Podcasts about city clerk

The City Clerk suspended the online CityKey application on Friday night after ICE subpoenaed three years of records for the ID program often used by immigrants. We discuss how the city responded and other ways the Trump administration is pressuring the city. Plus, we look at Choose Chicago's newest slogan and hear from some City Cast Chicago Neighbors. Heads up! We're having our next members-only event June 25. Become a Neighbor today to get the invite. Good News: Salt Shed Juneteenth Freedom Market Want some more City Cast Chicago news? Then make sure to sign up for our Hey Chicago newsletter.  Follow us @citycastchicago You can also text us or leave a voicemail at: 773 780-0246 Learn more about the sponsors of this June 17 episode: Babbel – Get up to 60% off at Babbel.com/CITYCAST Become a member of City Cast Chicago. Interested in advertising with City Cast? Find more info HERE 

Send us a textWhile we were on hiatus from producing episodes we had a number of passings that we want to comment on , both nationally, and locally here in the Myrtle Beach area of note. Over the next few days we will have two special editions mixed in with our regular series in order to honor these folks. In this episode we will look back at two people who were very close to me over the past two decades. Former Myrtle Beach City Clerk, Joan Grove , and former Surfside Beach Mayor Bob Childs. Two people who left an indelible mark on our small corner of the world here in South Carolina, where we produce these shows. Joan Grove was the City Clerk for two decades in Myrtle Beach, working with three different City Managers and four Mayors. She was the voice of the City Council every two weeks for our televised meetings as she read all the ordinances into the public record. More than that, Mrs. Grove was beloved by the city employees, elected officials, and residents alike. She took me under her wing when I first arrived as 30 year old councilman with no real travel experience to speak of and she made sure I got where I needed to be. We remained friends long after both of our time with the city was over. We will look back at her in this episode. Bob Childs, served in the United States Capitol long before he moved to Surfside Beach and ran for Council. He had stories to tell about every major figure of the last half of the 20th Century because he had served right beside them as they wandered around the Capitol. He moved to Surfside and became its Mayor, getting its finances in order, and accomplishing great things during his tenure. He was admired by all who knew him and we will be looking back at him in this episode as well. Finally, we will end this show as one of the most fun trivia questions of the age finally comes to a close. John Tyler, the 10th President of the United States who was born in 1790, and he had fifteen children. He had one of them when he was age 63. That son, Lyon Tyler, had a son at the age of 75. Harrison Tyler , who passed away  in June, was born in 1928, and he lived for 97 years. Which became one of the trivia worlds most fun questions. Who was the oldest living grandson of a President? The Tyler  family life spans over three generations that covers 235 years from 1790 to 2025. We will look back at the Tyler family tree as we bid farewell to a very nice man, Harrison Tyler, who I met one day while touring his home in Charles City County, Virginia.  Questions or comments at , Randalrgw1@aol.com , https://twitter.com/randal_wallace , and http://www.randalwallace.com/Please Leave us a review at wherever you get your podcastsThanks for listening!!

Happy Friday! The City Cast Madison team is here with another Friday news roundup — but this time with a twist. Cap Times food and culture editor Lindsay Christians joins the show to give a sneak peek at the Overture Center's 2025-26 season. Newsletter editor Rob Thomas gives an update on Madison's city clerk and executive producer Hayley Sperling digs into the questions surrounding the county's contracts with local nonprofit Urban Triage.   Wanna talk to us about an episode? Leave us a voicemail at 608-318-3367 or email madison@citycast.fm. We're also on Instagram!  Want more Madison news delivered right to your inbox? Subscribe to the Madison Minutes morning newsletter.  Looking to advertise on City Cast Madison? Check out our options for podcast and newsletter ads.  Learn more about the sponsors of this April 18th episode: Prolonlife.com/city - Use this link for 15% off Jones Dairy Farm Goodman Community Center District Council of Madison Out Professional Engagement Network Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a text and chime in!At their March 25th Voting Meeting, the Prescott City Council adopted Resolution No. 2025-1915, placing Proposition 482 “Home Rule” alternative expenditure limitation, and Resolution No. 2025-1914, placing Proposition 484 “Open Space Charter Amendment” on the August 5th Primary Election ballot. Arguments for and against Proposition 482 and Proposition 484 will be accepted by the City Clerk's Office March 28th through May 6th via email at city.clerk@prescott-az.gov or in person at 201 North Montezuma Street, Suite 302 Prescott, Arizona, 86301. Submitted arguments must meet the following criteria: Shall not exceed three hundred (300) words in length Shall be accompanied by a... For the written story, read here >> https://www.signalsaz.com/articles/prescott-proposition-482-and-484-election-details/Check out the CAST11.com Website at: https://CAST11.com Follow the CAST11 Podcast Network on Facebook at: https://Facebook.com/CAST11AZFollow Cast11 Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/cast11_podcast_network

Stephanie Lulay, Executive editor and Co-Founder of Block Club Chicago, joins Bob Sirott to share the latest Chicago neighborhood stories. She provides details on: The City Is Waiving Sticker Penalties For Chicago Drivers For All Of April: From April 1-30, the Office of the City Clerk is offering an “Amnesty Month” by waiving late fees and […]

March 25, 2025 City Club event description: Join us for a discussion with City of Chicago Clerk Anna M. Valencia, who has led one of the city's largest offices since 2017, serving over 1.2 million residents and generating $130 million annually. Valencia has focused on making government more accessible through innovative initiatives like the $3.5 […]

It's been a rough week for the City Clerk's office. With investigations underway and its leader put on leave, City Cast Madison host Bianca Martin outlines the events that got us here. Speaking of investigations, executive producer Hayley Sperling gives the latest on a federal inquiry into alleged antisemitism at UW-Madison and other universities across the country. But it's not all bad news this week — our snowplows have names! Plus, newsletter editor Rob Thomas has the details on all the St. Paddy's Day fun happening this weekend in Madison. Sláinte! Mentioned on the show: Witzel-Behl placed on leave three weeks before spring election [Isthmus] UW-Madison update on Title VI complaint [UW-Madison] Federal Funding Cuts Could Be “Disastrous” for UW [

Here's your local news for Wednesday, March 12, 2025:We sit down with Madison's interim city clerk, appointed to the job just three weeks before Election Day,Meet an alder candidate who says the city needs a stronger lobby in the state Legislature,Learn how UW-Madison leaders are preparing for federal cost-cutting measures,Broadcast the most comprehensive weather report on the airwaves,Travel back in time to 1967,And much more.

Thunder Bay City Council could operate with a new model in the near future. The Clerk's Office wants to hear what the public thinks of a new governance model. City Clerk and Director of Legislative Services, Krista Power stops by The Minutes studio to talk about governance. Host Jeff Walters has a rundown of what happened at this week's City Council meeting.

618Now Podcast: Candidate Forum – O'Fallon City Clerk As part of our commitment to keeping O'Fallon informed, The 618Now Podcast is hosting a Candidate Forum featuring those running for contested elected positions. This special episode provides voters with a closer look at each candidate's qualifications, priorities, and vision for the role.  Listen now to hear from Jerry Mouser, Candidate for O'Fallon City Clerk Learn More at ofallonchamber.com/618nowforums

618Now Podcast: Candidate Forum – O'Fallon City Clerk As part of our commitment to keeping O'Fallon informed, The 618Now Podcast is hosting a Candidate Forum featuring those running for contested elected positions. This special episode provides voters with a closer look at each candidate's qualifications, priorities, and vision for the role.  Listen now to hear from Caroline Malare, Candidate for O'Fallon City Clerk Learn More at ofallonchamber.com/618nowforums

Madison's City Clerk's office misplaced 193 ballots on election day. Now, some of those voters whose ballots went uncounted are filing a class-action lawsuit against the city. A proposed bill in the state Assembly would require parental permission for students to use names at school that don't align with their biological sex. And, a stranded boat along the shores of Lake Michigan has become the one of the newest Wisconsin pop culture landmarks.

In this episode of the Dover Download podcast, Deputy City Manager Christopher Parker chats with Dover School District's Dr. William Harbron and CFO Michael Limanni about the FY26 school budget. They discuss the nearly $100 million budget (including $6-8 million in grants), with 70% allocated to wages. They explain how the budget aligns with goals like maintaining current services, enhancing academic programming, prioritizing mental health, and strengthening support services. Limanni clarifies common misconceptions about the tax cap and explains how state funding impacts the local budget.Parker reviews the executive department budget, and then digs in to the Finance Department budget with Finance Director Dan Lynch, who outlines changes including a transition from contracted commercial appraisal services to in-house staff and plans for new voting machines. Lynch emphasizes how state statutes guide many of their operations, particularly in the City Clerk's and Assessing offices.Finally, Parker speaks with Welfare Director David Balian about the public welfare budget. Balian explains how they analyze past spending, current trends, cost of living changes, political climate, and job market conditions to project future needs. He notes an increase in security deposit assistance requests and emphasizes their focus on housing loss prevention as a cost-effective strategy.In This Week in Dover History, we learn about the 1984 revival of hydroelectric power at Cochecho Falls, when Southern New Hampshire Hydroelectric developed a facility capable of generating 3 million kW annually. The facility continues to operate today, having received a new 40-year permit in 2023.

Fort Wayne City Clerk, Lana Keesling, joined Fort Wayne's Morning News to share the news after receiving the nod to lead the Republican party in the state of Indiana. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The new clerk and former alderman discusses the office and his approach to the job.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

New Springfield City Clerk Chuck Redpath joined Springfield's Morning News to discuss his controversial appointment and how he plans to run the office.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Share your thoughts and comments by sending me a text messageS.10 E.24 In an American city, the public recently received the news that nearly 200 absentee ballots from the November 2024 election remained unprocessed and uncounted. In this episode, I discuss the matter.ABOUT: Tawsif Anam is a nationally published writer, award-winning public policy professional, and speaker. He has experience serving in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors in United States and overseas. Anam earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and a Master of Public Affairs degree from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. Tawsif Anam's opinions have been published by national, state, and local publications in the United States, such as USA Today, Washington Examiner, The Washington Times, The Western Journal, The Boston Globe, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Wisconsin State Journal, The Capital Times, and The Dodgeville Chronicle. His writings have also appeared in major publications in Bangladesh including, but not limited to, The Daily Star and The Financial Express. Visit my website www.tawsifanam.net Visit my blog: https://tawsifanam.net/blog/ Read my published opinions: https://tawsifanam.net/published-articles/ Check out my books: https://tawsifanam.net/books/

Sarah Ramsden is the Senior Archivist in the City Clerk's Department. She likes solving little mysteries that come up, like, "Does a key to the city come with any specific rights?" It doesn't, but there's a story there. Thanks to diligent employees like Sarah, the City of Winnipeg has one of the most complete collections of municipal records in Canada. These records, as well as photographs, maps, artifacts, and portraits make up the archival collection. Many of these items can be seen at winnipeg.ca/focus. For hands-on researchers, the office is open to the public. The archives preserve more than the items in the collection. They also preserve the stories.   This podcast is recorded in Treaty One Territory, the home and traditional lands of the Anishinaabe, Ininew, and Dakota peoples, and in the National Homeland of the Red River Métis. We acknowledge that our drinking water comes from Shoal Lake 40 First Nation, in Treaty Three Territory. What programs and services impact you the most? Email us at city-podcast@winnipeg.ca with suggestions for future episodes.  ---------------- Sarah, des ArchivesSarah Ramsden est l'archiviste principale du Bureau du greffier. Elle aime résoudre les petits mystères qui surviennent, comme le suivant : « Est-ce qu'une clé de la ville confère des droits précis? » Ce n'est pas le cas, mais une histoire se rattache à cette question. Grâce à des membres du personnel assidus comme Sarah, la Ville de Winnipeg a l'une des collections de documents municipaux les plus complètes au Canada. Ces documents, ainsi que des photos, des cartes, des artéfacts et des portraits, composent la collection d'archives. Plusieurs de ces articles peuvent être visionnés à winnipeg.ca/focus. Le bureau est aussi ouvert au public pour les chercheurs qui aiment travailler avec des documents physiques. Les archives ne préservent pas seulement les articles de la collection. Elles préservent aussi les histoires qui y sont associées.Ce balado est enregistré sur le territoire visé par le Traité no 1, le berceau et territoire traditionnel des peuples anishinaabe, ininew et dakota, et les terres ancestrales nationales des Métis de la Rivière-Rouge. Nous reconnaissons que notre eau potable provient de la Première Nation Shoal Lake, no 40, qui est située sur le territoire visé par le Traité no 3. Quels programmes et services vous touchent le plus? Envoyez-nous un courriel à city-podcast@winnipeg.ca pour nous donner des suggestions pour les épisodes à venir.

