“These people need to get down to business and clean up the mess in this city,” said Joe Howard, a Black 48-year-old financial trader who lives on Capitol Hill and decried the “disorganized nonsense” of the protest zone. “I understand you want to open up society, you want a fair and equitable society, but just being airheaded about things behind a liberal ideology is not going to achieve that.”
– Gene Johnson reporting from Seattle for the Associated Press
Mayor of Seattle Jenny Durkin is stepping down after a tumultuous year of handling the Covid pandemic, Black Lives Matter protests and the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone that drew national attention.
Gun violence has become an even worse problem in Seattle in recent months, as it has in many other major cities. And then there are the encampments of homeless people in the city’s parks and on the sidewalks and under freeway overpasses that need urgent attention.
So there is a 15-way race underway for Mayor of Seattle, and Seattleites are electing two candidates in tomorrow’s primary election. The top two will face off in a general election in November.
I for one, and for once, cast my vote for more moderate or conservative (gasp!) candidates— for mayor, as well as for each of the two city council positions that were on my ballot.
We spy with our stoned little eyes: Jenny Durkan hobnobbing with cops, Jessyn Farrell testing out some innovative childcare infrastructure, Andrew Grant Houston posing with a constituent, antifascists schooling Bruce Harrell on the field, Lorena González netting a can of tear gas, Colleen Echohawk constructing some housing, Casey Sixkiller sweeping up someone else’s personal property, and a city emerging from a pandemic to confront yet another summer of smoky skies. [Illustration by JAMES YAMASAKI]