this tax, I want it to fund specifically four things. One of them being apprenticeships. So we talked earlier about jobs and infrastructure and construction in order to build the housing that we need because we have a lot of housing to kind of backfill. We need to be able to train people to do that kind of work. And so I want to specifically dedicate some funds there.
You talked about earlier, how are we going to support small businesses coming out of the pandemic? The second thing that I want to do is reduce our business occupation tax, that they can be able to have that kind of recovery.
The third thing that I want to do is establish a new public development authority and what that is really going to be focused on is that research and development, the thing that private dollars really can’t do in order to focus on net-zero buildings. So in that way, all the new housing that we need does not additionally contribute to our carbon emissions because we know we just simply need to reduce those certificate money.
And the last thing that I want to do is invest more money into our equitable development initiative because that money is specifically going back to our Black and Brown communities, our BIPOC communities so that they can self determine the types of housing, the types of communities that they are able to develop for themselves.
Jennifer Smith: So you referenced creating an income tax. Could you talk more specifically about what you mean by that?
Andrew Grant Houston: So there was a recent decision, and I want to say it was [it was] summer of last year where the Washington Court of Appeals essentially said that Seattle itself actually has the right to tax income as property. Because that’s really what we’re getting at when it comes to the Washington State Constitution is that income is seen as property. And so in essence, this is being treated like a flat property tax. And so they have given us the legal go-ahead to tax up to 1%. Now I know that there definitely needs to be a way to make that flat tax more progressive. And so when I am in office, I definitely am focused on looking at how are we actually going to implement this? How are we going to get credits if people who are below a certain income. But, at the same token, what this really shows for myself and I believe is that when it comes to proposing policy, I’m not just spitting out words. I really am planning on doing the diligence and my team is already doing that due diligence in order to ensure on day one, I’m able to start an app and improve the city or all Seattlites.
Additional Questions
Jennifer Smith: Thank you for clarifying that for me. I really appreciate it. Now. I kind of have a selfish question because I am a historian. My primary field is American Indian and indigenous history. Now I noticed on your website that you referenced that you advocate for indigenous sovereignty. You know, Seattle is home to the Duwamish peoples, who were federally recognized for a short period of time and then had that federal recognition revoked. But Seattle in itself has a very rich indigenous history and contemporary presence that is often overlooked and ignored, or sometimes, celebrated as a relic of the ancient past. So what do you mean when you say you advocate for indigenous sovereignty?
Andrew Grant Houston: What that really means is recognizing the past and present of native indigenous people in Seattle and the larger Puget sound region. One of the things that I really love about Seattle is not just our land acknowledgment, but also that in our office of intergovernmental relations, that they specifically speak between the city and local tribes in the area. And so in that way, upping that engagement and really recognizing one, that should happen and continue to happen, especially as we address a lot of these regional problems and crises. Which for example, the homelessness crisis disproportionately falls on our native and indigenous people, as well as really recognized that one of our biggest responsibilities, especially as a holder of land, is to be good stewards of that land and do that in concert with our local indigenous people.
Jennifer Smith: Thank you so much for answering that question. I saw it on your website when I was reading up earlier and I really want to ask this question.
Andrew Grant Houston: Absolutely. And I think at the end of the day, for me, when it comes to especially any group of color, whether it be Black, indigenous, Asian-American that people are allowed the ability to self-determine and that when it comes to a lot of the solutions that I want to provide, that I want to provide them in a way that picks up those with the least first. And so that is why my campaign is even called The Rising Tide in the first place. A rising tide lifts all boats, but that it starts at the bottom and works its way up.
Jennifer Smith: And I think that’s such an important thing because so much of settler colonization in the United States was justified through this brown people can’t self-govern. Brown, black people can’t self-govern. And so self-determination is such a huge thing for people to recognize. Is there anything else that you would like our viewers to know
Andrew Grant Houston: Currently, I have a clear vision for the city should look like in 2100, but I recognize that myself as the potential incoming mayor will have a significant role to play in the next eight years, ideally in the next few terms, because ideally, the next mayor is actually going to start out two full terms and not decide to not run again. That policy and those policy points, and those plans will be coming out beginning next week. So we are going to be releasing our full slate of names and then get into more details and so I’m really excited to share that with people because a lot of the work from that came directly from the community when they looked at the vision and we asked them, we recognize that we share this vision together, that we all want to see the city improve in a number of these ways, but we have to also agree on the steps to get there. And so in doing that work already and having those conversations, we don’t have to repeat the Seattle process over again. We can say with certainty that I will be a mayor of action and on day one, start to implement the things that people are asking for.
