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(bright music) - Hello, everyone.

It's 2021 and election year in our city and we are going through some strange and difficult times.

Six years after Seattle declared a state of emergency around homelessness, it's still our top issue.

Public safety is making headlines and we're not sure what it's going to take to help our communities, businesses and neighborhoods thrive after a sucker punch from a global pandemic.

A lot of Seattleites think our city is headed in the wrong direction and it all points to one big theme, livability.

How livable this city is depends on how each of us, no matter who we are, answers some key questions.

Am I safe?

Do I belong?

Can I thrive in the spaces we share?

Is someone looking out for me?

And finally, are we looking out for each other?

The challenges we face are not unique to Seattle, the whole country, the whole world even, is trying to solve puzzles we've never really seen before.

Many major cities across America are reckoning with new crises and hard choices, which brings us to our hard choice as Seattle voters.

Tonight, we're speaking with the two mayoral candidates on the ballot for the November 2nd election.

But before we begin, I wanna say thanks to Waldron for sponsoring this series and share this message on their behalf.

Waldron is proud to support Crosscut, a forum for dialogue that increases knowledge, understanding and compassion.

Waldron funds and volunteers to ensure strong, independent public media that informs and inspires our community.

With that, let's turn to our guests.

We'll begin with Bruce Harrell and speak with Lorena González in our next segment.

Bruce Harrell served on the Seattle City Council from 2007 to 2019 as a council member and also as the council president.

He is the son of a Japanese mother and a Black father and is a practicing attorney, as he was before his time in public office.

Bruce was raised in the Central District of Seattle, lives in the Seward Park neighborhood with his wife, Joanne, and is a father and grandfather.

Bruce Harrell, welcome and thank you for making time in the final weeks of the campaign to join us.

- Thank you for having me, Monica, excited to be here.

- Seattle has a lot of challenges right now and I know our viewers wanna hear from you about solutions, but we can't talk about the cure until we understand what ails us.

So Bruce, diagnose the problem as succinctly as you can, what exactly is keeping Seattle from being a more livable city?

- Well, I heard the word succinctly, so I won't be too verbose.

And it's a tough issue.

It's a tough question because it's not one thing.

I've said during the campaign trail that Seattle sort of lost its secret sauce or its little mojo that has made it so special for so many people to live here.

I think the problem is the finger pointing and the lack of accountability, that in city hall, no one's really saying, "I will solve the problem, I take ownership of it."

And I think that we're all fairly compassionate people and we care about the homelessness, we care about public safety, but I think that we are in violent disagreement, that we haven't found a way to work collaboratively.

We demonize the intentions of other people and by that, I mean, if I wanna move people out of parks and into housing, people would say, "Well, you're criminalizing the poor."

No, I've demonstrated a life mission of not doing that.

So, I think part of our problem is we lack the political will to see the best in people and use that as our strategic leverage.

And I think quite candidly, that's what the mayor's job should be, to change the narrative.

Seattle's a great city and let's treat it as such.

So, I think that's the problem, is the narrative of our city is that we are dying, that we are in despair and we don't have answers.

We are not in despair, we have the answers.

And so, I think that political leadership is gonna be critical in that regard.

- So, let's move to your vision for a more livable Seattle.

Our latest Crosscut-Elway Poll overwhelmingly ranked homelessness the top concern for voters and they wanna know what our next mayor is going to do about it that is any different, that hasn't been tried before.

We keep addressing homelessness without ending it and for many, it's tragic and frustrating to see so little change with so much money and effort.

So Bruce, if you become mayor, what's one specific thing you will do that's actually different on homelessness?

And what metric will you track to know if it's working?

- Sure.

And I think this is actually a defining distinction between my opponent and I.

First, we do have a lot of the right policies in place, whether it's housing first or individualized case management services and a regional approach that I supported and my opponent did not support, but what we will do differently is we will find an entry point for everyone in this city to help.

This is an all hands on deck approach.

And so, we will create a measurable plan and publish it, such that people could see cost per unit, cost per person, but they can also see an entry way for them to help if they want to donate food or they want to help someone with a resume, they want to help clean up an area, they wanna assist in any way.

We'll also create an avenue by which large wealthy corporations can align their corporate social responsibility efforts into our most pressing needs, which is homelessness and housing.

We will make sure that, in addition to the taxes that they must pay, we'll make sure that, in addition to that, we will create a portal.

And again, they will be our partners, they being wealthy corporations, people.

We have 750,000 people in the city now and everywhere I go, they all ask the same question, "Well, what can I do?

How can I help?"

So, we will implement best practices.

We'll make sure that, again, we work as a regional approach, we'll make sure that we are giving people services in the mental health arena.

We will create a bench of people who do this kinda work and make sure they're compensated appropriately.

We'll do all of those policies, but in my approach, we're gonna open it up such as full city could help us and I'll be the biggest cheerleader.

And I will make sure that people can see where their money is going and to make sure that it's spent effectively and efficiently.

- So, a plan where everyone can figure out how they can help, that's the part that's different and more collaborative, if I understood correctly.

- Well, that's one piece of it.

And so, I think, if I heard your question correctly, you sorta wanted perhaps a clear distinction between my approach and my opponent's.

But let me just say if I can, that the other parts of our plan will be exactly to look at income inequality and look at our regressive tax system, one of the most regressive in the country.

And you'll see a lot of the legislators that have endorsed my candidacy who are leaders in climate change and leaders in police reform.

We will now tackle the regressive tax scheme as well.

We'll also look at the continuum of how someone falls through the cracks from birth to four.

We look at brain development.

That's why we are now in the pre-K field, if you will, because brain development is so critical.

We will also look at the predictors of homelessness when someone is in high school or in early adulthood.

The data is clear that you could see when safeguards fall through...

When people fall through the cracks without the proper safeguards, the predictors are there.

So, we will analyze how someone falls into homelessness.

We'll also look at the underfunding and special education and mental illness and drug and alcohol treatment, knowing that many communities where the victim of drugs poured into, they're systemically poured into their neighborhoods.

And so, we have a multifaceted approach.

I'm not just thinking about 2022, I'm thinking about 2032 and 2042.

- So, let me ask you, on that note.

- Please.

- What do you say to folks who see this as a zero sum game, that either we have a safe and clean city or we show compassion for our homeless neighbors?

What's missing there?

Why does helping our homeless neighbors help all of us?

- So, this is where perhaps my unique leadership style is not unique, that I'm the only one that does it, but it certainly sets me apart I think from other political leaders, is I see the best in our city, I see the best in people and I believe it's not a zero sum game, that we all want to solve the problem.

I don't hear people hating those that have fallen through the cracks.

Quite candidly, when I walk through City Hall Park or I'm walking along Third Avenue and I see people living in tents, these are people I grew up with.

I grew up in the Central District in the 1960s.

I know many of them by name.

I went to school with many of these folks.

Again, my wife was the president and CEO of United Way.

We've been in this space.

And so, everywhere we go, people want to help.

And when I visited at Broadview Elementary School or in Green Lake and I'm talking to the residents in those areas who want clean water and fresh air and they don't wanna see syringes, they're not motivated by hate.

They're saying, "Well, I'd like to get these people in housing.

What can I do?"

But while you figure that out, city council or city leaders, can we enjoy the playfields and can our children once again play in the parks?

- So, that brings us to public safety, which is a topic we'll get to next here.

At the end of August, we learned that there had already been 150 more shootings in Seattle this year than in all of 2019.

And in April, Police Chief Diaz reported that more than 250 Seattle police officers had quit during the prior year.

Meanwhile, as you know, there's this charge debate about how many police officers a city needs and what they should even do.