In this episode of the Dover Download podcast, the first of two parts, Deputy City Manager Christopher Parker chats with Nate Bernitz, a field specialist for Community and Economic Development at the University of New Hampshire's Cooperative Extension, about transparency and public trust in local government. The conversation explores Dover's various approaches to building trust through outreach and engagement, including the Dover Download podcast itself, which Parker notes reaches a surprisingly diverse audience. They discuss Dover's commitment to transparency through detailed budget documentation, accessible staff contact information, and clear communication practices. Parker emphasizes the city's focus on customer service, particularly in "high-touch" departments like the City Clerk's office and inspection services. The discussion also covers how Dover adapted during COVID-19 by streamlining processes and creating more online services, such as permit applications and outdoor dining approvals. Throughout the conversation, both speakers highlight the importance of making local government more accessible and understandable to residents while maintaining effective service delivery.

The City of Saxman fills vacancies for both a Village Public Safety Officer and City Clerk; also, the Alaska Marine Highway System releases new details for their long term plan; and a look at Sitka's Indigenous People's Day celebration.

Explore the journey of Jill Domingo, Albion's dedicated City Clerk, who has been working for the community for over two decades. Discover her personal story, her commitment to the electoral process, and the vital role she plays in ensuring secure and efficient elections. Learn about the comprehensive steps involved in voter registration, the responsibilities of a city clerk, and the importance of poll workers in making election day a success. Uncover the multiple ways residents can cast their votes, from early voting to absentee ballots, highlighting the accessibility and security measures in place.

CTL Script/ Top Stories of August 31st    Publish Date: August 31st    From the Ingles Studio Welcome to the Award-Winning Cherokee Tribune Ledger Podcast    Today is Saturday, August 31st and Happy 79th Birthday to Van Morrison ***08.31.24 – BIRTHDAY – VAN MORRISON*** I'm Keith Ippolito and here are the stories Cherokee is talking about, presented by Credit Union of Georgia.  Waleska Taking Applications for City Clerk and Manager Position Canton Resident Wins $1 Million in Powerball Drawing Woodstock Rotary Donates $1,500 to Oak Grove Elementary   We'll have all this and more coming up on the Cherokee Tribune-Ledger Podcast, and if you're looking for Community news, we encourage you to listen and subscribe!    Commercial: CU of GA STORY 1:  Waleska Taking Applications for City Clerk and Manager Position The city of Waleska is hiring a new city clerk/manager as Robyn Smith steps down for health reasons but will continue in an office clerk role. The city is currently interviewing candidates and accepting applications for the position. The city clerk/manager oversees record-keeping, budget preparation, election coordination, and serves as a liaison between the public, mayor, and city council. Salary details will be discussed during interviews. For more information or to apply, visit cityofwaleska.com or email rsmith@cityofwaleska.com. STORY 2:  Canton Resident Wins $1 Million in Powerball Drawing A Canton resident won $1 million in the Aug. 28 Powerball drawing with a ticket bought on the Georgia Lottery mobile app, while a Fort Stewart resident won $100,000 with another ticket from the app. The winning numbers were 5-33-47-50-64 with the Powerball 20 and a Power Play of 2X. The $1 million ticket matched the first five numbers but not the Powerball, while the $100,000 ticket matched four numbers plus the Powerball, with the prize doubled due to the 2X Power Play. Winners have 180 days to claim their prizes, and proceeds support education in Georgia. For details, visit www.galottery.com. STORY 3:  Woodstock Rotary Donates $1,500 to Oak Grove Elementary The Rotary Club of Woodstock recently donated $1,500 to Oak Grove Elementary STEAM Academy in Cherokee County to help purchase school supplies for the upcoming year. The Rotary Club was named Oak Grove Elementary's Partner of the Year for 2024 in recognition of their support. We have opportunities for sponsors to get great engagement on these shows. Call 770.874.3200 for more info.    Back in a moment  Break: DRAKE   STORY 4:  Cherokee County Student's Research Published in Science Journal Cherokee County School District student Manasa Shankar, a junior at Woodstock High School, has been published in the *Journal of Student Research* with her paper on chronic stress and cancer development. Supported by advisors from Wayne State University, Gifted Gabber, and the University of Southeastern Philippines, Shankar's research is accessible online. She is also recognized for her project on combating antibiotic resistance, which earned her a prize at the Georgia Science and Engineering Fair. STORY 5:   Thompsen Wins Cherokee Player of the Week River Ridge receiver Thomas Thompsen has been named the Week 2 Cherokee County Football Player of the Week. In a 39-0 victory over Denmark, Thompsen caught seven passes for 76 yards, scored two touchdowns, and added a five-yard touchdown rush. He received 234 votes, outpacing other nominees Ean Marria, Tanner Savasir, and Austin Guest. Thompsen's standout performance contributed significantly to River Ridge's win, improving their season record to 1-1. Commercial: INGLES 4 STORY 6:  Cherokee Dems Donate Over $1,700 to Clear Student Lunch Debt On August 28, the Cherokee County Democrats donated $1,731 to the Cherokee County School District to address outstanding meal balances for students. This donation, raised through their "Erase School Lunch Debt" campaign, is aimed at eliminating lunch debt for underserved students. The funds, which cover the cost of 706 meals, were presented to the district's School Nutrition department. STORY 7:  Georgia Power Teeing Up Four Battery Storage Projects Georgia Power will build battery energy storage systems (BESS) at four sites across the state, adding 500 megawatts of capacity to meet growing industrial power demands. These facilities will be located near Robins Air Force Base, Moody Air Force Base, the retired Plant Hammond, and will expand the McGrau Ford Battery Facility. This initiative is part of a broader plan approved last April, which includes renewable energy and fossil fuels, aimed at ensuring a diverse and reliable power supply. The state Public Service Commission must still certify the projects, with hearings scheduled for October 31 and November 1, and a final vote on December 3. We'll have closing comments after this.    COMMERCIAL: Heller 1 (GENERIC)   SIGN OFF –   Thanks again for hanging out with us on today's Cherokee Tribune Ledger Podcast. If you enjoy these shows, we encourage you to check out our other offerings, like the Cherokee Tribune Ledger Podcast, the Marietta Daily Journal, or the Community Podcast for Rockdale Newton and Morgan Counties. Read more about all our stories and get other great content at tribuneledgernews.com Did you know over 50% of Americans listen to podcasts weekly? Giving you important news about our community and telling great stories are what we do. Make sure you join us for our next episode and be sure to share this podcast on social media with your friends and family. Add us to your Alexa Flash Briefing or your Google Home Briefing and be sure to like, follow, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Produced by the BG Podcast Network   Show Sponsors: ingles-markets.com drakerealty.com cuofga.org jeffhellerlaw.com   #NewsPodcast #CurrentEvents #TopHeadlines #BreakingNews #PodcastDiscussion #PodcastNews #InDepthAnalysis #NewsAnalysis #PodcastTrending #WorldNews #LocalNews #GlobalNews #PodcastInsights #NewsBrief #PodcastUpdate #NewsRoundup #WeeklyNews #DailyNews #PodcastInterviews #HotTopics #PodcastOpinions #InvestigativeJournalism #BehindTheHeadlines #PodcastMedia #NewsStories #PodcastReports #JournalismMatters #PodcastPerspectives #NewsCommentary #PodcastListeners #NewsPodcastCommunity #NewsSource #PodcastCuration #WorldAffairs #PodcastUpdates #AudioNews #PodcastJournalism #EmergingStories #NewsFlash #PodcastConversationsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

City Clerk Michael MacDonald and Public Information Officer Heather Sumagaysay discuss the upcoming elections. They dive into the city's upcoming elections and the voting process. In this episode, we'll cover: The voting process and key dates to remember. How you can participate in boards, committee, and commission meetings. The availability of virtual City Council meetings. Spanish live two-way interpretation services to ensure everyone can participate. Don't miss this comprehensive overview from the City Clerk, designed to keep you informed and engaged in Ventura's democratic process.

How do the border towns of Colorado use marijuana tax revenue? Today's episode of Nonverbal focuses on the border towns of Colorado. Host Jack Armstrong sits down with the town of Craig's City Clerk, Peter Brixius, and the City Manager of Trinidad, Steve Ruger to discover the unique ways marijuana has improved Colorado's border towns. As always, thank you to Cannapages for their help on the show! Find more details at cannapages.com

CTL Script/ Top Stories of July 20th               Publish Date: July 20th                  BREAK: GON :30  From the Ingles Studio Welcome to the Award-Winning Cherokee Tribune Ledger Podcast    Today is Saturday, July 20th and Happy 77th Birthday to musician Carlos Santana. ***07.20.24 – BIRTHDAY – CARLOS SANTANA*** I'm Keith Ippolito and here are the stories Cherokee is talking about, presented by Credit Union of Georgia.  Marker Recognizes Canton's Historic Stumptown Neighborhood Cherokee Approves Property Tax Increase Construction Contract Awarded for Long Swamp Creek Rec Area   We'll have all this and more coming up on the Cherokee Tribune-Ledger Podcast, and if you're looking for Community news, we encourage you to listen and subscribe!    BREAK: CU of GA STORY 1: Marker Recognizes Canton's Historic Stumptown Neighborhood    A new historic marker commemorating Canton's Stumptown neighborhood will be unveiled at Burge Park on Crisler Street, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony scheduled for July 22 at 10 a.m. The initiative, a collaboration between History Cherokee and the city of Canton, was funded by the city and developed by History Cherokee's Black History Committee. Stumptown, established in the 1920s, is one of Cherokee County's oldest predominantly Black communities, named for the tree stumps left under house foundations during its development. The marker aims to highlight the community's historical significance, with plans for more markers in partnership with the city to recognize other historic neighborhoods. Here is Stephanie Joyner on plans for future signage: ***STUMPTOWN 2*** STORY 2: Cherokee Approves Property Tax Increase   Cherokee County commissioners unanimously approved a property tax increase, setting the maintenance and operations millage rate at 5.153 mills, lower than the originally advertised 5.224 mills. This decision will raise property tax revenues by 5.99% over the rollback rate. The county also set the parks bond millage rate at 0.27 and the fire district tax rate at 2.888 mills, resulting in a total rate of 8.311 mills. The increase is intended to fund additional firefighter positions and meet rising costs due to inflation. Residents expressed mixed reactions at public hearings, with some supporting the tax hike for improved services like Bob Alford. ***BOB ALFORD*** Other residents like Liza Robinson raised concerns about rising property taxes and suggested alternative fiscal strategies. ***LIZA ROBINSON*** STORY 3: Construction Contract Awarded for Long Swamp Creek Rec AreaCherokee County commissioners have approved a $2 million construction contract with Magnum Contracting, LLC, for developing the Long Swamp Creek Recreation Area near Ball Ground. The project, located at the confluence of Long Swamp Creek and the Etowah River on 24 acres purchased in 2019, aims to enhance recreational amenities. Planned features include a canoe and kayak launch, outdoor archery range, walking trails, campsites, picnic pavilion, restroom facilities, and parking. The project aligns with the Northeast Cherokee County Parks Plan and received funding from sources including a Georgia Outdoor Stewardship Program grant and local contributions. Construction is set to commence soon with an expected opening in early 2025. We have opportunities for sponsors to get great engagement on these shows. Call 770.874.3200 for more info.    Back in a moment  Break: DRAKE – INGLES 2 STORY 4: Cherokee Outdoor YMCA Offering Summer Camps The Cherokee Outdoor YMCA is part of the YMCA of Metro Atlanta's summer day camp program running until August 2nd. Registration is open online or in-person, offering traditional camps focused on social-emotional learning, weekly themes, and various activities like archery and canoe rides. Specialty camps in sports, STEAM, teen leadership, and swimming are also available. The YMCA aims to foster personal growth in a safe environment, encouraging children to explore interests and develop skills. Daily or weekly enrollment options are offered for traditional camps, while specialty camps require weekly sign-ups. For more details and registration, visit ymcaatlanta.org/camp/day-camp. STORY 5: Here's Why Waleska's Water Service Was Interrupted   Recent water system issues in Waleska have been resolved, according to City Clerk and Manager Robyn Smith. The city experienced two interruptions this month due to low water levels in its tanks. The first incident occurred on July 4 due to a computer crash, affecting the Sam Nelson Road and Reinhardt College Parkway areas. A temporary fix was implemented until the computer was rebuilt. A subsequent water main break on July 15, caused by a lightning strike on Fincher Road, led to disruptions in that area. Both incidents triggered boil water advisories, which were lifted promptly after repairs. Currently, normal service has resumed for all customers, with ongoing monitoring of water levels in the tanks. BREAK: HELLER 4 STORY 6: Dock Rock Radio Performing at West Milford Farm   Dock Rock Radio will perform a "yacht rock" concert featuring hits from the 1970s and 1980s at West Milford Farm on July 26. The band will cover songs by Hall & Oates, Huey Lewis & the News, Commodores, Little River Band, Steely Dan, and more, spanning smooth soul, jazz, R&B, and disco genres. Oakley's Provisions will cater the event with entrees priced from $6 to $15, and guests are allowed to bring their own food and drinks, including beer and wine (no onsite alcohol sales). Tickets range from $30 for lawn seating (bring your own chair) to $250 for party barn tables of eight, available through westmilfordfarm.com. The concert begins at 8:45 p.m., with doors opening at 7:15 p.m. STORY 7: When Will Water Tank Road in Cherokee Be Closed? What We Know Starting July 29, a section of Water Tank Road near Canton will close to through traffic until April 18, as crews replace two box culverts. The closure, located between 900 and 960 Water Tank Road, will affect traffic entering and exiting the area. Residents at addresses 900 and lower will use Highway 20, while those at 960 and higher will use East Cherokee Drive. Phase 1 involves addresses 931 and 935, using East Cherokee Drive. A detour via Highway 20 and East Cherokee Drive will be posted, ensuring safety for drivers and construction personnel. For more details, contact the Cherokee County Roadway Capital Program at 678-493-6077. We'll have closing comments after this.    BREAK: GON :60   SIGN OFF –   Thanks again for hanging out with us on today's Cherokee Tribune Ledger Podcast. If you enjoy these shows, we encourage you to check out our other offerings, like the Cherokee Tribune Ledger Podcast, the Marietta Daily Journal, or the Community Podcast for Rockdale Newton and Morgan Counties. Read more about all our stories and get other great content at tribuneledgernews.com Did you know over 50% of Americans listen to podcasts weekly? Giving you important news about our community and telling great stories are what we do. Make sure you join us for our next episode and be sure to share this podcast on social media with your friends and family. Add us to your Alexa Flash Briefing or your Google Home Briefing and be sure to like, follow, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Produced by the BG Podcast Network   Show Sponsors: ingles-markets.com drakerealty.com cuofga.org jeffhellerlaw.com com   #NewsPodcast #CurrentEvents #TopHeadlines #BreakingNews #PodcastDiscussion #PodcastNews #InDepthAnalysis #NewsAnalysis #PodcastTrending #WorldNews #LocalNews #GlobalNews #PodcastInsights #NewsBrief #PodcastUpdate #NewsRoundup #WeeklyNews #DailyNews #PodcastInterviews #HotTopics #PodcastOpinions #InvestigativeJournalism #BehindTheHeadlines #PodcastMedia #NewsStories #PodcastReports #JournalismMatters #PodcastPerspectives #NewsCommentary #PodcastListeners #NewsPodcastCommunity #NewsSource #PodcastCuration #WorldAffairs #PodcastUpdates #AudioNews #PodcastJournalism #EmergingStories #NewsFlash #PodcastConversationsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dr. Stephanie is the Deputy City Clerk at the City of North Miami in Florida. If you dont know what a Deputy City Clerk is or does, this is the episode for you. We also cover topics like the concept of Elected Officials and getting city constituents to register to vote. Give the show a listen and remember to thank your local Public Works Professionals.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/public-works-podcast--3064636/support.

