Sara, a King County Public Health employee, was one of the nearly 100 local government workers who crowded onto the steps at Seattle city hall yesterday as part of the 1pm city worker walkout organized in conjunction with national Martin Luther King Day events to protest police violence and call for stronger SPD accountability.

Sara had come, because her husband, a teacher, was pepper sprayed by the SPD the night before at the MLK Day Black Lives Matter march. “He was attending a rally,” Sara said. “His back was turned and he was on the phone, and they sprayed him. It doesn’t help he was a man of color.” 

Shuffling into place on the stairs, in puffy winter coats thrown over desk job attire, the city workers—looking more like parents than protesters—held up signs forming the words “Black Lives Matter.” Organizers had planned the event for weeks over email, and the outspoken employees took the half hour off from work to show up in bite of the late January cold.

With the mayor's office in the backdrop, speakers from the NAACP, City Light Black Employees Association, the Citywide Black Caucus, and the City of Seattle Native American Employees criticized the violence that minority groups face at the hands of local police and called for greater accountability.

The police and mayor “talk a good game, but there is still a lot of unjustified police violence and arrests."—City employee

While official speakers, such as Sheley Secrest, former President of the Seattle King County NAACP, struck a hopeful tone about change, city employees were more direct in voicing frustrations about what they saw as the biggest barrier to police accountability—the police union and the lack of effort from the city administration.

Deborah, a Seattle librarian attended the event because she believes “it’s important for city employees to show up in force in order to bring attention to this issue.”

To her police accountability is not only a “national issue, but also an equity issue.” The police and mayor “talk a good game," she said, "but there is still a lot of unjustified police violence and arrests"—violence that she believes, has been “disproportionately against people of color.”

Nate, a city water treatment employee attended the event because he has grown “frustrated” with police related violence. Having been fighting the issue of discrimination since he was a teenager, Nate was among many participants who argued, “Police need to be held more accountable for their violence.” While he believes the mayor is trying, he says, “It hasn’t been enough.”

Bradley, one of the organizers and a land use planner with the Department of Planning and Development said that the biggest barrier to changing the way police accountability works is the “police union,” not the mayor or the police department.  “You need to look at the union, because right now there are no incentives for them to change.”

Sara, responding to whether she thought anything would come of her husband’s pepper spraying, answered: “I have very low expectations of any police accountability.”

Bernard Ellouk wrote this report. 

2. Socialist City Council member Kshama Sawant gave her response to President Obama's State of the Union speech last night (you can watch it here); it was a brilliant media stroke this time last year when she did the same thing, riding the national attention of her then-recent 2013 headline election.

But the grandiose conceit wore thin this time, particularly as she continues to speak of herself in the third person as "an independent, working class candidate who boldly championed" the $15 minimum wage.

So, if I may be, um, so bold myself, a few responses to Sawant's response to President Obama.

“Our task is clear—we need to continue to build this movement and democratic organizations like 15 Now to make 2015 the year we win 15 across the nation.”

Hi, I'm your constituent. Before we do this whole nationwide effort, can you fill the pothole that swallowed my neighbor and get Bertha moving again? Thanks.

“We need urgent public investment to build new affordable housing for working families.”

Hi, I am the Seattle Housing Levy.  I have been doing just that since 1981 and have built over 10,000 units. In the last ten years, by way of example, the housing levy has created nearly 4,000 units while the city's incentive zoning program—a the politically easy route to charge developers a fee to build low-income housing (Sawant's preferred approach)—has created just over 600 units.

Look, I agree, the rent is too damn high. So let’s build more apartments, zone areas for denser buildings, and lower costs to increase supply. What, wait, your just want rent control? 

"Socialist Alternative, tenants, and I are campaigning for emergency measures like rent control to address this spiraling crisis.”

Okay, I will drive with you to Olympia to speak with the Republican senate majority, and we can count on that passing in 2056 when a one bedroom apartment in Seattle will rent for one human kidney a month.

“We won a $15 minimum wage in Seattle—the first major city to do so—by building a movement of low-paid workers together with unions, community organizations, 15 Now, and others.”

You forgot the part about we had a mayor that was beholden to SEIU 775 for his victory and this was what they demanded along with City Hall being painted SEIU purple. The hardnosed bargainer that Mayor Murray is, he got them to drop the paint job.

“This is the age of economic racism, where the average income of a black person is one third less than a white person.”
 
And how is an all-white staff in your office a step to address this?

3. And here's a quick follow-up to my report last November about city council member Nick Licata's push to get the city to divest from fossil fuel stocks and invest in fossil free funds.

In the year just ended, the fossil free stocks beat the S&P 500 by about 1.5 percent.

(Licata, by the way, is making a big announcement re: his 2015 election plans today.)

UPDATE: Licata's big announcement—the 17-year incumbent (he was elected in 1997 and took office in 1998) is not seeking reelection. Licata, 67, met with the press for a free form interview (gab session) this morning. Here are my tweets from Licata's candid Q&A. 

And here's Licata and his staff this morning; impressively, it's the same staff that's been with the super lefty council member throughout his entire tenure, starring, it must be said, the fastidious, relentless Lisa Herbold. She's often referred to as council member Herbold. She's definitely the Hermione Granger in the office, to Licata's Dumbledore, anyway.