Rantz: Radical councilmembers offended city is funding police department

The Burien City Council’s version of Kshama Sawant implied funding the police goes against her moral code. And her equally radical colleague complained the council is ignoring the community’s most fringe activists.

Councilmembers Krystal Marx, who also serves as the city’s Deputy Mayor, and Cydney Moore abstained in a vote on the city’s budget. Consequently, the constituents they pretend to represent had no voice.

Instead of working on their behalf, they selfishly chose to take no position, offended that the Burien Police Department received the funding the community actually wanted them to receive.

Funding police is against a moral code

The Burien City Council approved the 2021-2022 Biennial Budget 4-1-2. Marx and Moore were the two abstentions.

“We have heard from community. We have heard from staff,” Marx claimed. “And unfortunately, this is not a time for us to not listen to the demands of our community, to not listen to their needs and to not do that as a council as a whole. …”

Unfortunately, I’m not saying she’s not speaking unclearly with not double negatives, but I’m also not not saying that either.

“A budget is a moral document and my morals are not tied to this particular one,” Marx said.

Marx didn’t elaborate what her issues were. But on Facebook, she noted her concern over a lack of “funding for diversion programs, housing first programs, and other programs that stop the spiral of poverty crimes into continued incarceration.”

Exasperated hero is so frustrated over police funding!

Moore was considerably more direct explaining why she’s abstaining. She just doesn’t really seem to like police. But she sure loves to strain anguish over the heroic position she thinks she’s taking.

“One major issue that our community has repeatedly brought up is their concerns with the allocation of funding to our police budget. And they’ve asked us repeatedly to review this and consider what could be done with this,” she said.

Moore complained that the council didn’t spend time on the “significant weigh in from our community” on police funding. She argues the community’s concern was “massive.” But was it? Not so much.

Colleague corrects Marx and Moore

When it was Councilmember Nancy Tosta’s time to speak, she did so with purpose. She needed to correct the record.

“In those public safety discussions, I did not hear ‘overwhelming,’ or ‘immense,’ or ‘massive,’ statements that we shouldn’t be paying for police,” Tosta said. “I heard many people in the community saying it’s important to address and maintain a police force.”

She implied that had she not spent time actually paying attention to the issue, she would have had concerns with the budget as well. But since she actually knows what she’s talking about, and the issues at stake, she voted to support the budget. Marx and Moore should take note.

Ideologues gonna ideologue

How could Tosta hear a community support police when Marx and Moore hear the opposite? It’s pretty simple.

Marx and Moore are radical ideologues. They view every issue through a very specific social justice lens that cuts them off from the voices in the community they disagree with. As is the case with Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant, Marx and Moore create an echo chamber where they will only listen and talk to those they already agree with.

There’s no doubt that there’s a large and growing radical activist class in Burien. After all, it’s how Marx and Moore got elected. But they’re not yet the majority. They’re simply as loud as they are ill-informed on issues of policing.

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