Today is National Nurses Day and National Ad Day so the guys celebrate the folks who are in those professions. They also talk about Mary Tyler Moore, Petticoat Junction and Green Acres. Then Celestine Jeffry's grabs a mic and talks about what folks need to do to be ready to vote. Celestine is the City Clerk for Green Bay. https://myvote.wi.gov/ Maino and the Mayor is a part of the Civic Media radio network and airs Monday through Friday from 6-8 am on WGBW in Green Bay and on WISS in Oshkosh. Subscribed to the podcast to be sure not to miss out on a single episode! To learn more about the show and all of the programming across the Civic Media network, head over to https://civicmedia.us/shows to see the entire broadcast line up. Follow the show on Facebook and X to keep up with Maino and the Mayor! Guest: Celestine Jeffrys

Not that long ago, absentee ballots made up a tiny proportion of total votes cast in any U.S. election.  In recent years, due to changes in lifestyle, and of course […] The post Madison City Clerk Explains How People Can Vote Absentee In Person appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.

Couples Head to City Clerk on Feb. 29 for Leap Day Wedding. by Uptown Radio

Ben Lane has overseen three elections in Scottsdale since becoming City Clerk, marking this year as another significant milestone with a busy election season ahead. Find out how Ben deals with navigating the intricate responsibilities of upholding fair and transparent elections, particularly amidst today's highly polarized political environment. That's just one of the many duties Ben juggles in his role. He truly is one of the city's unsung heroes, ensuring the seamless functioning of Scottsdale's civic machinery.

Northfield City Clerk Lynette Peterson provides information about voting in the March 5 primary election. Visit northfieldmn.gov for election and voter information.

 Northfield City Clerk Lynette Peterson provides information about voting in the March 5 primary election. Visit northfieldmn.gov for election and voter information. 

In the second hour, Pat McDonald is joined by Barre City Clerk and Treasurer Carol Dawes. Carol is also the Legislative Committee Chair for the Vermont Municipal Clerks & Treasurers Association.

Mayor Perry sits down with City Clerk, Anne Drouin and Recreaction Director, Steve Angelo.  

Dan Weinrib, City Clerk for Trussville, AL and longtime public servant, has returned (as promised) for a special baseball-themed episode! This year will be Dan's 24th season umpiring high school baseball for the Alabama High School Athletic Association (AHSAA). You'll hear about Dan's experience as a baseball umpire — including the types of "safe" & "out" calls he makes, taking a fastball off the facemask, ejections — and what it takes to perform consistently well at a high level. Dan is a Harry Wendelstedt Umpire School alum (January 2000).We also talk about his beloved Cincinnati Reds, his involvement with Friends of Rickwood, fatherhood — and you won't want to miss the “grand finale”!https://www.linkedin.com/in/danweinrib/https://twitter.com/DanTimePodhttps://www.instagram.com/dantimepod/https://www.facebook.com/dantimepodcast/https://www.youtube.com/@DanTimePod/

City of Midland | City Clerk: 2024 Election Information [Video 4: Early Voting]

City of Midland | City Clerk: 2024 Election Information [Video 5: Absentee Ballot Voting]

City of Midland | City Clerk: 2024 Election Information [Video 3: Voter Registration]

In this video series, City Clerk Lacey Todd shares all the information you'll need to cast your vote successfully during the 2024 election season. There are new changes since the 2022 election, so make sure you know what to expect! In our first video, Katie and Lacey discuss a variety of topics around the basics of voting: When the 2024 elections will take place, how you can vote in each of them, and an overview of the process and deadlines for each voting method. For more information and access to the resources discussed in this video, visit www.cityofmidlandmi.gov/clerk, or contact the City Clerk's office at 989-837-3310 or clerk@midland-mi.org.

In this video series, City Clerk Lacey Todd shares all the information you'll need to cast your vote successfully during the 2024 election season. There are new changes since the 2022 election, so make sure you know what to expect! In Part 2 of the series, Katie and Lacey discuss the Presidential Primary election on February 27, including ways residents can vote early, how to ensure they receive their preferred party's ballot, and more. For more information and access to the resources discussed in this video, visit www.cityofmidlandmi.gov/clerk, or contact the City Clerk's office at 989-837-3310 or clerk@midland-mi.org.

City Clerk Brenda Hall joins us this month to talk all the fine points and duties of this vital office. For more information about the City of Norman, visit www.NormanOK.gov Questions or comments about the podcast can be emailed to PublicAffairs@NormanOK.gov Twitter - @cityofnormanok Instagram - @thecityofnorman Facebook YouTube

On this topical show re-air, Crystal welcomes back Katie Wilson of the Transit Riders Union to walk through the wildly successful Raise the Wage Tukwila Initiative, which was approved with over 82% of the vote in the November 2022 general election, and increased Tukwila's minimum wage to $18.99/hour for large businesses starting in July 2023. Katie details the broad, community-based coalition that was built and the thoughtful legwork and preparation that set the initiative up for success at the ballot box - from community surveys to signature gathering to Get Out The Vote, the campaign provides a template for how to build power through civic engagement. Crystal and Katie then talk about lessons learned, key takeaways, and what's next on the horizon for the Transit Riders Union. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Follow us on Twitter at @HacksWonks. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find Katie Wilson at @WilsonKatieB and the Transit Riders Union at @SeattleTRU.   Katie Wilson Katie Wilson is the general secretary of the Transit Riders Union and was the campaign coordinator for Raise the Wage Tukwila.   Resources Minimum Wage and Fair Access to Additional Hours of Work | City of Tukwila   What's on the ballot: City of Tukwila Initiative Measure No. 1 | King County Elections   “Tukwila voters approve minimum wage hike” by Melissa Santos from Axios   “Tukwila minimum wage hike passing by huge margin” by Seattle Times staff from The Seattle Times   “The minimum wage movement is more mainstream than ever” by Guy Oron from Real Change News    “Transit Rider's Union Leads Coalition Seeking to Raise Tukwila's Minimum Wage” by Andrew Engelson from The Urbanist   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington State through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. So today, I'm very excited to be welcoming back to the program, Katie Wilson of the Transit Riders Union. Welcome. [00:00:46] Katie Wilson: Thank you, Crystal. [00:00:47] Crystal Fincher: I am very excited to talk about the Raise the Wage Tukwila initiative, which was wildly successful and you played a really big role in. So I think just to start off - just recapping what the initiative was aiming to do. [00:01:07] Katie Wilson: Sure. So Raise the Wage Tukwila basically set out to, as the name suggests, raise the minimum wage in the City of Tukwila. And toward the beginning of this year, we did a lot of outreach to workers, to local businesses, to residents, to community organizations to put together our measure. And we decided to basically try to bring Tukwila's minimum wage up to more or less match the minimum wages in the neighboring cities of SeaTac and Seattle. [00:01:40] Crystal Fincher: Makes sense. And so when you were going about - I guess - the planning for this, the idea for this, how did this begin? [00:01:49] Katie Wilson: So the Transit Riders Union, which is the organization that I work with and for - we started thinking about something like this campaign in the middle of last year. And at that point, we were doing a lot of work on renter protections with another coalition called Stay Housed, Stay Healthy. And as part of that work, we were trying to get cities all around the county to do more to protect renters, both with emergency protections and permanent protections. And that really got us thinking about what it would look like to do some deeper organizing in South King County. And so we began talking to lots of ally organizations and doing some outreach - and eventually settled on this idea of doing an initiative in the City of Tukwila. And the City of Tukwila is a really interesting place. It's a small city - it only has about maybe 20, a little over 20,000 residents. But it's a really big job center - so you have the Southcenter Mall down there and all of the retail jobs around there - so a lot of low wage workers are basically commuting from all over South King County and beyond to work at jobs in Tukwila. And so - we also thought that because Tukwila is nestled in between SeaTac and Seattle, it made a lot of sense to propose raising the minimum wage up to parity with those neighboring cities. [00:03:22] Crystal Fincher: Now who is the coalition that you began this with? [00:03:25] Katie Wilson: Yeah, it's a really broad coalition. So there are a lot of community organizations that do work in Tukwila, especially with the many immigrant communities in Tukwila. So for example, there's the Congolese Integration Network, which was very involved, and African Community Housing and Development. And the Washington Community Action Network and Working Washington both really stepped up on helping us with some of the signature gathering and Get Out The Vote. And a number of labor unions who have members in Tukwila and South King County also really stepped up and helped out - including UFCW, including SEIU Local 6, Teamsters 117. So it was really a kind of a broad community and labor coalition that came together. [00:04:18] Crystal Fincher: Really strong coalition. How did you, or how did the coalition, go about writing the initiative and determining exactly what was right for Tukwila? [00:04:28] Katie Wilson: Yeah, so that process really began more than a year ago. And we basically talked to - on the one hand - policy experts, people who worked on minimum wage and other labor standards campaigns in Seattle and other places, even around the country. And we did a lot of talking to workers at Southcenter Mall. We did a couple of surveys where we had about 100 workers responding to survey questions about the issues that they face at work. And then of course just talking with all the organizations that were starting to come together in this coalition. We also did some door knocking just to Tukwila residents to take people's temperature on how they felt about something like this. And so through all that - and then I guess outreach to local businesses was an important part of that too - so we talked to, we would just walk into pretty much any local Tukwila business that we could find and try to talk to the owner about what they thought about this. And so through all that, we came up with our policy, which is pretty simple. It's basically raising the minimum wage to match SeaTac. There's some small differences in how we do the inflation adjustment, so it's going to go up year after year based on cost of living. And it's going to be a little bit on its kind of own trajectory, but very similar to SeaTac. And we have a graduated structure so that the new wage, which will be $18.99 next year, will go into effect on July 1st of 2023 for large businesses - ones with over 500 employees worldwide. And then we have a three-year phase-in for smaller businesses so that they'll be going up and basically match the large employer rate in 2025. And then there's an exemption for the very smallest businesses, with up to 15 employees and up to $2 million in annual revenue. So that really came out of those conversations. And then the other piece of the policy - which is important - is access-to-hours policies. So that basically means that employers have to offer available hours of work to existing part-time employees before they hire new employees or subcontractors. [00:06:55] Crystal Fincher: Which is actually a really big issue - there and across the board - and was really happy to see that addressed in the initiative. So going out - so now you've written the initiative - qualifying to get on the ballot involves getting a certain number of signatures from residents in the city. How did you go about that process? [00:07:20] Katie Wilson: Yeah, so we began signature gathering around the end of March of this year. So our team - Transit Riders Union - we had two full-time people that we brought on to be organizers for this campaign. And we planned basically a campaign launch event around the end of March - brought together people from our coalition, Transit Riders Union members, volunteers - and so that was the kickoff of our signature gathering effort. And then after that, every Saturday we would have a big volunteer day where people would gather in the morning and we would send people out knocking on doors, gathering signatures. And then we also did more signature gathering during the week. So it was a pretty big effort. And in Tukwila, signature gathering basically means door knocking. So if you're doing an initiative in Seattle, there's a lot of big public events and public spaces, like outside the light rail station, where you can stand there outside and just talk to person after person as they walk by and ask them to sign your petition. The thing about Tukwila is that there's not really many public spaces where you're going to find Tukwila residents. So you could go to Southcenter Mall, but the vast majority of people that you talk to don't actually live in Tukwila. They're there for shopping or they're there for work, and they live somewhere else. So if you want to efficiently gather the signatures of Tukwila residents, you really have to find people at home. And so it was almost all door knocking. [00:08:59] Crystal Fincher: Which was really exciting to see, to watch from afar. And is, as you said, different than we've seen in a number of big cities and frankly, from a number of campaigns that have been really well-funded - is focusing a lot on tabling and transit stations, and going to those large events. So as you were planning the door knocking associated with this, were you taking advantage of that time to also educate the renters and homeowners on what this was, what it meant? What was that process like? [00:09:43] Katie Wilson: Yeah. I think part of the great thing about doing an initiative is that when you're out gathering signatures, you're also talking to the same people whose votes you're going to need in the fall. And so we were definitely - yeah, obviously talking to people about why this was important and also asking them questions like - do you work in Tukwila? Do you know anyone who will benefit from a minimum wage increase? And so building those relationships with Tukwila residents and voters right off the bat, I think, really helped us when it came to the fall because a lot of people remembered having signed the petition in the spring, so they were already aware that this was happening and we got to come back to them and say - hey, remember that thing that you signed? We got enough signatures, so it's going to be on the ballot for you to vote on, right? So there was an opportunity to talk to the same people multiple times during the campaign. And we also did some registration of new voters too. So we were able to knock on doors and talk to people who maybe had just moved from another city and needed to update their registration to be able to vote in Tukwila, or someone who was an immigrant who is just newly eligible for voting. So we were able to do some of that as well. [00:11:00] Crystal Fincher: So was this a largely volunteer signature gathering effort? I think you said that there were paid canvassers involved. Were there other financial supports involved? How did this look financially and volunteer-wise? [00:11:18] Katie Wilson: Yeah, it was really a mixture. So we had a lot of volunteer signature gathering - again, like TRU members and volunteers who had just gotten involved in the campaign. Also, a lot of other organizations would bring out volunteers - the Seattle DSA - mostly during the Get Out The Vote portion of it, but definitely came out canvassing with us a number of times. And then we also had, on TRU's side, two staff organizers who were doing a lot of signature gathering as well. And then Washington Community Action Network has a canvassing team and they put in some time as well. So it was really a combination, I would say, probably roughly about half and half signatures gathered by volunteers versus signatures gathered by staff. [00:12:08] Crystal Fincher: Makes sense - and then other people are looking at this, other organizations who may be considering initiatives to help improve things in their own communities. What are the biggest lessons that you learned about the signature gathering - going through this process - and what advice would you provide? [00:12:25] Katie Wilson: Yeah, I think one thing is just that it is a lot of work. So yeah, don't underestimate how much work it is to go and gather what sounds like not a lot of signatures, right? We gathered over 3,000 signatures, but you have to expect that your validity rate is going to be very low, especially in a city like Tukwila, right - where you have a lot of - big proportion of renters, so people tend to move a little bit more often. Lots of non-citizens, so people might not realize that they're not able to sign it. And so we gathered over 3,000 signatures and we had plenty to qualify, but I think we had a little over 1,700 valid out of that. And door knocking is really intensive work, so you could spend basically all day knocking on doors gathering signatures and maybe you get 15-20 signatures at the end of that - just in terms of signatures per hour, signatures per day - it's a much slower process than it is, for example, in Seattle when you're just outside the Capitol Hill light rail station talking to 30 people an hour, right? And so that's one thing - is just don't underestimate the amount of work it is. But also, I think that - obviously our results in Tukwila were very, very good and there are, I think, a lot of reasons for that. But I do think that running an initiative is an opportunity to really just do some deep talking to voters and setting yourself up really well for people to come out and vote and know what they're voting on in the election itself. [00:14:12] Crystal Fincher: So thinking - you get to the point where you do get enough signatures, you do qualify - I guess one other question, just with the validation - because with these signature gathering processes, valid signatures have to come from registered voters, so you have to meet all the qualifications and be registered. How did you go about the validation process for making sure that out of the signatures that you collected, you determine which ones were actually valid? [00:14:40] Katie Wilson: Yeah, so it's ultimately - it's King County Elections that does the official validation. So you turn your signatures into the City Clerk and the City Clerk transmits them to King County Elections. And then King County Elections basically checks each signature, each entry against their voter file and the signature that they have on file for each voter. And what we were doing - before we turned in our signatures - we did our own rough verification process where basically we would - and we had an excellent volunteer data entry team from among TRU's membership who were doing this process, where basically they would - we would scan the petition sheets after we collected them. And then for each entry, we would check them against the Washington State voter file, which is a public document that you can download for purposes like this, and try to find that person to at least verify that they actually are a registered voter in Tukwila. Now, of course, we don't know what their signature looks like, right? So we can't actually match the signature that we got against the official signature, but we can at least try to find that name and that address and say - okay, yes, this is the person who is a registered voter at this address. And so that gave us a pretty good idea of how many valid signatures we had. And it also - what it allowed us to do - is then we had a list of hundreds of entries where we didn't find that person in the voter file. And so we were able to do some follow up with those people to, for example, try to help them get registered to vote if they were eligible, but not registered - or if they needed to update their voter registration information. [00:16:35] Crystal Fincher: Excellent. Okay, so you qualified. Now it's time to - knowing that you're going to be on the ballot - to make sure that voters know that this is going to be on the ballot and why they should vote for it. How did you go about putting together how to communicate this to the residents of Tukwila? [00:16:58] Katie Wilson: Yeah, I think we did all the things that campaigns do. And so we prepared over the summer. And then after Labor Day, we kicked off our Get Out The Vote campaign. And we - the centerpiece of it, of course, was just more door knocking, right? And we had pledge-to-vote postcards that we were inviting people to sign - that we would then mail back to them when ballots dropped. So they would get an extra reminder from themselves to look for their ballot. And we also made refrigerator magnets that are - they look like a campaign button, except it's a magnet on the back instead of a pin. And so we would give people reminder-to-vote refrigerator magnets. And we also did door hangers, which we would leave at the door if no one answered. We did some mailers - we didn't do mailers to everyone because it's pretty expensive, but we carved out a subset of voters to do mailers for. We did a bunch of texting people. So yeah, really just all of the above - everything that you do to get the word out. We did a few yard signs. And really, I think we were expecting, when we went into this campaign, that we were going to have really strong, well-funded opposition from some of the business associations. And so we planned accordingly and did all the things that we would need to do in order to effectively fight a No campaign. We also got lots of media coverage, right? So we'd be in touch with all the TV news and the reporters trying to get news coverage of the campaign. So we did all those things. Of course, in the end, we actually had no opposition, which was kind of amazing, but we still did all the things. And I think that's part of the reason why we had 82% vote in favor of the measure. [00:19:11] Crystal Fincher: Right - and I just want to pause for a moment and just talk about 82% - which is just an eye-popping number for a minimum wage initiative. We haven't really seen a result like this before. And as I look at it, it has a lot to do with how you went about the strategy and putting together this initiative from the very beginning. The strength of the coalition that you put together - it was broad, it was inclusive, it wasn't necessarily - hey, we're coming from the outside to tell you what we think would be best, or we already know exactly what we're going to do and we're just transplanting it to the city. You really did involve people who were there and looked at what would make the big differences for them locally - incorporated that into the legislation, talked to business owners there in the city. And it seems like that doing the legwork upfront and really understanding who your stakeholders were, understanding how this impacted people, and including the people who would be impacted made a big difference. What do you see as the reason why you were able to get such a huge amount of people in support? [00:20:32] Katie Wilson: Yeah - well, thank you. I would love to believe that it's - we just ran such a great campaign, that's why we won by so much. But I do think that there were some other elements of it that were important, which were less due to what we did. One thing that we did do that I think was a good strategic decision that made a big difference was - in designing the measure - having it really explicitly say we are raising Tukwila's minimum wage to match next door in SeaTac, as opposed to just choosing a number, right? If we had said $19/hour, right - now it amounts to the same thing, it's going to be $19/hour. But I think that it just sounds so ridiculously reasonable that Tukwila should have the same standard as the city next door - that I think just that framing and having that be the way the legislation was written, rather than putting a number on it - I think was probably really helpful. It's just really hard to argue that - no, Tukwila should not have the same minimum wage as SeaTac - when you have people doing the same jobs right across the street from each other in the two different cities, who are getting paid different amounts, right? So I think that was good. But I do think a couple of other things. I think that kind of the moment that we're in, right? We're in this moment where there's high inflation and just the cost of living - from food to gas to rent - are going up so rapidly. I think that ended up helping us. And I kind of thought that maybe it would hurt us because people would look at cost increases and say - well, if you raise the minimum wage, prices are going to go up even more. And we heard that fear a little bit, but I think mostly what the inflation and the high cost of living did was it just made it really undeniable that people who were making the statewide minimum wage or just a little bit more are not able to afford to live here anymore, right? And so I think that really on balance helped us. And I think also the fact that we've experienced this really tight labor market this year has meant that a lot of large employers have actually needed to raise their wages for the time being just to get workers in the door and to keep them there. So you've seen in the news - a lot of major corporations have just announced - okay, our starting wage right now is going to be $17 because otherwise we can't hire people. And so I do think there was an element of some corporations that might normally be inclined to fight something like this were already having to pay significantly more than the statewide minimum wage. And so it just wasn't worthwhile to them to fight it. And so I think that really helped. And that moment is not necessarily going to last, right? There's almost certainly going to be a recession next year. Probably we're going to enter a period where some people are being laid off and employers don't really need to pay more than the minimum wage to get people in the door. And so in that sense, I think we lucked into a window of opportunity where there just wasn't a lot of fight back. [00:23:54] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and certainly windows of opportunity are real and even if you have a great initiative with a great team - timing and just those larger conditions make a difference. But I do want to go back and talk a little bit more about your strategy for canvassing and even having those conversations throughout the signature gathering process - going back and revisiting people afterwards. Were you planning to visit most voters who you identified as likely to support the initiative? [00:24:31] Katie Wilson: Yeah, our fall door knocking strategy - I think we ended up pretty much just knocking every - knocking all registered voters' doors in the fall and only taking out doors where, during the signature gathering, someone had refused to talk to us or didn't want to be bothered. So we - yeah, which was a very small minority of people. We really just ended up knocking everyone. Tukwila is a small enough city and we had enough people power in the fall, especially with many of our coalition allies stepping up and helping out, that we were able to knock, I think, everyone's door at least a few times. So we weren't terribly selective. I think after ballots dropped, we became maybe a little bit more selective in trying to knock the doors of like likely voters who hadn't voted yet. And even low-propensity voters - people who maybe voted once in the last four years or something. So we got a little more selective, but it ended up being the most efficient thing just to knock everyone. [00:25:47] Crystal Fincher: So basically if you were a resident in Tukwila, you got a knock from the campaign at least once and most people got it multiple times. Even if it did - slightly - it was for good reason and a very beneficial result. I do think that door knocking is an area of a number of campaigns, especially initiatives sometimes, where a lot of campaigns overlook it. And they think - okay, we just need to make sure we have an adequate communications budget to be up with commercials and in people's mailboxes and online where people are at. But really focusing on having those conversations with voters and utilizing the opportunity to get a signature as not just a signature gathering opportunity, but one - to have a conversation to build understanding and support, and to really inform how you move forward - was a really smart and effective one that I would love to see more campaigns really being intentional about investing a lot more in. I guess looking at overall lessons that you came out of this with - what are the biggest lessons you learned, or biggest takeaways from this campaign for you? [00:27:12] Katie Wilson: I think to say something a little more on the negative side - and where I think we and other people who are thinking about doing campaigns like this should think about how to do better - one of the most heartbreaking things for me was when I was doing some door knocking really close to Election Day, like the last couple of days. I talked to people at several doors where they had signed our petition, they were super supportive, but they had probably never voted before and they just didn't make the connection between - Oh, this is - there's an election, this is on the ballot, and you're going to get this thing in the mail which is your ballot, and you actually need to do something with that. And there's a deadline. And so I went to one household where there was a bunch of people living there in an apartment, and they had signed the petition, and they were excited about it. And they're searching for their ballots and finding their primary ballots, but not the - and I'm just like, Oh god, okay, it's just too late - the one person's ballot who we actually found wasn't there and wasn't going to be home. And so I think that Tukwila, year after year, has just rock bottom voter turnout compared to other cities in King County. And we still need to do an analysis to see to what extent our efforts moved voter turnout. And I think they probably did a little bit, but not hugely. So Tukwila - still this year - voter turnout compared to other cities in King County was very, very low. And so that - that I think is disappointing and just speaks to the structural factors which make that the case - we didn't shift those in a huge way. And so I think that's something to kind of think about for future campaigns is - okay, what is it going to take for these people who are registered to vote and a 100% there on the issue, but just are not practiced at this kind of civic engagement and no one is really helping them with that in a really deep way. So what is that going to take? So that's one thing. And I guess just in terms of more positive overall lessons - obviously, raising the minimum wage is really popular, so we should do it more. There's a lot of other cities in King County that could do this. And so that is one thing that we're thinking about as we look at next year and beyond - is what are the opportunities to get this done in more cities around the county? Because I would imagine that it is very popular everywhere. [00:30:00] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, really popular. And just on the point you made - I think, especially for people who are inclined to listen to this show on the radio, via podcast are more passionate about voting and civic engagement than the average person. But really important to understand that the average person is not necessarily excited at all, and probably doesn't know what there is to be excited about or mad about or ambivalent about - that it's just not on the radar for a lot of people. And even though it seems like it's consuming our lives or the news or anything like that, it's just not reality on the ground for a lot of people. And I think one of the things is - I look at my work - it's really the prolonged and repeated engagement that moves the needle there. And a silver lining on the cloud is it actually - a couple of percentage points really does change an election. Boosting turnout by 5% is a humongous amount in the quantities that we measure, and that completely changes the complexion of campaigns. So even the work you did - and again, we're still going through results and precinct-level results and figuring that all out, but clearly made a difference. And I hope there is continued engagement on the ground - in Tukwila specifically - and in areas where we do activate, whether it's through a candidate campaign or through an initiative, to keep that going because it really is the repeated engagement and people being able to see that something from the formation and policy prospect that - hey, they did get excited about, and then it did happen, and then they're receiving a benefit. And - oh, I see that what I sign and actions that I took resulted in something that actually benefits me, or people that I know, or family that I have, or whatever the case is makes a big difference. I guess as you're - you said you're considering looking at what's on the menu moving forward - what is next and what are you considering? [00:32:31] Katie Wilson: Yeah, and I think that's exactly right - it's what you said - just that a one-off campaign is not enough to move that needle. And people need to have the experience of - oh yes, wow, I voted and something happened and it's actually something that makes a difference in my life. And so as we're looking at what to do next - as I mentioned, I think there's a lot of potential for other cities to do minimum wage raises, so we're looking at that. But we had our Transit Riders Union membership meeting in November and had a discussion about this, and I think heard really strongly from our members that we need to keep organizing in Tukwila specifically. And so we are kind of in the process now of figuring out what that could look like. And so we're having - actually tonight, we're having a meeting with some Tukwila renters to talk about what it might look like to push for stronger renter protections in Tukwila, right? Because while we were door knocking, we talked to many, many people who were getting large rent increases, and this was part of the sad thing too - is you'd talk to someone in the spring and they'd sign the petition. And then go back in the fall and they'd moved out because - they no longer live there - because they got a $300/month rent increase, right? And so I think one possibility is to push for stronger renter protections in Tukwila next year - basically working with a lot of the people that we met during this campaign this year. And then I think we're also looking at how to keep organizing with workers in Tukwila, and specifically at and around Southcenter Mall. And the new law is going to go into effect next July. And so I think one project is making sure that everyone who works in Tukwila knows about that - knows the law, knows their rights - both on the minimum wage side of things, but also the access-to-hours policy. And the City is going to have to do some rulemaking to decide how to actually put those policies into practice, what to require of employers in terms of reporting and informing their employees. And so there's the details that have to be figured out. So we're going to be involved in that process and we're going to try to get Tukwila workers involved in that process. And yeah, I think also just continuing to talk to workers at the mall about what other issues they're facing - maybe there are other labor standards issues that workers in Tukwila want to do something about. So we're figuring that out now. We're in the space where there are so many possible things that we could do next year that sound worthwhile. And so we're going to have to figure out where there's the most interest and energy to move forward. [00:35:30] Crystal Fincher: I just can't tell you how excited I am to see what you're doing next. I just have so much admiration for how you went about this. You nailed the strategy and the execution of this. And it really is a model for other coalitions to follow - that can really be community-based, community-led and bringing about the kind of change that people need in their own communities. So thank you so much for joining us today. [00:36:02] Katie Wilson: Oh, my pleasure - it's great to be here. [00:36:05] Crystal Fincher: All right - thanks so much. Thank you all for listening to Hacks & Wonks. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler. Our assistant producer is Shannon Cheng, and our Post-Production Assistant is Bryce Cannatelli. You can find Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks, and you can follow me @finchfrii, spelled F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered right to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave us a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

On this Tuesday topical show, Crystal chats with ChrisTiana ObeySumner about their campaign for Seattle City Council District 5. Listen and learn more about ChrisTiana and their thoughts on: [01:06] - Why they are running [04:49] - Lightning round! [12:20] - What is an accomplishment of theirs that impacts District 5 [16:09] - City budget shortfall: Raise revenue or cut services? [21:48] - Public Safety: Alternative response [26:58] - Victim support [35:53] - Housing and homelessness: Frontline worker wages [39:25] - Climate change [43:28] - Transit reliability [46:58] - Small business support [52:48] - Childcare: Affordability and accessibility [56:33] - Difference between them and opponent As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Follow us on Twitter at @HacksWonks. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find ChrisTiana ObeySumner at @votechristiana.   ChrisTiana ObeySumner ChrisTiana ObeySumner is a Black, queer, non-binary, and multiply disabled person, community organizer and activist. They are CEO and principal consultant of Epiphanies of Equity LLC -- A social equity consulting firm that particularly specializes in social change, intersectionality, antiracism, and disability justice. For two decades, they've dedicated their life and career to amplifying the importance of social equity – defined as the lifelong work of deconstructing inequitable sociological impacts and products such as policies, institutions, cultures, biases, and constructs; and facilitating strategic and embodied pathways towards the construction of equitable processes, accountability structures, and outcomes.    Resources Campaign Website - ChrisTiana ObeySumner   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review show and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Today, I am excited to be welcoming to the program candidate for Seattle City Council District 5, ChrisTiana ObeySumner. Welcome! [00:01:02] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: Thank you so much for having me - I'm so excited. [00:01:04] Crystal Fincher: Well, I'm excited to have you. And just starting off, I'm wondering what made you decide to run? [00:01:11] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: I get asked this question a lot - you know, it's, the best way I can put it is this. I have been engaged in some sort of civic, politics, social equity since I was a small child. My grandmom was a Black Panther, my family was always very opened and talked a lot about what it meant to be - you know, if not you, who, if not now, when - sort of things. And especially growing up in a family who was chronically unhoused or homeless - a lot of folks who were disabled, a lot of folks who under-resourced - most of my family is in Camden, New Jersey, in Philadelphia area. And so, and for me being autistic as an 80s child, so the ADA did not really help as much. There was always sort of a need and a early exposure to what it meant to advocate, to speak up for yourself, to speak up for others, to really call out inequity when you see it, to get into good trouble. And that has really been the through line of my life and my life's work - I have done that as a youth leader, I've done that for Mad Pride - especially in Louisville, Kentucky. I've done that in terms of homeless and housing unstable youth, especially in colleges - I came here to Seattle in 2010 to go to Seattle University, where I became Commuter Student rep and Non-Traditional Student representative for those reasons. I've worked in direct social services at DESC, Compass Housing Alliance. I did my AmeriCorps at Full Life Care for Harborview. My first work-study job here was in the Office of City Clerk where I learned how to read policy. I started my business, Epiphanies of Equity, in 2018, right after the running for the transparency seat in 2017, where I came second to Kirsten Harris-Talley. And since then has worked with over 250 businesses, governments and organizations across the country - obviously concentrated here - where we have specifically been working for social equity, for policy advocacy, for disability justice. Essentially when humans are human-ing with other humans, we know that certain human things happen - how can we work towards a society where humans are working towards equity? And through all of this work - additional to the co-chair Disability Commission and Renters' Commission - I'm putting all of this resume out here to say, I have approached a lot of the work, especially since being here in Seattle, from a lot of different angles. And especially in the last few years, has really heightened where I've worked with a lot of folks in the city and beyond - this is the next natural step towards that work. And so when the incumbent or the previous councilmember, Councilmember Debora Juarez, announced that she was not going to run, I must've gotten - between Gluttonous Eating Holiday and the 1st of the year - got somewhere between a dozen and a half calls from folks who were just like - So, you heard, right? Open seat, you gonna run? And I really thought about it for a while 'cause I'm a wonk - of the Hacks & Wonks, I'm the wonk part of that - and I just really wanted to go to the policy piece and I decided, you know what, let's give it a shot. So here I am. [00:04:47] Crystal Fincher: And here you are. Well, at this point, we're gonna switch up this interview a little bit and add an additional element that we haven't added before - a lightning round. Just quick answer, yes or no, or quick answer questions to level set a little bit. And then we'll get back to our regularly scheduled full-length answers where we can wonk out about everything. So starting off - This year, did you vote yes on the King County Crisis Care Centers levy? [00:05:17] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: Yes. [00:05:18] Crystal Fincher: This year, did you vote yes on the Veterans, Seniors and Human Services levy? [00:05:22] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: Yes. [00:05:23] Crystal Fincher: Did you vote in favor of Seattle's Social Housing Initiative 135? [00:05:28] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: Yes. And Epiphanies of Equity was one of the folks who also tried to endorse it, as well as the JumpStart Tax. [00:05:37] Crystal Fincher: Excellent. In 2021, did you vote for Bruce Harrell or Lorena González for Mayor? [00:05:44] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: Lorena González. [00:05:45] Crystal Fincher: In 2021, did you vote for Nicole Thomas Kennedy or Ann Davison for Seattle City Attorney? [00:05:51] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: NTK. [00:05:53] Crystal Fincher: In 2022, did you vote for Leesa Manion or Jim Ferrell for King County Prosecutor? [00:06:03] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: I don't remember. I don't recall. [00:06:14] Crystal Fincher: Okay. [00:06:14] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: Sorry. [00:06:15] Crystal Fincher: Did you, in 2022 - no, that's totally fine. In 2022, did you vote for Patty Murray or Tiffany Smiley for US Senate? [00:06:23] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: Patty Murray. [00:06:25] Crystal Fincher: Do you rent or own your residence? [00:06:27] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: I rent. [00:06:29] Crystal Fincher: Are you a landlord? [00:06:30] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: No. [00:06:32] Crystal Fincher: Would you vote to require landlords to report metrics, including how much rent they're charging, to help better plan housing and development needs in the district? [00:06:41] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: Yes, it's actually part of my platform. [00:06:44] Crystal Fincher: Are there any instances where you would support sweeps of homeless encampments? [00:06:49] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: No - not at all, in any form. [00:06:52] Crystal Fincher: Will you vote to provide additional funding for Seattle's Social Housing Public Development Authority? [00:06:57] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: Yes. [00:06:58] Crystal Fincher: Do you agree with King County Executive Constantine's statement that the King County Jail should be closed? [00:07:05] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: I do believe, yes - I'm abolitionist, so I think all the jails should be closed. [00:07:09] Crystal Fincher: Should parking enforcement be housed within SPD? [00:07:14] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: No. [00:07:15] Crystal Fincher: Would you vote to allow police in schools? [00:07:18] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: No. [00:07:19] Crystal Fincher: Do you support allocation in the City budget for a civilian-led mental health crisis response? [00:07:26] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: Yes, if it's civilian-led and it's not further padding SPD budget. [00:07:31] Crystal Fincher: Do you support allocation in the City budget to increase the pay of human service workers? [00:07:36] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: Absolutely. [00:07:37] Crystal Fincher: Do you support removing funds in the City budget for forced encampment removals and instead allocating funds towards a Housing First approach? [00:07:46] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: Yes. [00:07:47] Crystal Fincher: Do you support abrogating or removing the funds from unfilled SPD positions and putting them toward meaningful public safety measures? [00:07:57] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: Yes, if they're unfilled. [00:07:59] Crystal Fincher: Do you support allocating money in the City budget for supervised consumption sites? [00:08:04] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: Yes. [00:08:05] Crystal Fincher: Do you support increasing funding in the City budget for violence intervention programs? [00:08:11] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: Yes. As a violence intervention program - I was, I think in my head I was getting, I have them mixed up the two different things - which, when you're talking about them, which one are you talking- [00:08:24] Crystal Fincher: Like community-led violence or organizational-led violence intervention programs. [00:08:28] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: Oh! Yes, yes, yes. [00:08:30] Crystal Fincher: Gotcha. [00:08:31] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: Yes. [00:08:31] Crystal Fincher: Do you oppose a SPOG contract, a Seattle Police Officers Guild contract, that doesn't give the Office of Police Accountability and the Office of Inspector General subpoena power? [00:08:46] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: Yes. [00:08:46] Crystal Fincher: Do you oppose a SPOG contract that doesn't remove limitations as to how many of OPA's investigators must be sworn versus civilian, or police versus non-police? [00:09:04] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: Can you ask the question one more time? [00:09:05] Crystal Fincher: Do you oppose a SPOG contract that doesn't remove limitations as to how many of OPA's investigators must be sworn versus civilian? Should there be a cap on civilians? [00:09:19] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: No. [00:09:21] Crystal Fincher: Do you oppose - yes. These are confusingly led - we're not - these are not intended to be gotcha questions, so I want to totally make sure you understand. And that one's a little kludgy. [00:09:34] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: There should not be a limit on civilians. So yes, I would oppose something that would have a limit. Yes, okay. [00:09:39] Crystal Fincher: Do you oppose a SPOG contract that impedes the ability of the City to move funding to police safety alternatives? [00:09:48] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: Yes. [00:09:49] Crystal Fincher: Do you support eliminating in-uniform off-duty work by SPD officers? [00:09:56] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: Support eliminating in-uniform work by off-duty? [00:09:59] Crystal Fincher: In-uniform off-duty work, like if they were to work in a security capacity elsewhere. Would you support eliminating them doing that in-uniform? [00:10:08] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: Yes. [00:10:09] Crystal Fincher: Will you vote to ensure that trans and non-binary students are allowed to play on the sports teams that fit with their gender identities? [00:10:17] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: Yes. [00:10:17] Crystal Fincher: Will you vote to ensure that trans people can use bathrooms and public facilities that match their gender? [00:10:23] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: Yes. [00:10:24] Crystal Fincher: Do you agree with the Seattle City Council's decision to implement the JumpStart Tax? [00:10:29] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: Yes. [00:10:30] Crystal Fincher: Will you vote to reduce or divert the JumpStart Tax in any way? [00:10:35] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: No. [00:10:36] Crystal Fincher: Are you happy with Seattle's newly built waterfront? [00:10:41] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: It's all right. [00:10:42] Crystal Fincher: Do you believe return to work mandates, like the one issued by Amazon, are necessary to boost Seattle's economy? [00:10:49] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: Absolutely not. [00:10:50] Crystal Fincher: Have you taken transit in the past week? [00:10:53] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: Yes. [00:10:54] Crystal Fincher: Have you ridden a bike in the past week? [00:10:58] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: I have a disability that doesn't allow me to ride a two-wheeled bike, but I do have a tricycle that I ride sometimes. [00:11:03] Crystal Fincher: Should Pike Place Market allow non-commercial car traffic? [00:11:09] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: No. [00:11:10] Crystal Fincher: Should significant investments be made to speed up the opening of scheduled Sound Transit light rail lines? [00:11:17] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: Yes. [00:11:18] Crystal Fincher: Should we accelerate the elimination of the ability to turn right on red lights to improve pedestrian safety? [00:11:26] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: Yeah. [00:11:27] Crystal Fincher: Have you ever been a member of a union? [00:11:29] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: Yes, SEIU 1199 Northwest. [00:11:31] Crystal Fincher: Will you vote to increase funding and staffing for investigations into labor violations like wage theft and illegal union busting? [00:11:40] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: Yes. [00:11:41] Crystal Fincher: Have you ever walked on a picket line? [00:11:43] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: I have. [00:11:44] Crystal Fincher: Have you ever crossed a picket line? [00:11:46] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: Absolutely not. [00:11:48] Crystal Fincher: Unlike Drew Barrymore, evidently. Is your campaign unionized? Is your campaign staff unionized? [00:11:56] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: I have pushed for that because I use a organization that is in the process of unionizing. [00:12:04] Crystal Fincher: Okay, and so assuming they're unionizing, will you voluntarily recognize their efforts? [00:12:10] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: Yes, yeah, yes. And my business is a co-op as well. [00:12:16] Crystal Fincher: Awesome. Well, that concludes the lightning round - hopefully pretty painless. Now, back to regular questions. So lots of people look to work that you've done to get a feel for what you prioritize and how qualified you are to lead. Can you describe something you've accomplished or changed in your district, and what impact that has had on your district's residents? [00:12:40] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: Yeah, so I've lived in District 5 the entire 13 years that I've been here. One of the things that people don't understand about District 5 is it's a lot more diverse than folks believe it is. I think the people who are the loudest seem to be seen as the demographic here - as primarily white, wealthy, middle-class, upper-class, homeowner types, right? But there's a lot of folks here who are people of the global majority, people who are disabled, people who are renters, people who are students. And one of the things that was really great to be able to advocate for was when I was co-chair of the Renters' Commission - at the time with Jessica Westgren, who was my co-chair - the Renters' Commission really advocated and wrote a letter of advocacy to City Council and to other pertinent entities, put out a press release in the news about some different rent stabilization and renter protection pieces that we'd like to see. What was able to come out of that was Councilmember Sawant's office passed the six-month advance notice for any rent increases, which was really significant for me. When I moved here in 2010 as a student, one of our first apartments that me and my mom lived in did have a pretty significant rent increase. I remember it was around the holidays and we only had maybe 30 or 60 days to get out or pay. My mom was on SSDI, I was on SSDI going to school - we did not have that. We were lucky to find another place to live, which eventually did end up getting sold. But there had been several times, either living with my mom or after I got married living with my partner, where if we didn't have that six-month advance notice, that we wouldn't also have had the opportunity to either save money if we could, get assistance if we could. I don't think people understand how quickly and how swiftly being housing unstable or becoming unhoused can really be. It really just takes being in a situation where you are responsible for an extra $200 a month - which means food, which means co-pay, which means transportation. In these cases, I don't know if you call the universe, luck, the ancestors, Buddha, whatever you call it - that was able to help us to find another opportunity for housing, but especially working in direct social services, I knew firsthand that that's not the case all the time. And so, especially as there's increased renters in the city, I think that's really helpful for that. There's other things that come to mind, but I feel like that's one that folks have heard me talk a lot about. [00:16:07] Crystal Fincher: And that is helpful. I wanna talk about the City budget. The City of Seattle is projected to have a revenue shortfall of $224 million, beginning in 2025. Because the City is mandated by the state to pass a balanced budget, the options to address this coming deficit are either to raise revenue, or cut services, or some combination of both. How will you approach the issue of how the City collects and spends money on behalf of its residents? [00:16:35] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: One of the things people hear me say a lot on this campaign trail, which I think I can get into a little bit with this question, is - I say a lot, either getting to the taproot of the issue or finding upstream solutions for effective collective and downstream results, which sounds - I understand it sounds very schmaltzy but let me explain what I mean with this question. There's this both-and situation that's happening with the budget that is really a interconnected effect to some upstream issues. And so there are certain areas of the way that the City gets revenue that are longer-term solutions that we really need to address. For example, we have the most regressive tax structure in the state. Washington State has the most regressive tax structure in the country. When we talk about some of the suggestions from the task force that just put out - the opportunities for progressive revenue task force - there are really promising things in there, like say having an income tax - which I know in Seattle, I'm learning, is a dirty word. This is the seventh state I've lived in, this is the first state I've lived in that did not have an income tax. Now I will say living in Louisville, Kentucky, it went a little bit too far, to be honest - I mean, they had a