One of our readers proposed a set of goals I wanna share with you.

They said that we want a police department that works with communities, responds appropriately to people going through different kinds of crises, keeps people and property safe, is accountable financially and attracts and keeps excellent officers.

Does this describe the police department you would want in Seattle?

And if so, what's something you would do to get us there?

- Well, it sound like you just read from my website, but in case it's not for my website, I will say that from what I heard at the first listing of that, that sounded spot on, that I don't use the term defund because everything I know about organizational design and improvement would suggest an investment strategy is to look at the outcomes you're trying to drive.

And in this case, effective culturally competent, bias-free policing, capable of deescalating, capable of seeing the best in people and building trust in communities.

That may require a different investment strategy.

Nothing I know would suggest that you starve a department from resources trying to create that.

And so, when my opponent constantly talks about defunding the police by 50%, most of their costs are personal-related.

So, you can't do that without actually losing the number of officers.

And so, when we're down to the 900 or 800 numbers that the city has now, that's unacceptable.

So, we will do under our plan, we will examine everywhere a gun and badge goes, make no mistake about that.

And a gun and badge will not go to Charleena Lyles' apartment when she in fact called for help.

We will create a new kind of officer, one that is not armed and one that is culturally competent.

We will create a certification process in our college system, by which people who want to go into public safety, but they do not wanna carry a gun will have the opportunity.

So, we're gonna create a new kind of officer, number one.

The firefighters who've endorsed me, they model the kind of responses we wanna see.

So yes, we will invest and have more than 900 officers, but when I tell people, when they think of officers, think of a new kind of officer.

But make no mistake about it and this is where my opponent and I just strongly differ.

I want seven-minute response times.

When there are priority one calls and crimes in progress, I want people to feel safe and this should not be a divisive conversation.

This cuts across race, it cuts across socioeconomics.

Poor people, rich people and everything in between, they want their babies safe, they want their families safe, they want everyone to feel safe.

When I was at Judkins Park in the African-American community where there was a shooting a week after with police officers talking to the parents and to the kids saying that our job as electeds are to protect you with this community and the police officers were warmly embraced.

And so, this is a unifying discussion.

So under my platform, again, which distinguishes me from my opponent is I want to invest in a good, strong, effective police department.

but we will eradicate racism and unreasonable force, make no mistake about it.

- Let's segue from there to downtown.

Clearly, downtown is not as vibrant or as healthy as it was and we're not sure how it will bounce back.

Small businesses have called for urgent action from the city on issues of crime and safety.

Meanwhile, the way we work has changed forever.

Not everyone's going to come back to the office.

So, will downtown ever be what it once was and what can downtown businesses realistically expect from a downtown recovery?

- So, downtown is gonna be better because even pre-pandemic, we had many struggles that really, I don't think there was the kind of leadership that I would like to see.

And remember I was on the council, but all we could do is put money in a budget and pass a law.

But under my leadership, downtown will be better.

And how will we get there?

We will do a visioning exercise realizing that a lot of the brick and mortar places downtown were on thin margins anyway because of what you described, Monica.

The e-commerce way of doing business in this country has dramatically changed.

So, we'll do a visioning exercise and we'll have neighborhood activists and the civic community and business leaders and public safety leaders and climate change activists.

I will put together a panel and we'll talk about open space.

We'll talk about using the built environment.

We'll talk about how to activate it.

One thing we do know through the arts community is the arts and culture development kind of movement, if you will, brings things to life.

And so, we're going to figure out how do we activate it?

And it's gonna be rooted in public safety, that you can't do any of this unless people feel safe.

And so under my approach, using the best practices of criminologists, talking to the defense lawyers, the defense bar, we'll tell people that we are, once again, trying to make our streets safe.

We're gonna reset community norms using the best practices.

And so, you layer effective public safety, culturally competent public safety and you sort of take it back, if you will.

And make sure that the people who have addiction problems and health issues, that we have a whole set of services that we will provide for them.

