President Jimmy opened the meeting at noon in deference to the day’s lengthy program. He invited Linda Rough for the day’s song, ‘Don’t Fence Me In’ accompanied by Jevon Powell; and followed by Nick Anderson for the day’s inspiration, ‘while we may share the same vocabulary many times we read from a different dictionary’.
President Jimmy said Seattle 4 has a rich history of providing a forum for candidates for office, as the future economic vitality of our community depends on key leadership. He asked members to submit their questions in the chatbox, and then introduced Mark Wright, KING-TV news anchor and past Seattle #4 president to interview Mayoral candidates, Bruce Harrell and M. Lorena Gonzalez, separately as schedules did not permit them to appear together. For the purposes of this article, responses were grouped together by topic.
Bruce Harrell began his remarks by focusing on his Seattle roots, from honor student at Garfield High School to being mentored at the Rotary Boys & Girls Club and playing football at the UW. He said Quincy Jones introduced his mom & dad at Garfield and that Quincy is honorary chair of the Garfield High School centennial. “While on the city council I created a $100M rainy day fund, increased accountability at City Light, and worked with Seattle Police to increase bias training to prevent racial profiling and put cameras on officers and passed fair employment legislation. As Mayor, I am looking forward to leading as this is one of the most important elections of our time.”
Lorena Gonzalez said she “Won’t apologize for being a staunch advocate for working families. I built my career on fighting on behalf of working families. As a former migrant worker who worked her way through school, "we are dealing with an intersection of crisis from the pandemic to the economic recession,” she said. “My own husband spent half the year on the unemployment rolls. I want to be a mayor who supports the people of the city instead of a few powerful interests that have controlled the city for many years. Small donations are made by working people and small business owners. As Mayor, I will make policy choices that will benefit working people in the city.
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