Mayor McGinn inflicting more damage on our city, blocking job creation in West Seattle

Taken from Wednesday’s edition of The Dori Monson Show.

I truly believe that Mike McGinn could be the worst mayor Seattle’s ever had.

McGinn’s been tearing out traffic lanes for bike lanes, inflicting tremendous long-term damage on the city, and if McGinn is voted out of office in his reelection bid this fall, the effects of what he has done to gridlock in this city are going to be felt for years and decades to come.

Let me tell you the very latest on what the mayor is up to. In West Seattle, there is a plan to take a rundown few square blocks and a developer wants to put in condos and apartments with an anchor tenant on the bottom, and that anchor tenant would be Whole Foods.

But Mike McGinn has said, ‘No. Not going to happen unless Whole Foods pays all of its employees a living wage.” (It’s a) nonsense phrase that’s been coined by progressives the last couple of years to try to hold up people to pay jobs more than what they’re actually worth.

Mike McGinn told KIRO TV he is not going to approve Whole Foods going in and creating all of these jobs unless he gets his social engineering as part of the deal.

“Because the proposed anchor tenant has significantly lower wages and benefits than other grocers in the area, we’ve decided that it does not meet our public benefit test,” said McGinn.

Really? A company coming in and creating dozens and dozens of jobs. That doesn’t have any public benefit, Mr. Mayor?

The city has a say in this decision because Whole Foods is asking to purchase an alley adjacent to the property to access the development. But the sale of the alley must be reviewed by the city. The mayor is recommending they not give up that alleyway because he doesn’t believe it fits into the social and economic justice policies and commitments of his administration.

The city council will eventually vote on whether or not to give up this right of way, ‘vacate the right of way,’ as they call it. But the mayor then would have the ability to veto that and say, ‘I don’t think this meets the goals of the city.’ Of course, the city council could then override that veto, but he does certainly have the power to get in the way of this.

Whole Foods released a statement to KIRO TV in response to their report on McGinn’s comments saying the mayor’s comments … were “factually inaccurate.” And about 70 percent of their workers are full time and the average pay in a Seattle Whole Foods store is $16.15. They added that employees get benefits for partners and stock options.

We don’t want those jobs, no way. We’re not going to let that company in West Seattle are we, Mr. Mayor? (Not) until you can extort more from them than what they’re already doing with what sounds like a pretty good company paying their employees pretty well.

The mayor is just catering to his shrinking constituency. Do you know who his constituency is? His little bicycle buddies. And now he’s trying to latch onto the ‘Let’s give every McDonald’s worker $15 an hour.’ He’s trying to get the socialist progressives who seem to dominate, increasingly, Seattle politics.

It is such a blatant bit of political theater by a shameless mayor.

Taken from Wednesday’s edition of The Dori Monson Show.

You might also be interested in:

Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn attacks Whole Foods

JS