state tax, a city tax, a borough tax, it felt like a tax tax, they had all kinds of taxes - I'm not saying that. But we don't have an income tax at all in the most regressive tax structure in the country that also has one of the widest income disparities - the top 20% of income earners in the city makes 22 times more than the bottom 20% of income earners - there's a difference between $400,000 and about $18,000. So if we have a state constitutional law that says we can only have equality-based taxes and not equity-based taxes, or flat tax, that's not really gonna help have a progressive tax structure now, is it? So there's long-term pieces that folks have asked me before - Well, what, are you just gonna go off to the state and try to advocate to change the constitution? Yes, I will, if it's causing these issues. Now, in the short-term - we can increase the JumpStart Tax to bring in more funding. We can look at, especially parts of the budget that is going towards criminalization and punishment. And I think to explain a little bit about when I talk about reallocation of funds, community and SPD have both said that there are certain things that they're doing that they feel is outside of their purview and what they actually feel is necessary for them to do. We're in agreement there. And a lot of those sort of lightning questions you had around domestic violence, around violence intervention, around social services, even around parking or events - District 5 has a 7-minute response time in SPD. And a lot of it is because they are going all over the place. I listen to the police scanner - I think it's something I got into after the 2020 protest comms, things I used to do - and there's so many, I would say like one in every four calls, that seemed like it was either like someone's in the elevator or someone's screaming down the street, something like that. If we were to take those services that the community feels like SPD is out of their purview, SPD feels like it's out of SPD's purview - and we reallocate those services to community-based services, not necessarily that they would also have SPD come along. First of all, that'd be against the point in a lot of ways. But we have them go to alternative community services - true alternative community services, preferably nonprofits and organizations that are already doing this work on the ground. You see the average cost that it took for SPD to do those services that we would be reallocating, and we reallocate that part of the budget to those new services, especially if there are upstream pieces that could help - like housing. It would be in our best interest - whether it's for our community, for the folks who are impacted, or for taxpayers - to have money that's going towards, say, sweeps, go towards permanent housing. And so I would really, if elected, love to continue to work on how do we implement those seven or nine suggestions from the Progressive Revenue Task Force, and also continue to look at innovative solutions towards balancing this budget in ways that we can take the burden off of just increasing taxes - on the real estate taxes - in a way that's regressive. I think that we want to do, say, like a capital gains tax - I definitely think we need to do that. We want to do vacancy tax, we want to do land value or land banking taxes - I think that's important. I also feel, I feel really strongly - again, I know this is state - but I feel really strongly that as a city councilperson, it's my - any city councilperson's responsibility to advocate for issues that are impacting their community. And having flat rate taxation and regressive taxation is having a devastating impact on the community. [00:21:48] Crystal Fincher: I also want to talk about public safety and particularly alternative response, because we do - as you said before - need a more comprehensive approach to public safety, and that goes beyond policing. While the council and mayor have definitely taken action to increase the police budget, give retention bonuses, and other incentives to retain and hire more police, we're lagging behind other jurisdictions around the country - and even in our own region and county - with alternative response programs to better support those having behavioral health crises and other issues. Seattle has stalled in implementing what is a very widely-supported idea. So where do you stand on non-police solutions to public safety issues? And what are your thoughts on civilian-led versus co-response models? [00:22:40] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: Major part of my platform - I guess now, because folks ask about it a lot - is that I firmly, firmly believe that we need to transition from hyper-relying on the police and having alternative solutions that is 100% civilian-led. I mean, let's look at it this way, like with the example I gave, right? If SPD is saying they're working out of their purview, it's impacting their response times. It's impacting how much their workforce burden is. It is forcing them to redeploy folks out of places like investigations, causing these huge backlogs in the lab, to street patrol. Why then would we require them to be a co-lead with the alternative solutions? We are trying to remove that hyper-reliance and burden off of them completely - like if it's out of their purview, it's out of their purview, and that's all that on that. Now, like I said, a lot of my family lives in Camden, New Jersey, and they had a huge reduction in their crime right before 2020 George Floyd racial reckoning by completely overhauling to community interventions and alternatives. They have some situations where there is a co-lead model, but those are for situations where there's active threats of harm with weapons involved, right? But if it's more so things, like I said - like intimate partner violence, domestic violence, someone needs social services, mental health services - things that wouldn't require police to be there, which is gonna be very few things. It has led to such a significant change in a place where it used to be considered one of the more dangerous cities in the country. So I think what's really important here is I think when folks hear me talk about this, their first thought is like - Ah, this is a Defund the Police, BLM person. I think that that has definitely been something, looking the way that I do and sort of wanting to talk to what's really gonna get to the taproot of the issue, has been part of what folks have considered in terms of my viability, or like how am I going to be when I'm in office - one of those things, right? But the reason why I went through that whole resume in the beginning was not to toot my own horn, so to speak, it was because it shows that I have successfully and continue to successfully sit in spaces where folks are in conflict, folks are scared, folks are confused, folks do not have a lower risk tolerance that is needed for true transformative social change. And I am able to support and move along progress towards goals, especially goals at the organizational level and even the policy and governmental level. It's not as well known because I'm sort of - I am working with the folks who then go off and do the press conference, as opposed to one doing myself, right? But that is what I bring, that is the toolkit that I have built. And that toolkit has worked time and time and time and time again. In terms of SPD and public safety in a lot of ways, like I said - I look at it like if you go into an organization, you have a team or a department that is working outside of their scope, outside of their purview, they're overburdened, their work is suffering - you're sort of in a space of like, do we give them more money to give them more team to do all the things we're asking of them? Or do we do something else? And what I would always say in this case, if it was in the scenario is - you take all of the tasks that is not core and central and imperative to that team or department, and you reallocate it and create a new team or department. And you reallocate the budget that averages what that team and department does for those services - and then you continue to watch for progress. And I am very confident that if we actually diversify what we do to address all of the different multiple pathways towards this shared goal of community safety, we would be in a way better spot than continuing to throw money at a bunch of overworked, overburdened people working out of scope. [00:26:57] Crystal Fincher: Gotcha. I also wanna talk about victims. So many times we're talking about stats and responses and all that, and sometimes we don't focus on people who've been harmed or victimized. And a lot of people speak for victims, but we don't do a good job of listening to people who have been harmed themselves. And usually what they say is that - one, they wanna make sure that what happened to them doesn't happen to them or anyone else again. And they want better support. And that support - not just talking about within the system currently - they call police, there's a response. But even if police respond and come and take a report and do their thing, that person is still left - if it's a property crime, without property, with damage, without money, sometimes having to take off work - and it really does impact lives. How do you propose to better support victims or people who have been harmed? [00:27:55] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: I think one of the biggest upstream solutions we really have to address is - if we are to have services and supports that help folks help victims, we need to make sure that they are resourced to be able to do so, and right now they are not. And when we say resourced - not just a budget for the projects, right, or the services, or the interventions, housing, funding, whatever that is, but the people who would actually work in those positions. We know, like for example, in emergency services or shelter services, folks are so woefully underpaid it's a national crisis. But also the resources to be able to have folks in those positions who are being amplified in their voices and leadership because they are part of those most intersectionally impacted. One of the reasons why - I guess another reason why I'm running for office is, you know - if we want to talk about the knowledge of the policy process, how to put bills forward, things like that - I definitely have that. But there is an additional piece of that - the wisdom of lived experience - that can help to understand how these things happen in the actual reality on the ground, beyond a theoretical philosophical perspective. As a social service worker, as also someone who is not just a survivor - I guess we could say survivor of domestic violence - but continue to live it, especially running for office 'cause everything's public, right? There's a lot of different requirements, structures, pathways in place that it just leaves you to wonder that if there were folks who, whether it was directly making those decisions or through advisory councils, that was able to keep to-date the ways that our policies, our systems, and our structures are gummed up on the ground, in the lived experience, in the actual reality - if we could move some of those things so that they could be more helpful. That has been the biggest barrier I've seen for folks being able to get care, or to get resources, to get supports after they've been harmed - whether it's for their property, whether it's for their life, whether it's for their wellbeing, whether it's for their safety - the money isn't there. The staff is overworked and underpaid, and the attrition rate is so high that it's hard to move through the system at all. And then when you do go through the system, some of the requirements that you have to meet or some of the standards put in place in the framework doesn't get to the core root of what you need. A quick example - I guess I can say it for myself 'cause that's a safe thing, right - is when I first moved here to Seattle, there was a person who came here with me, who I had been involved with. When they came here, they were abusive in very many ways - emotionally, physically, psychologically. It was the physical abuse that finally was able to remove them, to get a no contact order - however, they violated it. They finally left the Seattle area around 2013. But especially running for office, we have found him on the website, on the socials, sort of finding me again after all this time. It's interesting because first of all, there really isn't protection order resources or domestic violence resources across state lines. There really aren't spaces to go where - you can't point to someone states away and say that this person is causing harm because it's on the internet. There was a event that the campaign was gonna go to where there was information that led us to believe that there was a credible threat to my safety. And so the campaign went, but I did not go. And I think when you do something like run for office, there are some folks who are like - Well, you signed up for that - but you don't really, right? And I guess I'm sharing my own story because it's the safest. However, I share this story because the dynamics of it is replicated every day, all day. Sometimes it's not because someone is in different state. Sometimes it's because folks have a different cultural background where they're not able to get like services - say, get emergency shelter, emergency motel, or income. You have to make a written statement that's signed that you are experiencing these things. And if it's family, if there's other sort of cultural pieces people may not feel comfortable doing that. So how do we have folks who have that experience be able to support having a framework in place that's going to be centered in intersectionality and inclusiveness? There's some folks who - this is impacting them financially in ways that are not documented because they're having to take more sick days, or because it is making them more sick, it's increasing their chronic health issues, or their productivity goes down at work. So how do we have supports in place where folks can understand those dynamics so folks are not getting verbal warnings from their boss, folks are not having less hours put on their schedule, folks are not having to then take time off of work to go to the hospital because they're having increased health issues. There are some folks who they do have property damage - when the physical altercation that led to this person finally being removed from my space at that time, they used my laptop in the event. And I was going to school - I didn't have money to buy another laptop. The only recourse would be to try to get this person to pay for it through a legal process - I didn't have money to go through that legal process, that person didn't have money to pay for a new laptop. There really wasn't any resources available to help me get another laptop, even though it was part of this event. A lot of that required other qualifications for me to have that I just didn't have at the time, and a lot of which - because this person wasn't physically living in my home, which definitely doesn't stop these sort of things from happening. So when you do have property damage or property loss, and the only option is to go through a legal process - and you may not have money for that, you may not be able to take time off for that, you might not be able to get child or dependent care for that - what do you do? And so these are the sort of pieces where running for city council, running for office, doing this work is coming at this not just because I want to be on the dais or - yes, there's a policy pieces that's really important - it's because there's this lived experience here, either individually or in my community or in the work that I've done, where I really would love to see a governance system where we are bringing in that actual reality, that grounded reality of how intersectionally we experience the outcomes or the bottlenecks or the gaps in our policy, in our investments, and in our understanding and framing of the issues. [00:35:53] Crystal Fincher: So you alluded to it a little bit before, but I wanna talk about housing and homelessness. And one thing called out by experts as a barrier to the homelessness response is frontline worker wages that don't cover the cost of living. Do you believe our local nonprofits have a responsibility to pay living wages for our area? And how can we make that more likely with how the City bids and contracts for services? [00:36:17] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: You know, I think the really sad thing is that our nonprofits - nonprofits are operating in large part through funding from a larger entity, whether it is the City, whether it's usually the federal government - nonprofits need to be able to pay their staff, not just a living wage or a thriving wage, but a Seattle wage, right? The average person working in emergency or directs housing and social services right now is making between $50,000 and $55,000 a year. But a median one-bedroom apartment - if you were gonna have it as be three times your rent, it's about $1,651 a month. And the National Alliance to End Homelessness just put out a report where they suggested that the staffing component of the Homeless Assistance Grant is increased. But they said that it's a national issue and that in order for across the country, even just direct social service workers and homeless emergency shelter workers to be brought up to being able to pay for the average one-bedroom apartment, it would take 4.8 billion, with the B, dollars to do so. And so by nature of being a nonprofit, where is that gonna come from for a nonprofit? I mean, definitely going back to the task force for progressive revenue, we can look at the wage and equity taxes and see where that is. But really for a nonprofit, that's not gonna be really the case. What we really need is to redistribute - when we talk about reallocating funds, we also need to reallocate the funds in a city with such a high wealth disparity. And so I believe that part of the progressive revenue - we really wanna address, say, ensuring that we have even housing and services for folks so that we can end the crisis of who we could physically see outside, we also have to address what's happening in housing instability, economic injustice, labor injustice of folks who are only one paycheck - if that - away from also physically being outside. And as someone who worked in direct social and housing services, I know that I worked with folks and also experienced situations where folks already were outside - they could not afford their rent and are receiving the same services. My quick story for that that I've been saying is that I remember having to get a conflict of interest waiver 'cause I had to take my client to DSHS. But when I looked at their letter, their DSHS caseworker was the same as mine. And so when we're looking at - oh, where's all the money going? If we only have these like, at minimum, 14,000 people outside, why are we using all this money? Well, because it's not just these 14,000 people who are needing these services, it's even the people who are providing the services that need the services. And so we really need to, as a city, actually not just talk about, but actually put to action economic and labor justice for this and other industries. But we also need to make sure that they are unionized and that they're able to collectively bargain for what they need for the future as well. [00:39:25] Crystal Fincher: Now on almost every measure, we're behind on our 2030 climate goals, while we're experiencing devastating impacts from extreme heat and cold, wildfires, smoke, floods, you name it - it's here. What are your highest priority plans to get us on track to meet those 2030 goals? [00:39:46] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: You know, when people ask this question, I always start off with saying - across living in seven states, that I believe I've experienced every type of natural disaster except for a tsunami, a sinkhole, and a typhoon. And yes, it does also include volcano eruptions, hurricanes, earthquakes, mudslides - all of those different sort of things - I have been through it. I always said I was just unlucky. As I got older, I realized it's because of climate disaster. We know that the climate disaster is human-made. It's based on consumption. We also know that the human-made climate disaster can be concentrated to a very select few people, who are in an owning class of organizations or businesses, or sort of other sort of production means that is contributing to this - whether it's shipping, whether it's fossil fuels, whether it's even folks who rely on that. The airline industry, I saw that Washington State did just pass a law to start to move towards green aviation fuel for planes, so we're not using all the gas, but even then - really in this Green New Deal, there's a couple of things. Number one, we need to really look at the building efficiency and energy performance pieces. We need to make sure that we are having Green buildings, that we're retrofitting for Green buildings - going back to those resources questions, we need to make sure we have the resources to help folks move towards having more Green buildings because we know that not everyone is going to be a multimillionaire or have a corporation where they can fund that on their own. The second piece is that we really do need to divest - in all ways, in all spaces - from fossil fuels. And not just the fossil fuel organizations themselves, but those who are hyper-reliant on fossil fuels. If there is an organization that is resistant to divesting from fossil fuels, then it is in our best interest to consider alternatives to using those services or patroning them. We also - I would really love to see how we address the deforestation of our urban forest, that is the city that we lived in. We have lost so much of our tree canopy that it is causing not only these sort of high heat zones that are really harming folks, but we also see them happening along the lines of segregation and redlining. There is increased impacts of environmental racism and injustices leading to folks, especially during the wildfire season, having to go to the hospital because of exacerbations of their asthma - that is leading to other chronic health issues, that is only going to lead to public health crises down the line. And there's so much more even from there, right - reducing our reliance on individual transit, which means that we have to really invest in our public transit infrastructure so it's reliable, so that the workers and operators are able to get everything they're asking for in their current collective bargaining and they're able to be paid a Seattle wage, and that we are able to make sure it's accessible to all people. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. There's a lot - we didn't just get to climate disaster in the last couple years, really - this has started since the industrialization period. We know it's really picked up since the 1970s, but that means that we're going to have to really work double time to make sure that we are able to have a sustainable future for life. And that's not being - I mean that literally - like so that we can actually continue to live as humans on the planet, 'cause that's where we're at. [00:43:26] Crystal Fincher: That is where we're at. Now you talked about transit - right now, we are in a world of hurt when it comes to transit, particularly reliability. Some of that is because of shortages of operators or mechanics, but people are having a harder time finding buses that arrive on time or sometimes arrive at all. Understanding that Sound Transit is a regional organization and King County Metro is a county organization, what can the City do? And in your role as a city councilmember, if you're elected, what can you do to stabilize transit reliability? [00:44:03] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: Yeah, it goes back to what I was saying earlier - you know, if elected a city councilperson, it's not just my job to do what I can and legislate within my purview. It is also my job to advocate and amplify what is happening in my district and in my city. And so that is the biggest piece of how we can have the multiple pathways towards shared goals in this case. If it's outside of my purview, that doesn't mean like - Oh well, I guess I can't do anything - but no, I'm supposed to go and advocate and say - Yo, what's going on with the 40 bus because it is taking, is like 20 minutes behind, or what's going on with, you know, the light rail and being able to get there, or what's going on with the E line. And I would continue to do that. I mean, advocating to King County Metro in terms of its accessibility and its affordability and its reliability is something I've already done in multiple ways - and it's on record of what I've done. But I definitely think what's really important here is going a little bit back to the climate justice conversation is - if we really truly want to reduce our reliance on vehicles, especially vehicles that are using gas, and we want folks to use more public transit, that's gonna, first of all, require like Complete Streets and making sure we have a pedestrian focus, if not pedestrians and public transit centered streets. But we also have to make sure the public transit is going to be a competitive option to having a car. And as someone who can't have a car because of my disability, I can only have public transit unless my partner drives me - and he works four tens a week, so most of the time I'm taking transit. You know, there has been situations, especially going east to west in District 5, where if I were to be able to drive a car, get an Uber, I can get there in 15 minutes. If I was to take the bus, I have to take two different transfers and get there in 45 minutes - if that. And so if we're in a situation - it's multifaceted with the infrastructure, where it's going, the operators - how much they're getting paid, their labor standards, are they getting breaks? Are they - do they feel safe? Are they getting medical for sitting all day? And is it affordable? You know, I talk a lot about first mile, last mile as a disabled person - can I get to a bus stop within a mile from my house, if I can walk a mile? Can I get to my destination within a mile from my bus stop, if I can walk that mile? What is the multimodal transportation going to look like? We really need to look at all of these different factors and the city councilmember's job is to advocate and amplify that to whatever level is needed and work together to get those solutions for your community as much as possible. [00:46:58] Crystal Fincher: Now I want to talk about the economy. The City of Seattle has a vibrant business community - some of the largest corporations in the world are headquartered here and nearby, but also just a ton of small businesses - lots of entrepreneurs, micro businesses, especially in the district. What can you do to better support small business in District 5? [00:47:22] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: Well, I can tell you as a small business owner, too - it's really hard out here, right? Because there's so many different factors looking at, even just from the perspective that I have, with having staff where I have to make sure I have payroll every month and everything like that, right? The first thing I'll say is we know from the state and the city that we have a significant equity issue with public procurement. I am a business that relies on public procurement in a lot of ways. We need to make sure that we are actually putting the actions in place for public procurement and other equity for business owners. We have the Washington Women and Minority Business Enterprise certification that continues to need funding - to provide the grant funding, the infrastructure and supports needed for those businesses and others - that we can advocate to work for at the city and at the state level. Another thing I think is really important for businesses that have brick and mortar is I absolutely 100% believe in density, increasing housing density, increasing the amount of affordable housing that we have - 'cause we don't wanna just be putting housing in for housing sake and then be charging like $3,000 a month and people can't live there. But making sure we have affordable, accessible housing. One of the things that I've seen and folks have been really concerned about is you have these sort of small businesses that their commercial lease is maybe in the $1,000 a month area. Then they say - Hey, we're gonna build a development, but don't worry, we're gonna have retail space for you once the development is done. And if they can survive however long it takes to build this building - because they have to continue to be in operation - but then when the commercial leases or the retail spaces come online, they're in the $3,000 or $4,000 a month - three to four times increase of how much they're able to pay. And so they can't pay that and so those businesses just go away forever. And this is why folks get upset when they go from having a small coffee shop or a small diner or a small bookstore or a small grocery store in their neighborhood, and then the building goes up and now they have a Trader Joe's or they have a non-unionized Starbucks or they have something like that that shows up - someone who can afford those $3,000 to $4,000 rents. And so we need to also have a right-to-return put in place. We need to make sure that businesses, especially the smaller businesses, are able to have the supports they need if they are displaced, similar to like with renters - if there's a displacement where they will not be able to operate their businesses anymore, that they will be able to help. And I wanna be very clear. When - I think a lot of times in the city, and what's really important about this question for me, is when we talk about businesses in Seattle, I think folks are thinking about the big businesses. They're thinking about the Amazons - heck, they're thinking about the restaurants that have multiple chains, right, and they sell different sort of things - that they're not gonna be as impacted, right? They're impacted, sure - 'cause the pandemic is pandemicking and that's impacting everyone. Especially when we're talking about JumpStart Taxes, right - we're talking about businesses that are making $8 million or more a year. And I'm talking about businesses like myself and other folks in District 5 - I'm talking about like $500,000 a year or less, right? Like I'm not talking about the same people. Even if you're thinking about - if you have staff, if you have a commercial lease, stuff like that - even a million dollars a year, which would be - I think I would just feel like I was sort of like, like the "In the Money" song would start playing if I ever hit a million dollars a year gross sales. But that's not common. When I talk about what is needed for small businesses in this district, I'm talking about those folks, right? I'm talking about the people who might be living in, around, above their business, who is - just like you can live paycheck to paycheck for your rent, living paycheck to paycheck for their business to make payroll, that have services or goods that they provide that the pandemic created this huge gap where they were not able to do that anymore, especially if they're a performer and needing stages to perform or something like that, or gallery space. Especially folks who are at the intersection of being, you know, what they call economically disadvantaged businesses, so they don't make a lot of money. Folks who are non-binary, trans, femme of center folks, folks who are a part of the LGBTQIA+ community, folks who are disabled, folks who are veterans - especially if they do not have the sort of veterans supports and services that you could get otherwise, especially if they, how service connected they are or what length of service they've had, 'cause that can vary. There's a lot of folks who really need help and that's where really understanding what's happening on the ground can come into play when we're making these investments in these policies to make sure that we are centering folks who are the most intersectionally impacted, and that we are not continuing to center folks who are, you know, in a completely different space and continuing that regressiveness in even the investments that we make. [00:52:48] Crystal Fincher: I also wanna talk about a related issue of childcare. It doesn't just affect parents - it affects businesses, it affects everyone in our community because it impacts people's ability to participate in the economy and just make their bills. We recently got reporting and research that shows that now childcare is more expensive than college on an annual basis. It's many people's number one or number two expense who have families. What can you do to lighten the burden of childcare costs and availability for residents in District 5? [00:53:24] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: What we've seen across the country is that when it's subsidized, either through local governance, state governance, federal governance, or through the employer - and really preferably a mixture of both - it can have an astounding effect on affordability. Really, it's one of those multifaceted issues, right - where we also need folks to be able to do, like to work the childcare. They're another industry that's woefully underpaid, as well as our teachers in our education systems. We need to make sure that we have childcare that's multilingual, multicultural, that is going to have disability justice and universal accessibility standards, that we have dependent care that can also support folks who have dependents who are not children - which is not always considered, whether it's elders or whether those are folks who are adults who may or may not be children, but they still require dependent care - that can make it really hard to go to work if you are unsure how they will be able to move throughout their day without some sort of support, without putting them in somewhere like a group home. Especially for adults, I would love to see what it would look like to have clubhouse-style day programs that are moving towards having that disability justice approach, if it's for disability. Or having it be something cool, like maybe free education and learning about trades, so that we can increase the pipeline of folks going into the trades or just certain things like that. But really when it comes down to affordability and second, it comes down to employer cooperation. We need to make sure that if, say, someone does get sick and you need to take care of your family - really, I know it's a federal law, but FMLA is just not very helpful. Again, one of those actual reality experiences, right - the policy, great intention, impact not so much. And so we can't really rely on things like FMLA or even the Paid Sick and Safe Time - which you can go through very, very quickly, depending on what's happening - to help if there's an emergency, if you can't get childcare that day. Childcare in the United States is going for anywhere between $700 if it's subsidized to about $2,500 a month. That's rent. People can barely afford their rent now, let alone a whole other rent. And so we really need to find ways to subsidize this down to as free as possible, so that is just one area that's not concerning for employees. But again, just like I said with housing, we don't just wanna be building housing for housing sake - we wanna make sure it's actually going towards the taproot of the issue. We don't wanna just be having childcare, independent care for the sake of it. We wanna make sure that the people who are in there is going to be able to have the economic and labor justice, and that's gonna actually meet the intersectional, multilingual, multi-ability, multicultural reality of our district and our neighborhoods. And that's what I would be fighting for. [00:56:33] Crystal Fincher: Now, as we close today with this final question, there are a lot of people trying to consider who they should vote for - between you and your opponent. When you talk to voters who are trying to make that decision, what do you tell them? [00:56:48] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: If you look at my opponent, Cathy - Cathy, again, has one of those resumes that's very out in front and I think it leads a lot of folks to wonder like - Why you? Right they're, you know, they're a former circuit court judge, been sort of in that space for a while. But there's also a piece of that where I ask folks to really consider the archetypes of things - you know, what is really the archetype of what makes a good candidate or a viable candidate? A lot of folks are like - Well, are you knocking the doors? You know, are you a homeowner? Do you have the money? Look, here's the point - I'm a renter, I've had to work 40 hours a week doing this because I don't have money to just take off of work. I come from what they call network impoverishment. Folks have been like - Can you ask your family for support? I'm like - I'm the person they come to that gives support, I don't have that. If I don't work, there is no one's house for me to go couch surf at. I'm a transit rider, I am a multiply disabled person, I understand what it means to have to fight for your Medicare, to have to have $200 copays. A lot of those both-and pieces - yes, I rent a single-family house in Greenwood, but the reason why it's affordable is because it's sinking into this ravine in the backyard - and as I look up in the ceilings, there's cracks in the foundation. You know, there's a lot of these different sort of pieces where if we want to talk policy, right - and I go back to helping, being a part of passing the six-months advance notice on rent increases, co-organizing and passing one of the nation's first bans on sub-minimum wage, working with legislators on fighting for lifting the cap on special education, fighting to make sure that youth continue to use the bus for free, finding out what's a taproot issues, fighting for making sure that we have disability justice implemented throughout our cities, that we are actually holding - not just saying a thing, but doing a thing if we really truly care about race and social justice. We want to talk about policy process, how to move that forward, how to work with people, how to make sure you find multiple pathways towards shared goals, the policy theory and the process - I got that. And me and Cathy can go - you know, we can really match that up. What I bring that's different is that wisdom of lived experience - not just for myself, but in all of the folks I've worked with as a consultant, as a commissioner, as a direct social service worker, as a youth leader across seven different states throughout the nearly 40 years of my life. And I truly believe and have seen success in the toolkits that I bring, that when you bring both the knowledge and the wisdom together - where you are both taking into account how the lived experiences of those most intersectionally impacted can be amplified in voices in leadership, into policy, into solutions, into leadership, into investments, to true equity - you will see progress. And if you focus on that, you don't get caught up by the minutiae, you can move forward. I have seen and worked with a lot of different folks, processes, organizations, piece - in this city - where we get caught up in the minutiae. I've been successful before in being able to move things forward in a smaller way, but you make the white paper and you give the recommendations and you look at it and they put it to the side. This being the next natural step of being able to have that voice, that conduit for my community on the dais is one that I really truly hope to bring to this community in a way I haven't before. And I'm always happy to chat with folks, get coffee, have a Zoom meeting and talk about some of the other things that I've done because as you can tell, there's so many stories and so little time. [01:00:27] Crystal Fincher: There are. Well, thank you so much, ChrisTiana ObeySumner, for taking the time to speak with us today about your candidacy for Seattle City Council District 5. Thank you so much. [01:00:39] ChrisTiana ObeySumner: Thank you. [01:00:40] Crystal Fincher: Thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks, which is produced by Shannon Cheng. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on every podcast service and app - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review shows and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

