Unknown Speaker Alright, right. Welcome, everybody to this mayoralcandidate forum on transportation equity andthe environment hosted by the move all Seattle sustainably,mass coalition and other alliedorganizations. Our co sponsor organizations are 350Seattle, action cascade Bicycle Club,Seattle neighborhood greenways Seattle subway sunrise,Seattle transportation choicescoalition transit riders Union and the urbanist andwe'll be hearing from candidates running for mayor of Seattle as they answer questions from ourmoderator Erica Barnett.Unknown Speaker Erica is a local reporter covering politics, transportation,housing, homelessness and urbanism. And she's been a writer and editor at publicationssuch as having posts with strangers, Seattle,weekly shitsville, the Austin Chronicle and many more,and also her own website public cola.She's the author of quitter, a memoir of drinking,relapse and recovery, which was published lastyear. And you can find her at public health calm oron Twitter at political news. All of our questions were submitted to Erica from all of theco sponsor organizations, as well as fromaudience members who submitted questions during registration.We'll also be taking questionsfrom the audience during the forum tonight, throughthe q&a box, so make sure that you'reentering your questions there in the q&a box ratherthan in the chat box. Our captioning isavailable and can be shown or hidden on your deviceas you prefer. And we'll also be sharing arecording and a live transcript after the event. BeforeI get started, I'd also like to invite you tomark your calendars for next Tuesday, June 22, forour forum for city council position ninecandidates. And with that, I'll turn it over to our moderator.Erica, thank you so much for being here.Thanks, Clara. And Good evening, everybody. It's anhonor to be with all of you here tonighthosting this forum for the mass coalition and allthe sponsor organizations that have made thisconversation possible. Tonight, you'll hear from theleading mayoral candidates directly abouttheir positions on issues including transportationequity, sustainability, land use, and more. Theformat for tonight is as follows. we'll kick thingsoff with a two minute introductory statement fromeach candidate, followed by questions that each ofthe candidates will have an opportunity toanswer. And those questions we've made an executivedecision because we have so manygreat questions from the members of the coalitionand members public will be 92nd answers, sotalk fast, and you're not obligated to take the entire90 seconds. We are on a tight schedule. Soplease stick to that timeline. And just remember thatthe more quickly you can respond, themore questions we'll be able to get to. And then afterthe general questions, we will have alightning round of yes or no and very short answerquestions. A brief programming note Coleenecho Hawk and Casey six killer. were not able to attendtonight's forum. And we're hoping that asurrogate for Colleen will be joining us shortly.And in the meantime, it is my honor to introducethe candidates for mayor of Seattle. Tonight withus we have Justin farol, Lorena Gonzales,Bruce Harrell, Andrew grant Houston and Lance Randall.And we'll start as I said with anopening statement from each candidate starting withJustin farol.
Good evening. Thank you, Erica. And thank you to everyone who has hosted this forum thisevening. My name is Jessyn Farrell. And I am a candidate for mayor. I am a single mom of threeand I think my six year olds about to make an appearanceokay.We'll see how far I get. I'm former executive directorof transportation choices coalition and Ihave, you know what, I am going to have to ask foryour forgiveness and see if we can switcharound. I'm going to be right back. Thank you. We'llgo next to Lorena Gonzales.I'd be all too happy to pitch in as a mom myself here.Thank you, Erica and mass Coalition for organizingthis really important event. I am currently thepresident of the Seattle City Council. And I was firstelected to the Seattle City Council in 2015,as the first Latin x person elected to a city wideoffice in the history of the city. I'm looking tobeSeattle's next mayor, and to in this historic racebecome the first Latin x person of a major UScity on the west coast to become mayor. And I am aproud Daughter of immigrants. I'm a proudwoman of color. I'm a first time mom and I am alsoan avid transit writer and love to alsocommute by bicycle, I have a vision for this city.And the vision for this city is to build a 15minute city with complete neighborhoods that are connected,that have everything you needwhen you step out of it. In order to do that, we'regoing to have to build a strong coalition. Andthe mass coalition has been critical to some of theachievements I have been able to work on asa council member from the Georgetown to South Parkbike trail connection to many other veryimportant infrastructure developments throughout thecity. I want to be able to build on thatprogressive record, I want to be able to make surethat I put my relationships with the CityCouncil to