Tag Archives: State of the City Address

Durkan Focuses on Vaccination, “Reopening Downtown” In Brief State of the City Remarks

by Erica C. Barnett


Mayor Jenny Durkan’s final State of the City speech, delivered from the Filipino Community Center in southeast Seattle, was notable more for its brevity than its content. 

The 862-word speech, which clocked in at just over six minutes (in the previous three years, Durkan’s States of the City were 48, 42, and 43 minutes, respectively), included plenty of platitudes about Seattle’s resilience and future recovery (“We have a tough road ahead, but there is hope on the horizon,” she said.) but few specifics about what the city has done and will do to ensure that recovery—for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, small businesses, renters, or people experiencing homelessness.

Continue reading Durkan Focuses on Vaccination, “Reopening Downtown” In Brief State of the City Remarks

State of the City: Success For Some, But Not For Others

by David Kroman

(originally published on Crosscut and reprinted with permission)

Arguably the most ambitious declaration in Mayor Ed Murray’s 2016 State of the City address is a revision of a longstanding goal of his. “Today,” he said, “I am announcing that we will add 100 additional [police] officers to my original goal, for an overall goal of 200 net new officers.” