Priorities

Federal and state funding cuts threaten our city’s essential social services. We must strengthen and expand programs that ensure housing and food security for our neighbors facing the challenges of living in an expensive city. I am committed to progressive funding and will work with city leaders and state representatives to raise revenue from wealthy corporations and the richest 1%, exploring all progressive sources, especially those paired with tax relief or programs that benefit the majority of us. I will explore:

• Raising the utility rates for the highest consuming users of Seattle Public Utilities
• Charges for fleets of heavy vehicles operating in Seattle
• Removing the sales tax waiver for some professional services, like architecture or accounting.
• Square footage tax on warehouses and fulfillment centers.
• Fees for long term vacant units, which will also encourage more housing to go on the market.
• Implementing an impact fee for construction projects in Seattle, which among other things would be use to create more public restrooms in Seattle.
• A city level rate increase to the Washington State’s Real Estate, Estate, and Capitol Gains taxes.

As Seattle grows it is growing more expensive. For many of us with limited incomes that makes our lives less secure. A resilient city is one where people can afford to live where they work. Seattle should be a city where those of us who don’t earn six figures can still have confidence that if we lose our jobs or have a health emergency we won’t also lose our housing or not know where our next meal will come from.

As your representative I’ll work to:

Strengthen community stability

• Guarantee all our neighbors have a reliable Basic Income.
• Create a “Second Response,” team of unionized crisis navigators to provide case management to people who need it.
• Expand the Seattle Promise of 2 years free school at Seattle’s city colleges to people who don’t have access

Expand housing options

• Increase the supply of emergency low-barrier, transitional, and affordable permanent housing, along with safe camping and parking areas that include hygiene services and waste pickup.
• Review zoning, permitting processes to identify ways to potentially speed the expansion of our housing supply
• Invest in and expand social housing, as a tool to prevent displacement of our neighbors while thoughtfully increasing density and growing options for mixed income, multi-racial, equitable community based housing.
• Ban the exploitative practices of Ratio Utility Billing and landlord Junk Fees.

Make public transportation fast and free

• Push to make our transportation fast, reliable and free which will get people out of their cars, help all traffic, and decrease pollution

Expand access to education and opportunity

• Grow the Seattle Promise to provide two years of free education at Seattle’s city colleges
• Close access gaps for people who would benefit from retraining and skill-building
• Support career pathways that are affordable, future-proof, and tied to the green economy

Ensure food and pharmacy access

• Collaborate with the community on immediate and long-term solutions to Lake City’s food and pharmacy desert
• Strengthen neighborhood access to essential goods and services

Civil rights and consumer protections 

• Strengthen and Enforce laws protecting tenants’ rights to organize and collectively bargain.
• Push to extend the protections of the Office of Civil Rights to organized and organizing tenants and workers.
• Call for the prohibition of Deceptive and Abusive practices used by landlords to exploit tenants:
  • Ban the exploitative practice of Ratio Utility Billing.
  • Put a stop to Junk Fees.

 

We are asking police to do too much—and it isn’t making us safer. Real public safety comes from addressing the conditions that lead to crime, housing our neighbors, and ensuring the right responders show up when needed. By expanding specialized crisis response, reducing unnecessary police involvement, and ending harmful surveillance and cooperation with ICE, Seattle can improve safety while increasing police response times for violent crime.

As City Council Member, I will:

Protect our neighbors

• Push to stop SPD participation in ICE actions, both civil and criminal.
• Work to end Seattle’s participation in corporate surveillance, use of Automatic License plate readers, and the CCTV program.
• Collaborate with the community to end SPD participation in the joint terrorism task force and the Washington State Fusion Center.
• Demand the city fill the role of Chief Privacy Officer with someone who will prioritize protecting people’s privacy.

Reduce harm and prevent crime

• Invest in solutions that address the root causes of crime.
• Protect and work to expand diversion programs like LEAD that reduce recidivism.
• Prioritize emergency housing, sanctioned camping, and safe parking areas with waste removal and hygiene facilities as a public safety strategy.

Expand specialized crisis response

• Increase capacity for unarmed, appropriate crisis response by working to grow the CARE team and remove limitations on their ability to respond to appropriate calls.
• Push for the creation of a “Second Response” team of crisis navigators to help people move through our social services to achieve stability.
• Call for an analysis of public safety spending in relation to activities and outcomes so that we can craft data driven solutions.
• Reducing the burden on SPD will allow officers to focus on violent crime and should increase response time.

As your representative, I will focus on community-based solutions that make Seattle more livable, equitable, and sustainable. That means investing in the future by prioritizing climate action, caring for our public spaces, supporting arts, and shaping growth so neighborhoods remain walkable, connected, and affordable as our city grows.

As City Council Member, I will:

Advance climate action

• Seek to return funding to the Environmental Justice grant program.
• Support and advance Seattle’s Green New Deal by pushing for incentives to speed the transition of large trucks to being electric, and increasing awareness of the clean heat program.
• Work with other cities to craft complementary policies that will have more power to hold polluting corporations accountable.
• Oppose new data centers without an extensive analysis of environmental, social, and resource security impacts as well as an ample public comment period.

Shape growth through thoughtful urban planning

• Push for more density distributed throughout the entire city, as opposed to just a few areas. I support thoughtful zoning to increase density while growing community.
• Support walkable neighborhoods with bike lanes, pea patches, tool libraries, corner markets, and gathering spaces
• Collaborate with the community to find both immediate and long term sustainable solutions for lake city’s food and pharmacy desert with emphasis on solutions that will protect the community.

Invest in public places

• Increase funding and start up resources for the Seattle Restored program that gives artists and small businesses the chance to engage with the community by setting up temporarily in vacant shops.
• Increase small artist grants available through the office of Arts and Culture.
• Create new public restrooms, because the lack of them is essentially a tax on poor people
• Keep parks clean, open, accessible, and welcoming by ensuring public spaces are cared for while expanding humane housing options

Make transit work for everyone

• Advance policies to make Seattle’s transit fast, reliable, and free
• Get people out of their cars
• Decrease pollution
• Make traffic move faster for everyone