Two things can be true at once: we need worker centered recovery AND to help downtown, which was heaviest neighborhood hit by COVID due to the sheer exodus of bodies and business activities while workers went remote or left the workforce altogether. Can we get creative and show some love for downtown without turning it into a political thing about corporations vs working people or whatever? A reopening party. Music. Art. Plenty of folks live downtown need this too.

@1:

What part of "I have developed a comprehensive plan that lays out a vision for equitable economic recovery and revitalization in EVERY neighborhood..." was unclear to you?

Aspirational, and she has some street cred . . . been in the fight, for sure.

It would be nice to have a city leader who chose to lead by actually being inclusive instead of demonizing one group to lift up another. Those two things are not mutually exclusive. I read through Lorena's manifesto and it seems pretty clear her mission will be to continue with the council's preferred method of blaming "big business" for all that ails Seattle while simultaneously demanding they fork over additional revenue for the privilege. B&O and sales tax make up 41% of the city's budget and the big employers in this city contribute overwhelmingly to those funds. But sure, dismiss their concerns out of hand and refuse to even engage in dialogue. That very attitude is the reason we have charter amendment 29. Whoever ends up mayor next year will need to be a consensus building. No matter what happens city revenues are going to slow down and with remote work now a permanent part of our lives the city will no longer have the luxury of commuters coming into the office 5 days a week to pump up the downtown economy. I've seen enough of Lorena to know she ain't it.

So the council member is upset that the Downtown Seattle Association asked candidates to talk about what they would do for downtown? What did she want them to do? Tenderly inquire about Rainier Beach?

I'm no fan of the DSA. I think they are smarmy to an extreme. But I understand what side their bread is buttered on.

@3: The part that is unclear is if she considers downtown to be a neighborhood or not. Her flat rejection of dialog with one of that neighborhood's associations is why.

@6, @7: As you noted, her complete refusal even to talk with a constituency is not a good start. In my opinion, it's one of the reasons our Council has been such an utter failure of late. The vote for the EHT was 9-0, even while citizens lined up to sign the referendum petitions. The vote to "Save the Showbox" was 8-0, after which the courts overturned it for being obviously illegal. The lack of dissenting votes for such obviously bad policies shows why dialog is vital to a working democracy.

González is very impressed with González, but is anyone else? I see a lot of empty ambition and a lot of rhetoric, but little substance and little effectiveness while in office. Just say no.

Why do all these business owners who claim to love free market economics come crying for bailouts when the free market decides they will no longer be in business?

@8:

Unclear to YOU, perhaps, but considering there are roughly 90,000 people who live in the downtown neighborhood, as well as the fact it's officially recognized as part of Council District 7, AND is represented by some 20 different officially recognized neighborhood, community and business groups, of which the DSA is just one, how in the world would you come to the conclusion she DOESN'T?

I mean, I know you-all like to just pull random shit out of your collective asses and call it an "opinion", but it doesn't mean anyone else is obliged to give your bullshit assumptions any credence.

@12, I don't know of any workers who claim to love getting fucked over by their employers and having their labor exploited. But if they exist it wouldn't surprise me that you keep that kind of brain-dead masochistic company.

Do you know what effect the failure of Downtown businesses would have on 95% of Seattle neighborhoods?

None.

None at all.

We'd be fine.

@15, one could say the same thing about the failure of your neighborhood not having a measurable impact anywhere else. Actual people live downtown, it’s not just corporations; they need places to buy food and other amenities. And it is true that B&O taxes will take a hit, and that WILL impact everyone else’s hoods.

Pandering to The Stranger reader. Lorena, we're not dumb. Your record is TERRIBLE.

