Mayoral candidate Bruce Harrell: ‘Disappointed in a city that I love’
Mar 17, 2021, 1:10 PM | Updated: 2:59 pm
Former Seattle City Council president Bruce Harrell announced his campaign for mayor of Seattle on March 16, 2021. (Hanna Scott/KIRO Radio)
(Hanna Scott/KIRO Radio)
Bruce Harrell served as Seattle’s mayor for five days back in 2017, after 12 years as a member of the Seattle City Council. He’s very aware of the city’s huge problems, but wants another crack at becoming Seattle’s mayor again. Harrell joined the Gee and Ursula Show to discuss what prompted him to run.
“There is a great opportunity. I was born in this city, I’ve been here my entire life, and I’ve got to tell you, I look around and I am just totally devastated in what I see in so many parts of our society,” he said. “I gravitate towards taking on a challenge in building teams around me, smarter people than me, people that work hard and keep my pace.”
“We’ve got to put significant change agents in place to revitalize our city,” he added. “I’m quite disappointed in a city that I love so much.”
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As Ursula noted, she’s lived in the city for 32 years and has never been so depressed about it. She asked Harrell: “What are you seeing that has changed since you’ve been on the city council?”
“There’s two things. There’s what you see and what you feel,” Harrell responded. “And what I see are boarded up buildings. I see people living in cars, and living under bridges, and around parks. I see encampments everywhere. What I feel is hopelessness and despair. I see and feel finger pointing and divisiveness.”
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“So the culture and the narrative is not a good one,” he added. “And this is a city that, again, my grandparents came here for hope, and prosperity, and opportunity. And so it’s both what I see and what I feel and, you know, I’m a positive, glass is always very full kind of person. But even some of this level of optimism, I would say we have to put in the hard work. We have to come with creative ideas.”
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