work to move an agenda forward that isbold, and that will not just take us back to theway we were pre COVID but actually work towards helpingus reimagining reinvigorating, andand really taking seriously the charge of of the compplan that is going to be put forward in 2024but not waiting until 2024 to begin the hard workof building a city that is truly a 15 minute city.Ilook forward to the questions and and thank you againso much for having me here.Thank you. Um, now we will go back to Jessyn Farrell.Thank you so very much for your patience. We are allsettled over here. So again, I'm JessynFarrell running for mayor of Seattle, I am the motherof three you met one of them who is sixyears old. I am also the former executive directorof transportation choices, a former statelegislator, and most recently I was the chair of thegovernor's Task Force on economic recoverywhere we focused on getting relief into small businessowners who had been left out of federalpandemic programs. I am running for mayor becausethis is a moment where we need to turnwords into action. We need to stop the infightingand build bridges. And most importantly, weneed to stop patting ourselves on the back for incrementalismand get the big large-scalesolutions that we need to tackle our toughest problems.And I have been doing that my entirecareer. I have helped get in place $80 billion intransit, pedestrian and bike infrastructure, I helpnegotiate paid family leave as a legislator. And withRepublicans and prior to 2017, you couldget fired for being pregnant, I helped change that.And so I am running because we need to gobig on housing. I'm committed to 70,000 units of affordablehousing across the city, we need toget to zero gun deaths, we need to get to zero carbonemissions by 2030. And we need to get
to zero pedestrian deaths and the same leadership is not going to get us there. So I am reallylooking forward to earning your support. I'm lookingforward to your questions. And once again,thank you so much for having us this evening.Thank you and we are working on getting a solutionfor timing of these responses. But you guysare doing great so far. So next we'll go to BruceHarrell.So you mentioned the timing when I start is that aninsinuation I'm going to take too long, not atall. Although you just use up four or five of your seconds.That's okay. Now that word is telling meOh, well, thanks for having me. I look forward tothis discussion. Because what's interesting onthis campaign trail is, you know, the issues of policereform and homelessness and businessrevitalization. It's sort of dominated many of thediscussions and there have been parts wherewe are talking about some of the basic componentsof our system that are so critical.Whether it is pedestrian safety or vision zero orclimate change or the walkability of our city, soI'm very proud to say that one of the angles on allof the issues I've been working is revealing allof the data, when we look at what it costs to repaira sidewalk, what it will cost to implementVision Zero, when we're looking at, you know, takingdown 75% of our pure arterials, down to 25miles an hour, I've had the least very difficult discussionsin areas of the town where people arestill reliant on fossil fueled vehicles. And I'vedone this with the lens of safety, or walkabilityhealth. And that's why part of my platform is a healthyfor all Seattle, a healthy Seattle, which ismodeled after what is in San Francisco, to make surepeople who fall through the cracks havehealth care, I will lead with environmental justicewhen we're looking at air quality and water quality. And then access to food in terms of what,again, is a is a healthy ecosystem for all to livein, you know, our commitment as a city to climatechange, and to a walkable, livable, excitingcity to live. And I think we all share that. But whatwe don't share right now, I think is the publictrust that people have faith, the public has faithwhen we ask for more money through leviesthan when we are spending our money wisely. So I'llclose by saying that under my leadershipunder my race and data initiative, and some of thetechnology platforms that I will introduce, wewill regain the city's trust such that they will realizethat investments we are asking them to makeare truly smart investments and effective investments.And with that, I hope that you'll look at mycandidacy favorably. Alright, next up as I turn off my timer. Next up,Andrew grant Houston.Good afternoon, and hello to my fellow members ofthe mass coalition. My name is Andrewgrant Houston. Many of you know me better as a cityarchitect. I am queer, black and Latino. And I moved to Seattle, mainly for job opportunities,but also because it has the best transitsystem in the US. And that also is to say that wecan go significantly better if we are going toachieve a 15 minute city ideal not just in our transit,but also in our housing and allowing for housing to occur in every single one of our neighborhoods.We have had a number of mayor's inthe past make really large promises in terms of whatthey were going to do. Case in point Mayor