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7/11/23. Five Minutes in the Word scriptures for today: Acts 19:38-41. The city clerk reprimanded Demetrius for inciting a riot then dismisses the assembly. Resources: enduringword.com; biblehub.com; logos.com; Matthew Henry Commentary; and Life Application Study Bible. November 2021 Podchaser list of "60 Best Podcasts to Discover!" Listen, like, follow, share! #MinutesWord; @MinutesWord; #dailydevotional #christianpodcaster Now on Amazon podcasts and Pandora! #prayforukraine #voiceofthemartyrs #prayforTurkey #prayforSyria

7/10/23. Five Minutes in the Word scriptures for today: Acts 19:35-37. The crowd quieted by the city clerk. Resources: enduringword.com; biblehub.com; logos.com; Matthew Henry Commentary; and Life Application Study Bible. November 2021 Podchaser list of "60 Best Podcasts to Discover!" Listen, like, follow, share! #MinutesWord; @MinutesWord; #dailydevotional #christianpodcaster Now on Amazon podcasts and Pandora! #prayforukraine #voiceofthemartyrs #prayforTurkey #prayforSyria

Kvothe sees what, to all the world, seems to be a Ruh troupe. We talk about Kvothe's conspicuous lack of inner monologue, review Kvothe's path to contacting the troupe, assess the troupe's performance, and wonder if Kvothe's troupe was somehow special. To support the ongoing WGA writers' strike as they battle for a living wage and decent working conditions, please visit this link and go to the Strike Assistance section: www.wgacontract2023.org/strike-hub