We will not criminalize poverty, but we will vision together we will see things together and what the new downtown looks like.

And I have to tell you, I will lead to discussions, but I will listen as well, but I envision more open space.

I envision music, the spoken word, I envision daycare centers, daycare, downtown school and tying in downtown to the waterfront with the Pike Place Market.

We have an incredible opportunity in front of us.

- Thank you.

You and your opponent have both been in leadership citywide while many of the issues we're discussing got a good bit worse, not better.

So, why should voters believe that anything will change if you are mayor?

- Well, the job of a council member, as I said earlier, to pass laws and to allocate a budget.

And if you look at many of the laws that I passed, quite frankly, they were fairly groundbreaking.

An example would be creating a $100 million rainy day fund for city lights, such that we don't see what happened in Texas and we don't see rate volatility and that we give access to our largest customers that pay a million dollars a month access to the same data that the mayor and the city council gets to help set rates.

And we have the advocates for low-income rate payers, as well as climate change activists.

So, we open up the books.

The Race and Social Justice Initiative, the Indigenous People's Day celebration, all that came from my committee.

The Ban the Box issue, we look first at an employee's ability to do a job to reduce recidivism such that they can get on with their life and be productive workers.

Body cameras to create more accountability in police officers.

I can go on and on about what we've done, but most importantly, I think I have a record of using data, doing the research, doing the hard work and making the tough decisions, that when I look at this race, they're not attacking my policies, they're not even attacking my record 'cause my record could stand on its own merits.

I've prepared a lifetime to be the mayor.

And I tell my warm supporters that I recognize how tough a job it is.

What will also govern our discussions, Monica, will be the race and social justice work.

And I say that to say that when we look at environmental justice or police reform, small business revitalization, that the mood of the country and the mood of the city will wanna make sure that they have a leader, not only well-versed in this area, but could really move the needle.

And that's why we're introducing a race and data initiative as well.

But my story of being of mixed heritage, I mean, many people know I'm half African-American and half Japanese-American, that I approach race discussions a little differently.

I was a minority within minorities and I celebrate our differences.

I love hearing about different religions and different cultures, different foods, but I forced the discussion some point to what we have in common, great celebrations that we've all had and great pain that we have to sometimes get over, our impediments towards self-optimization.

So, when I lead the discussions in race, it's gonna be a new discussion because I have friends from every walk of life, every socioeconomic level and I've been very intentional in my life because that's what I had to do.

There weren't a lot of people that look like me in the group and like I said, a lot of people thought I was Polynesian or something growing up.

And I would find myself with people who I just would like and love and those are the people that supported me.

And so, that person, the next mayor will have to be very well versed and not one-dimensional in these discussions.

And that's why wherever I go, I say, this is our time.

This is our time to, not only show our soft underbelly in Seattle 'cause make no mistake about that, Seattle still has its challenges when it comes to race.

We have to be honest about that, but I believe in the goodness of Seattle and I believe that we can use what we have in common to move the needle on everything, education, employment, climate change and homelessness and housing, that using the basis of this commonality that we all have in common, we will make the change that we want to see.

- So Bruce, you said you've been preparing your whole life to be mayor and I wanna follow up on that because you are running for what is arguably the most difficult job in our city by far at a complicated time when there are no easy answers.

So, I wanna hear from Bruce, the person, and not the candidate, why do you want to be mayor?

Why prepare for this job?

Why invite all that scrutiny and struggle onto yourself?

I mean, this is a really tough time for this city and for cities all over the country.

- Well, when I was 14 in Seattle, every morning at 6:30, I was at the Boys and Girls Club tutoring young kids on how to read and do better in math.

When I was in college, I spent many weeks consistently, while in college, many years, tutoring inmates in Monroe Reformatory.

In my life, as an attorney, I've represented many nonprofits and for-profits small businesses and I've been trying to learn how to make sure a pathway to optimization and prosperity and success is built for everyone.