Homelessness up 40%
Murders up 72%
Shootings up a ton--seems like daily
160+ businesses leaving Seattle for Bellevue (Damn--they must be desperate, Bellevue?)
Filthy Parks
Soda Taxes--I bought a $1 Coke at McDonald's and it cost $1.41. 41% taxes is too much
30% increase in electricity rates
Increasing housing costs
20% increase in water/sewer/garbage costs
60% increase in rapes
BIPOC communities suffering from a surge in violent crime

Sorry, you've failed and failed badly. It's time for new leadership. Real leadership. Virtue signaling while stuffing money into your friends $250K/year salaried non-profit that's 'fighting homelessness' ain't cutting it.

You need to go.

No wonder you're falling behind in the polls and desperately pandering. Desperation smells bad.

Workers coops and worker power that deserves big time support. That must be the future. The sooner the better because capitalism is cooking us and the planet. That must be turned around before the environment is destroyed by greed and the human race is ended.

Tired of the billionaires pulling the strings and their abuse. We are millions and they are few.
Its up to us not politicians.

@13: If only you could read without speaking every word slowly and distinctly, you might actually have made it all the way to the end of the second sentence of my comment @8 before your rage-induced seizure hit. Then you'd know why.

Now, you never will.

Sad.

)-':

(Also, "you-all"? Are you still trying, without success, to fight off my unstoppable troll army, the same one you simply assumed into existence awhile back? I guess you always will be...)

Their or a number of people who really need mental health care on the professor history and jackkay. Seek help there are lots of resources out there for you

The down town core has literally been eviscerated.... its boarded up, businesses closed, hotels vacant ...where and why would a tourist or a resident of this city flock to down town and hang out in this this shit hole of a waste land. -- unless of course you are homeless, want to do drugs relatively unmolested, engage in crime or activities of that ilk or like an anarchist's paradise.

The city council has a duty to restore order, the rule of law and fix the mess which they allowed to happen. We cleaned up Cal Anderson park, but not downtown...why is that?

The SDA isn't just "big corporation" they are lots and lots of small business owners who have invested their lively hood, capital, industry and risked much to employ many, many people in this city. Is this how our city council rewards them for their industry and vibrancy they used to provide?

Why must everything in this city be cast as a "us verses them" mentality. Its not that way at all, except it sounds good politically when people are hurting... somebody gotta take the blame.
So the political flavor of the month is blame large corporations for this mess, when the truth is something altogether different.

The city council is supposed to represent "all of us"...average tax paying citizen who owns a home, has children, goes to work, businesses -small and large, .. not just a special interest group, a segment, but all of us. Many of us deplore the fact we have been ignored... like restoring the rule of law, allowing homeless to destroy our parks and city, far left social experiments on our city which are not based on any reliable studies.... yet we pay taxes and continue to suffer.

@28 uh yeah you just underscored the need for revitalization efforts. Downtowns were the hardest hit neighborhoods by COVID. Over 200 small businesses closed in downtown Seattle; many bodegas, lunch food services etc are BIPOC and immigrant run. But it is politically expedient to beat up on downtowns now, although this can’t be a great long term solution.

@28 Or could it be, I'm just throwing it out there....Uh, it couldn't be because we let people break all the store front windows in a riot, abandoned the street to allow people to pitch tents, do drugs, run lawless and commit crimes virtually unpunished, Now all this took place under a "far left" city council...

Tell me under these condition, what if any business or person who values their safety dare to go downtown?

Why wouldn't our city leaders want to restore vibrancy, the rule of law and clean up our city core and why are they threatened with the DSA asking this be done.

Why cast this as "big business" is taking money from the "little people" when in fact it many small business and their employee that are taking the hit.

Could it be that higher labor costs, complex and costly labor requirements are running many small business out of the city...

Or is it simply just as you say?

Downtown was having problems before either Covid or the BLM protests. Macy’s proved itself utterly incapable of competing with Nordstrom, and sold out to Amazon. That, in turn, hurt a lot of adjacent businesses, and created a huge gap in the downtown retail core.

But most American cities would love to have the problems our downtown does.

Lorena confirms what I already know. Any idiot can get a law degree.