SEATTLE NEWS ARCHIVES & FEATURES

Dori: Where is Jenny Durkan?

May 11, 2018, 7:38 AM

Jenny Durkan, ORCA cards...

Mayor Jenny Durkan during her State of the City address. (Seattle Channel)

(Seattle Channel)

“Duckin’ Durkan,” as I’ve come to call her, doesn’t take a position on anything.

RELATED: Dori’s listeners weigh in on head tax

Mayor Jenny Durkan won’t take a stand on anything, including the controversial Seattle head tax. She will barely talk to anyone, and refuses to share her true feelings. Jenny Durkan claims that she has “made very clear what [her] principles are,” but she won’t share them with any of us. Is her priority getting people clean, or building more houses for heroin addicts to shoot up in?

And where is Jay Inslee in all of this? Amazon leaving Seattle would have a devastating effect on the entire state, yet he has stayed completely silent on this issue.

Here’s what I find extraordinary about the Seattle City Council — they have no idea what they’re going to do with the money. They talk about building more housing while ignoring the root cause of homelessness around here — drug addiction. If you don’t address the root causes — drugs and mental health — we will never, ever solve homelessness around here.

Nobody knows how much money they want because they’re starting at $75 million, but Kshama Sawant yesterday admitted that she wants to take this to $150 million. And you know that won’t be enough. Two years ago we passed a levy for homelessness, and that wasn’t enough. What is enough?

The answer is, too much is never enough.

All they do is talk about Amazon, while ignoring the 499 other businesses that would be affected by this tax. To those workers, those business owners, their enterprise is every bit as consequential as Amazon’s.

Jenny Durkan blames the federal government for the homeless crisis, but most cities are seeing a reduction in homelessness. Seattle is one of the few that has had not just an increase, but a skyrocketing increase. We are mismanaged by public officials who have no clue what the plan is and no clue how to turn around lives.

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Dori: Where is Jenny Durkan?