Now, this city has been incredibly good to my wife and I and our three children and I've been very fortunate to be at the right place at the right time and have the right mentors.

When I say I've prepared a lifetime for this is, yes, I could be doing other things, but I don't... We have to be very clear that this is a defining moment for the city.

Coming out of COVID, coming out of small business, the devastation that they've had, coming out of the George Floyd murder when our young people are looking at the rules and say, "This deck is stacked."

This is a defining moment and I don't like missing a good party, I wanna go where the action is.

And the action is in Seattle where we have it all, by the way.

We have a maritime port industry city manufacturing, we have high-tech biotech, a great university system, climate change activists, compassionate people.

We have a good hand.

And when I look at our homelessness issue, I say government will never say, "We have all of the resources to solve the problem.

We hit it, we hit the jackpot."

That never comes.

Your inventory, your assets, which include not only the financial resources, but the people and you say, "With this hand that we're dealt, we are gonna change the narrative and change the... We're gonna get the work done."

And anyone that's worked with me in a nonprofit, in a church, in a small business, they will say that I say, "Let's go to work.

Let's get the work done."

On this campaign, an example, we meet every morning and we go through our day every day and I will say, "Let's get the work done."

So, that's why I'm excited about this.

And quite candidly, I don't just wanna win and then get to be the mayor.

It's the work, that's why I'm running.

It's the work that I look forward to doing with so many people and so many people will be on the team.

I look forward to it.

- Well Bruce, thank you so much for talking with us today.

- Thank you for having me, Monica.

- And now we have a chance to hear from our other candidate for mayor.

Lorena González is the president of the Seattle City Council.

She was the first Latina to sit on the council when she was elected in 2015.

Before kickstarting her career in government, Lorena was a civil rights attorney.

She was born in the Lower Yakima Valley and now lives in the West Seattle Junction neighborhood with her husband, Cameron, and her one-year-old daughter, Nadia Luciana.

Lorena González, welcome and thank you for making time in the final weeks of a busy campaign to join us.

- Thanks for having me, Monica.

- Of course.

Seattle has a lot of challenges right now and I know our viewers wanna hear from you about solutions, but we can't talk about the cure until we understand what ails us.

So Lorena, diagnose the problem as succinctly as you can, what exactly is keeping Seattle from being a more livable city?

- I think Seattle is a growing city.

We see the numbers of droves of people coming to Seattle because people wanna live here.

And unfortunately, that growth hasn't been paired with adequate resources from people who can afford to pay more into our system to really allow us to build that vibrant city that has public transit, good schools and the parks and all of the other amenities that are really motivating people to come and live here and do business here.

- So from that diagnosis then, we're gonna jump into some issues on livability that our city cares about a great deal.

You've talked about going after the root causes of one of these, homelessness, particularly poverty and inequality.

Now, those are huge issues for any city, especially in a pandemic.

We have a hard time finding homes for 4,000 homeless neighbors year after year, let alone solving for something as deep and complex as inequality.

So, speak right to that skepticism, Lorena, if you can.

What's one thing you could realistically do as mayor that would make a dent in poverty or inequality?

- You know, in many ways we're already taking steps on this.

We had an opportunity to channel how we use federal dollars to achieve greater equity as we recover and bounce back from this pandemic and the devastating economic recession that it has caused.

And that manifested as the Seattle Rescue Plan.

And through that plan, we've already begun to experiment with basic income programs, programs that are proven time and time again to break the cycles of poverty and address inequality in our communities.

And I am really interested in, as the next mayor of the city, pursuing a universal basic income program that focuses on the poorest in our community and puts money back in their pockets, again, from the wealthiest and largest corporations in our city who can afford to pay more to really begin the hard work of making progress to have a more economically equitable city where we are lifting up those who need us the most.

- So, it always helps to have a metric when you're trying to make changes that big.

