The South Seattle Emerald met with candidates running for King County Council’s District 2 seat. District 2 spans from the University of Washington to Skyway and encompasses the Central District and Southeast Seattle. Incumbent Councilmember Larry Gossett has run largely unopposed for years, but this race faces newcomer Girmay Zahilay, who led the race in the August Primary. These interviews invite the candidates to talk about their campaigns in their own words. Today, we speak with Larry Gossett.
The South Seattle Emerald met with candidates running for King County Council’s District 2 seat. District 2 spans from the University of Washington to Skyway and encompasses the Central District and Southeast Seattle. Incumbent Councilmember Larry Gossett has run largely unopposed for years, but this race faces newcomer Girmay Zahilay, who led the race in the August Primary. These interviews invite the candidates to talk about their campaigns in their own words. Today, we speak with Girmay Zahilay. These interviews have been edited for length and clarity.
Metropolitan King County Council candidates, including Councilmember Larry Gossett and his challenger Girmay Zahilay, as well as Seattle City Council candidates, like South Seattle’s Tammy Morales, discussed human services and social justice in an evening forum on Sept. 19 at the Seattle World School in Capitol Hill.
King County Elections has already received more than 30,000 ballots, but there are still five more days to vote before the results are tallied on Aug. 6. The results will determine which candidates move forward into the general election, most notably in the packed races for Seattle City Council seats representing seven geographic districts around the city.
(This article was originally published on The Untold Story Project and has been reprinted with permission. For more stories from The Untold Story Project, click here.)
by Darrel Riley
My family has memories of the history of slavery but the story of their arrival on the shores of America is lost in the mists of time. Their arrival in this country was unremarked, unrecorded, and is intertwined with the stories of the Native people whose blood also runs in my veins. Africans were carried as slaves to the shores of America chained together on the ships, walking in coffles supporting the weakest as they did the strongest because they were literally welded together. We know the stories of children separated from their loving families and forced to work in the cotton fields. We know the stories of the children that didn’t survive. My family experienced virulent racism in Little Rock, Arkansas when the United States federal troops were called out to escort my father’s friends to high school over an entire year while hatred and bigotry were inflamed by White politicians against children and young people wanting an education. We know the stories of childhood dreams destroyed and how that damage affects children for a lifetime.
Ensuring mother and child thrive in childbirth and beyond are among the highest on our list of American values. However, the United States remains only one of eight nations in the world with a rising maternal mortality rate — and black mothers are dying at 1.5 to two times the rate of white mothers in childbirth.
Sitting in the two hour-long joint meeting of the King County and Seattle City Councils, listening to them discuss housing and human services for the homeless was, well, nothing new. And perhaps my lack of motivation to write this piece is a testament to that. Nothing substantial was discussed. Nothing was surprising. No changes were made.
In May, King County Councilmember Jeanne Kohl-Welles and Seattle City Councilmember Sally Bagshaw took a trip to San Francisco to visit the city’sNavigation Center. The experimental homeless shelter, contains dorm-like sleeping quarters, showers and bathrooms, laundry facilities, counseling offices, and a 24-hour dining room. It also allows pets and provides them with designated dwelling spaces and food.Continue reading Seattle and King County Join Forces on Homelessness, but is it Just More of the Same?→
Amplifying the Authentic Narratives of South Seattle