Jennifer Smith: Thank you so much for being here and speaking with us and sharing your vision. Look forward to seeing what you put out next week.
Records show Wheeler was shot with beanbag rounds in 2015 in response to a domestic violence report
[SEATTLE] – (MTN) Former Seattle Seahawk player Chad Wheeler remains out on $400,000 bail for a savage domestic violence attack last month. Records show that this isn’t the first time Wheeler has committed domestic violence, and his mental illness was used as a defense.
The Los Angeles Times reported that in December 2015, while Wheeler was the starting left tackle at USC, police were called after he punched walls and windows, and barricade himself in an apartment with a 20-year-old woman and her son. Ignoring police instructions, law enforcement officers had to fire bean bag rounds at the 6’7″ tall, 315-pound wheeler to subdue him. He was detained by police and then taken to a hospital for psychiatric evaluation.
Alleah Taylor in an exclusive interview with CBS This Morning, shared by Malcontent News, told a harrowing tale of the attack that has left her with metal plates in her body and with a closed head injury. In the interview, she described pleading for her life and with an out of control Wheeler.
The NFL has struggled to address the organization’s handling of domestic violence among its players, with uneven enforcement of the code of conduct. Both the Seattle Seahawks and NFL expressed empathy for the victim Taylor while taking a softer approach on Wheeler in part because his contract with the Seahawks ended on December 31, 2021.
If you are experiencing domestic violence you can visit the National Domestic Violence website, or call 800-799-SAFE (7233). If you do visit their site or make a call, be sure to clear your browser and call history for your safety.
Social distancing doesn’t mean you never leave home and where is the flu
[SEATTLE] – (Malcontent News) Elise Barrett RN BSN CCRN is an oncology nursing supervisor at an elite cancer treatment center. She and her staff work with vulnerable patients who are at high-risk for catching COVID, and who could face catastrophic results if they caught the disease. As part of her job, Ms. Barrett has had access to some of the leading experts on epidemiology and COVID protocols, somethings she lives with every day in the care of her patients.
“What’s going on it’s definitely not a hoax,” Barrett stated. “I have many family members who live in areas where it is sort of considered a political opinion whether this exists or not, and unfortunately this weekend I discovered that my mother and her husband have COVID and are looking at potentially a pretty rocky course in the disease.”
Barrett spoke about some of the myths surround COVID-19 and one of her answers might surprise you. “The first myth is that you have to lock yourself in your house and never go outside and never interact with another human and be living in fear. That sort of creates a degree of tension and dread and almost fatalism that’s impossible to sustain.”
“Fortunately, we’ve had a lot of work done by experts in the field to tell us how we can interact with each other safely and how we can be out of our houses, and how to avoid catching the disease.” Barrett went on to recommend following social distancing guidelines and wearing a mask, but that avoiding all human interaction as a healthy adult can have negative impacts on your mental well being.
What about the effectiveness of masks? “Wearing what we call personal protective equipment (PPE) or masks in the nursing field [is] old news. We’ve been doing that forever. We know how effective it is but, that’s still a new concept for a lot of people. There’s a lot of fear around it for a lot of people because it is tied to this concept of being medical being rigid, being under a doctor’s care, [and] having to follow orders.”
Seasonal flu numbers around the world have been historically low. Some conspiracy theories have popped up that flu numbers are being rolled into COVID numbers. “The flu is less contagious than COVID so anything that stops the spread of COVID even a little is going to impact the spread of flu much more. We’ve actually seen a significant amount of flu in the community mostly among people who are still getting out and around and moving in the community. We’ve seen much lower prevalence in the older community that typically make up most of the casualties of the flu season.” Barrett went on to explain that the older community is more likely to socially isolate and vaccinate for flu, reducing their exposure further this season.
“If you’re wearing a mask during flu season you’re actually pretty well protected against flu. it’s not as easy to catch [and] it requires a much higher viral load.”
David Obelcz contributed to this story.
Journalists, activists, and researchers defending the First Amendment
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