Issues

In the realm of education, the call for change reverberates beyond the simplistic notion that "we just need to pay staff more." While fair compensation for specialized skills is crucial, we must confront the stark reality that the challenges faced by educators, paras, office workers, custodians, and bus drivers extend far beyond any paycheck.

Accountability is for everyone - for every politician, and for every private resident. When someone hurts another, including by stealing, hurting their property, or far worse, then of course there need to be consequences. And those kinds of consequences need to make sure that people who do harm are set on an upward spiral and don’t continue to make the same bad choices. 

Just like in any job, we can’t expect to work for free. Nor should we expect that the things in life that we either need or want to come free. The same thing goes for paying for the services we all benefit from, including better schools with kids that aren’t hungry, making sure people don’t end up on the streets for lifesaving medical care, and fixing those darned potholes. 

We need to recognize that Reproductive Healthcare is Healthcare.

So many people become bankrupt and even lose their homes because they can’t afford to pay medical bills. The fact that this is the story for people who sleep in tents, in the shadows of some of the most prestigious medical institutions and biggest businesses in the world, is a moral and policy failing on our part.

Whether it’s on housing, climate change, or transportation: let’s face it, when we think of cities in Washington, we often think of the biggest ones. So often, we see policies created for cities like Seattle in mind, but that don’t fit the realities of places like my town of Black Diamond. We can see Seattle from our highest hill, but in a lot of ways we are a world apart.