So, what kind of measure or metric would you look for for actually making a dent in those issues?

What's the one that you would pick?

- Yeah, I think there's a lot of different metrics, right?

I can throw out all these numbers and percentages at you, but really the only metric that matters are do we have less children experiencing hunger?

Do we have more people being able to access healthcare systems?

And do we actually have a system that centers the needs of those who are unhoused?

So, the metric there is, can we and will we produce less people suffering and trying to survive outside?

Those are the only metrics that matter and that is what has to drive our work.

And for me, the goal is how do we create that shared prosperity and a city that has extraordinary amounts of wealth?

It is time for us to have a mayor in this moment in time where we are looking at the challenges of civil rights, where we are looking down the barrel of who's gonna get to benefit from recovery programs.

This is the time for us to elect somebody who represents and has a strong record of championing policies and solutions that benefit working families and our children and our working moms.

- So, you mentioned universal basic income as being one thing that you wanna pursue as mayor, maybe fast-forward on it.

Why?

What led you to believe that that was gonna be a really significant move?

- In San Francisco, our neighbors to the south, we all know how devastating income inequality and poverty has played out in that city with a growing very devastatingly large population of people who are unhoused.

And we have seen that this last year, San Francisco is actually piloting a basic income program that provides direct cash assistance to those who are experiencing homelessness and it is showing extraordinarily promising results.

So, I think we can learn lessons from those cities like San Francisco and others across the nation that have either piloted or fully implemented basic income program that really does show us that it works to break the cycles of poverty.

We can see the same example from the recent child tax credit that was advanced under President Biden.

We hear universally that this will be a number one way for us to reduce childhood hunger and poverty within working families.

And so, we know that this program works.

It's a matter of how do we scale it up and how do we fund it.

- So, thank you on that.

Let's move to public safety and policing, another one of those big issues on Seattle and livability.

At the end of August, we learned that there had already been 150 more shootings in Seattle this year than in all of 2019.

And then in April, Police Chief Diaz reported that more than 250 Seattle police officers had quit during the prior year.

Meanwhile, there's this charged debate about how many police officers a city needs and what they should even do.

One of our readers proposed a set of goals I wanna share with you, that we want a police department that works with communities, responds appropriately to people going through different kinds of crises, keeps people and property safe, is accountable financially and attracts and keeps excellent officers.

Really easy, right?

But does this describe the police department you would want in Seattle?

And if so, how do you plan to get us there?

- You know, I think there's a lot of agreement between me and your writer here.

That's the goal, is how do we accomplish all of those things that really do allow at the end of the day for those of us in our communities to feel like we are not just being over-policed and over-incarcerated, but that we are actually receiving the promise of community safety in our communities.

There's lots of ways to do that and I continue to believe that our police department needs to be held to the highest accountability standards in the nation.

I believe Seattle can lead in that conversation by making sure we're truly holding the bad cops accountable.

And- - And what's one thing you would change on accountability?

What's something that we're not doing now that you wanna see happen?

- I can go on forever on this topic because I'm a- - Mm-hmm, probably all of these - I'm a civil rights attorney and I've been working on accountability issues and holding bad cops accountable my entire career.

But I will say that what is really holding us back is this police contract.

It has been detrimental to our ability to fulfill the promise of police accountability and legislation that I sponsored in 2017.

And so, I think that the next mayor who does play the role of pushing the negotiations, of framing the negotiations and of ultimately, bringing to council a tentative agreement, and it is important that the next mayor of this city understand that it will be necessary to push back on this police union, who is currently refusing to comply with the vaccine mandates, who's currently defending officers, the largest contingency of officers who went to the insurrection in Washington, DC.

And these are significant cultural issues that the next mayor is gonna have to draw a line on and that line gets drawn in the next police contract.

- So, what about this question of attracting and then keeping excellent police officers?

That's definitely been on people's minds.

