Comments

2

Betting big? You've got to be kidding me.

$250, or even $30,000, is pennies for these people. Or less, even. They might as well be playing for popsicle sticks.

3

Amazon employees like many residents of Seattle are tired of the drug addict shitshow and humanitarian crisis created by the ideologues on the City Council with a helping hand from Pete Holmes and Dan Satterberg. Sawant, Herbold, and Juarez have had their chance to lead, and their tenure has been an epic failure. If Seattle wants action on the big challenges facing the city, than send a message by throwing out all the incumbents in the primary. Egan Orion is a good choice for the district. The Stranger’s and Sawant sheep’s portrayal of Orion as an Amazon crony is laughable. He is a longtime resident of District 3 and advocate for the LGBTQ community, supporter of the arts, environmentalist, local small business owner, and community builder. He supports adding density, improving transportation options, and getting everyone off the streets and into shelter and housing. He is far from the Amazon boogieman. Any of the District 3 candidates would be better and more responsive than Sawant. I am disgusted that the Stranger continues to prop her up. We can do so much better than this.

4

@3

So, uh, what policy proposals do any of these candidates have that will address "the drug addict shitshow?"

I haven't heard any. All I see is wealthy people endorsing candidates whose polices are more favorable to the wealthy than those of their opponents.

All of the candidates, and every member of the current council, support "getting everyone off the streets and into shelter." So what new policy is Orion proposing? Or is he all promises and no concrete details?

5

The “head tax” was killed by Council’s own stupidity, a lack of community support, a lack of hard work to build a coalition for a proposed tax, and most importantly, the lack of a regional plan with performance metrics. The city has had such a disastrous track record on ending the “homeless and affordability crisis” that there was a legitimate fear that throwing more money down the same hole would actually make the problem even worse. Sawant and her bullhorn probably set us back three years. New leadership is the best opportunity to build public support and increased funding to address the affordable housing shortage and drug addict encampment crisis, which are separate issues.

6

What kind of bug-eyed little shit would allow a photo of himself like that?

7

Amazon employees are also contributors to Sawant's campaign: http://web6.seattle.gov/ethics/elections/poplist_v2.aspx?cid=635&listtype=contributors

For that matter, Amazon is a vendor to the Sawant campaign: http://web6.seattle.gov/ethics/elections/poplist.aspx?cid=635&listtype=vendors

8

Good for them, they pay a shit load in Washington State B&O and sales tax when they buy from businesses. They should get some bang for their buck. BRAVO JEFF!! And thanks for the high paying jobs Seattlites enjoy.

10

@5:

You still haven't answered the question posed by @4: what is the candidate's plan to solve the problem? You mention getting the homeless "off the streets and into shelter and housing", but you haven't articulated any sort of concrete proposal for accomplishing this, which, BTW, even in your nebulous conception is going to require a HUGE financial investment: in housing, in shelter beds, in support services, in outreach to the homeless community, among others.

11

@8:

You DO understand not EVERYONE in Seattle works for Milo Minderbi - er, Jeff Bezos, yes?

12

@5 But that doesn't answer my question.

What is Orion proposing to do differently?

Where are his detailed policies to "address the affordable housing shortage and drug addict encampment crisis"?

Sounds to me like he doesn't have any policy ideas at all for ending the "homeless and affordability crisis." Just same-old, same old, continue on with what we're doing now.

14

If you want to know my policies, go to my website and see them there in black and white: eganforseattle.org. Or come to the Mount Baker Community Club on Friday evening. Or the last of the coffee chats I’m doing (info on website). Voters tell me one reason they’re supporting me is that I do have in depth ideas about how to ease the homelessness crisis. First stop: enshrine shelter as a human right into our city charter like New York City does. Next step: bond with the county for $500 million for 1500 supportive housing units and pay it back over 20 years with the general fund. We are already paying that money now just with few good outcomes. More on my website at: www.eganforseattle.org.

Thanks to those Amazon employees who are giving to my campaign and the rest of our supporters from every corner of the city and district. And for those who gave their democracy vouchers to our campaign. What all the voters I’m talking to are saying is they want a council representative who will fight for them and be responsive to their neighborhood’s needs. Someone that has a history of working with non profits and businesses large and small to get big things done, like PrideFest, now one of the city’s largest civic events.

Did you know that we have one of the highest in-city contribution ratios? Over 90%. Sawant is around 60%. 60% of my donations come from within District 3 while Sawant is around 30%. So it’s folks from within the District who want a change, and that happens to include people from Amazon.

Hoping that next week it’s just me and Sawant because I think that’s an election I can, with the help of all of District 3, actually win.

