A Plan to Take Our City Back
We Can Do This, But Only Together
A Personal Plea
Friends,
Last year, when big business bought my opponent her Council seat, I knew tough times were ahead under this new conservative majority. But I didn’t expect things to get quite this bad, quite this quickly.
In just eight months, they tried twice to strip minimum wage protections from two groups of Seattle’s most vulnerable workers, and they attempted to defund investments in affordable housing, health clinics and childcare for marginalized racial groups.
They have blocked efforts to ease permitting for affordable housing, jailed regular citizens for participating in public comment, and cut promised funding for student mental health. They gave away a rare opportunity to embed police accountability into our union contract, a decision that all but guarantees more abuses from our department. Sadly, this will further undermine trust between the community and its officers, which is a key component of improving public safety.
In the meantime, the budget deficit has increased to staggering levels and the council has ignored the climate crisis and affordable housing shortage fueling homelessness in our city.
I cannot stand by and let them drag Seattle backwards. We’re not going back!
Fortunately, a group of progressive leaders has been working behind the scenes to inject new life into our political ecosystem. Among these efforts is to address the wild imbalance of funding facing progressive candidates.
Last year when I ran, I outraised my opponent, and was constrained from raising more by fundraising maximums or I would have been able to go much farther.
But none of this mattered, because Trump donors, corporate bosses and the giant real estate interests banded together to drop hundreds of thousands of dollars in PAC money to buy the race so they could keep their taxes low. While there was a bit of a last minute PAC that supported me from one labor union, the corporate PAC outspent organized labor by a 19 to 1 ratio.
We won’t let that happen again. We don’t have to match their endlessly deep pockets, but we do have to show up. And we are ready this time! A coalition of progressive leaders have united to form a political action committee to level the playing field and make sure voters hear the truth about this Council’s abysmal record.
But we need everyone who cares about the future of Seattle to pitch in.
On September 17th at 6pm, we are having a special gathering in Belltown to raise money for the PAC, which will support the election of Alexis Mercedes Rinck to our city council. You can RSVP by filling out this form.
It is time to dig deep. This fall’s even-year citywide Council seat election gives us a once-in-a-decade chance to show them Seattle doesn’t support their conservative agenda, and we can’t let corporate interests buy this election like they bought the council majority last year.
If you can join me in supporting this effort, I’d love for you to join us at this event. If you’d like to understand how you might get involved or what sort of efforts will be undertaken, please send me an email and I’d be happy to share our strategy and ways you can get involved.
Ron
*The Photo on the Newsletter Page is from Pixabay, used with permission.