What's something you would do to try to push on that goal, other than the contract, I suppose?

- I think ultimately, it is about having fair wages and working conditions.

People need to feel like if they come to work at the police department, they're not gonna be stuck in patrol for the rest of their life.

They want to have upward mobility to become a detective or command staff, right?

At the police department.

So, those things matter to people as they're thinking about how to do this work, but I would also say that it's important for us to do targeted recruitment and retention of officers who live in our community.

The reality is that a vast majority of the officers that work at Seattle Police Department don't live in the city of Seattle.

And for me, I think it's really important as a commitment to community policing, we need members from our own communities who understand who's in the community, what are our priorities and will transfer those commitments and those understandings into the day-to-day work of being a police officer in our city.

- So, let's move to downtown.

Many people think of a city's downtown as its main gathering space, its cultural hub.

In our recent Crosscut-Elway Poll, nearly 62% of likely voters said the city should direct significant time and resources to restore and revitalize downtown.

Now, you've pushed back on the idea that downtown should be the primary focus of our economic recovery, arguing for a worker's first approach.

But before the pandemic, more than half our jobs were downtown.

So, what's the difference there?

Why shouldn't downtown be the priority?

- I think that the downtown does have some small businesses in it that still need our help, including restaurants.

Our hospitality industry is still really struggling in this recovery period.

But the reality is that I think it would be a mistake to only focus on downtown in large part is because that strategy presupposes that we are done with the pandemic and that we are gonna go back to business as usual.

We are not.

We know and all of the data tells us that office work has been completely transformed with more and more people saying that they do not want to return to office-based work even when the pandemic is done.

So, that means that we have to be more nimble and responsive to today's needs and realities, which is not an abandonment of having a strong downtown neighborhood, but it's a recognition of the fact that people also want really strong local economies in the neighborhoods where they live because that's now going to be also where they work, because we are now doing telecommuting.

And that's the reality, that a vast majority of the employees in downtown are office-based workers who are likely going to continue to telecommute for as long as they possibly can and my policies, my plan, to bolster our local economy acknowledges that reality and proposes policies to really, again, bolster our local economy from that perspective.

- So, what does... Because we're not gonna go back to how it was, if that is the case, what then is your vision for the future of downtown?

What does a revitalized Seattle post-pandemic really look like and feel like?

What is our relationship to it as Seattleites?

- Yeah, I think this is where my concept of a 15-minute city really comes in, a concept in which you can live in any part of the city and get to your work, your healthcare provider, your daycare provider, your school, your parks, within a 15-minute walk or bike ride.

And I think downtown is no different.

We need to have the amenities in downtown.

We do have a lot of families living in downtown, contrary to popular belief, and we need to work with our arts and cultural community to re-imagine street-level use, we need to continue to invest in things like our waterfront park that are gonna be accessible, not just to ongoing tourism in the city which saw a huge spike over the summer, but also to the families and locals who wanna come in and out of downtown to visit those types of sites.

So, there is an important role for downtown, I am not denying that at all.

I just think that it's an opportunity for the next mayor to say, "Listen, we are not gonna go back to the way it was before because our workforce doesn't necessarily want that.

So, how can we work together to develop the partnerships necessary to re-imagine how we were going to use underutilized space?, Let's build more childcare infrastructure.

Let's identify a place for us to put schools for downtown families.

Let's look at how we can create more green space that is walkable and available to the families that live in downtown."

These are the things that I think folks really want the next mayor to work on.

- Now, you and your opponent, you've both been in city leadership while many of these issues have unfortunately gotten worse, not a whole lot better.

So, why should voters believe that anything will change if you're mayor?

- You know, I think Seattle voters understand that these issues that we're talking about, right?

Historic inequality, deep poverty, the racial disparities in wealth are very large systemic issues.