15

@13 And if that were printed up on a campaign flier, it would give voters a much clearer picture of the PAC's goals, too.

16

I go to "amazonia" basically daily and I will give you $100 if you found a homeless person or "addict" there or anywhere upon the grounds the place you get cheap shit delivered to your door and hosts your websites. It's a tight ship there.

18

@14

So you promise to do the same thing everyone else promises to do, and has always promised to do -- create more housing (but not even half enough to house the City's current unsheltered population, and without specifying any sites, or course). And you're proposing we pay for it by cutting our city's budget by ~$45M every year for the next 20 years to make bond payments?

That's not a new policy, that's just a promise to wealthy voters that they won't have to pay any more than they do now the next time the bill comes due for the same old, same old.

19

@17 That's your opinion.

And your opinion is at odds with the ICESCR, adopted in 1966 and ratified by the United States along with ~150 other nations.

Article 11 (1): "The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food, clothing and housing"

This is a binding treaty, regardless of any particular citizen's opinion of it.

https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/cescr.aspx

Housing rights are further elaborated in General Comment No. 4, adopted in 1991:

https://www.ohchr.org/documents/publications/fs21_rev_1_housing_en.pdf

P.S. - the 6th amendment of the US constitution guarantees a criminal defendant the right to an attorney. This Right "costs money," as you put it, and rather a lot of it, but that does not make it any less a Right of US Citizens.

21

@20 The US government has ratified a binding treaty which enumerates a collection of rights. Do you really think prepending the word "human" to that collection of rights automatically nullifies the treaty somehow, or the US government's agreement to it?

22

What about the majority of bums who refuse services and housing when contacted by the navigation teams, because they just wannna parrrhhhteeeh, and not have any responsibilities?

Total drag dude.

23

@22 What about them, indeed?

Or rather, where are your preferred candidates' new policies to address the problem? All I'm seeing is the same old, same old from everyone who's thrown a hat in the ring.

Blah blah more services, shuffle shuffle buck pass pabulum nothingburger. Why haven't any of them picked up one of the the clever ideas our right-wing SLOG commenters have been incubating?

25

@24: Yes, “Nazi fuckwits” can easily be identified by their praising of LGBTQ advocacy. (History — why does it hate you?!?)

I’m pretty sure I’ve seen actual bots whose outputs were less tediously predictable than yours.

27

@26 Which definitions of rights in this longstanding treaty seem Orwellian to you?

If anything the language might sound a bit quaint by modern standards, so innocently employing turns of phrase like "himself and his family." It stands unredacted, too, hardly what I'd expect if left-Orwellians had been meddling with it.

28

@23 Once they discover Seattle is no longer a city of suckers where they can pitch a tent anywhere and shoot up without consequences, they’ll move to another city or back from where they can from. Accept services or we’ll make your lifestyle choice a pain in your ass.

29

"Jeffrey Wilke, Amazon’s CEO of Worldwide Consumer Finance, a division of Amazon"

He's the CEO of Amazon Worldwide Consumer, aka everything that isn't Amazon Web Services. Where did you get Consumer Finance?

30

@28

But where's the policy that will make that change? Which of your candidate's proposals is going to make Seattle "no longer a city of suckers?"

What new laws are they proposing that will do this?

Or is this all just supposed to happen magically by brewing up wishes and tax cuts and twinkledust in a silver cauldron to summon the spanking god?

31

@18: It’s fun to watch you repeatedly (@4, @10, @12) demand a challenger’s policy statement, and then when you get told where to find it, complain you don’t like it.

If we had a choice between a moderately successful homeless policy developed by the incumbent, and a challenger who promises to do better, then we’d be justified in demanding more details. But the incumbent’s policy has been an unmitigated disaster, a costly exercise in exacerbating the very condition it was supposed to alleviate. And what will the incumbent do, if re-elected? More of the same failed policy. She has explicitly stated she will re-instate the EHT, and no matter what, her policy depends on ideology, not fact. Nothing will change.

32

Yes, less than $5K across 12 different execs, and 200K from the company as a whole. Or, in other word, about the salary of one entry level software developer.

And in return, Orion’s committing to move to NYC’s right-to-shelter system and bond for PSH. Both of which are desperately needed and excellent ideas.

Quite the corporate coup.

Btw, anyone who writes about Amazon for a living should probably know who Jeff Wilke is. I know the Stranger’s standards of excellence have declined, but that’s embarrassing, bro.

33

I saw Egan putting up campaign posters the other day and told him that he’d have my vote if I still lived in the district. Sawant is awful! Her numerous lawsuits against her have cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees. Time for her to go!

34

“Btw, anyone who writes about Amazon for a living should probably know who Jeff Wilke is.”

A-yup.


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