And so, I think that it's important that, in that context, I share with folks that I believe I'm the right person to lead us through these intersectional crises because I have been leading and advancing solutions that are making progress towards having greater economic inclusivity, towards lifting up the needs of working families by making sure they have higher wages and basic job protections, like being protected against sexual assault in the workplace.

These are the things that make a huge difference for the people that I seek to serve.

And those people are the thousands of essential workers and working families and working parents across our city who are at risk and have been left out of how our economy works.

So, for me, it's important to bring those values to bear in the mayor's office in this critical moment of time in our history where we can choose policies of the past or we can commit to progressing forward together, consistent with our progressive values, but also looking towards how we can continue to center, not business as usual serving wealthy corporate interests downtown, but how do we serve the people, the working people of this city.

- So, tell us, how will you get that done in the mayor's office?

What's a tool that you'll have there that has not been available to you thus far that you're really sure is gonna move the needle the way you want?

- Well, first of all, let's start with the 12,000 employees that work for the mayor that don't work for the city council.

I think there's a lot more resources.

Power to effectuate transformation and change comes from the mayor's office.

That is who leads our city.

As a legislator, I've been proud to be able to use the limited tools I have to advance important policies and to prioritize funding in our budget that really lifts up families, immigrants, women, children, sexual assault survivors throughout the city.

But as mayor, I have an opportunity to, together with community members and together with the city council, really shape a broader, larger, shared vision on how we are going to tackle poverty and inequality in our city and to work together on the strategy to advance the policies and the budget decisions that are gonna be consistent with that vision.

- So, here's my last question.

You are running for what is arguably the most difficult job in our city at what might be one of the most difficult times the city has ever seen, a time when everything is so complicated, there's really just no easy answers at all.

So, I wanna hear from Lorena González, the person, not the candidate, why do you want to be mayor?

Why invite all that scrutiny and struggle onto yourself leading this city?

- Yeah.

Last year was by far one of the hardest years of my public service, not just as a council member, but as a person.

And at the end of the day, when people ask me, "Why do you wanna do this job?

It is gotta be the worst thing to sign up for."

I just say, I, for me as a mom, as a mom to a one and a half year old, feel it is my obligation to build a world that sees her for who she is, a world that allows her to have promise and potential and opportunity.

And that's why I'm doing this.

I'm doing this because I know that kids like my own are depending on the next mayor to make this city a more equitable just place so that they can continue to thrive and be a part of this community.

I don't want this city to continue on the trajectory of being a playground for the wealthy and the rich.

I want her to see herself, her working class roots in the people who live in this city.

And that's why I get up every single day to do this hard work and it's exactly what motivates me every day to wanna be the next mayor of this beautiful city that I really believe in and who has invested in me at levels that I cannot describe, that have allowed me to really become who I am, a mom, a wife and somebody who is a devoted servant to the people of this city.

- Thank you, Lorena.

If I can throw in one more.

- Go for it.

- You have said that this is not a moment for small thinking.

U.S. News & World Report ranked Seattle the 19th most livable city in 2021.

So, if we were to dream big, what would it actually take to get to Seattle to number one?

- I think getting Seattle to number one is gonna be embracing our potential to be a true urban city.

I think we are still thinking in ways that are more akin to suburban cities.

And so for me, I think we need to build a city that has mixed income housing and a strong parks network and world-class transit and good living wage jobs and pathways for people to either get free college or career training and childcare, childcare, childcare.

It's so critical for parents who are working to have that be part of our infrastructure.

These are the components that if we do them discreetly, will keep us at 19 on this list, but if we do it as a package deal and really envision about how we can create an affordable, equitable, easy to get around city that is also working on climate change, we can easily rise to be number one on that list and I believe that's possible.

I really believe that that is possible for us to get on that path and that trajectory in the next year.

- Lorena González, thank you for taking the time to talk with us today.

- Thanks, Monica.

- And there you have it.

I hope these conversations provide a little more information as you make an important decision about Seattle's next leader.

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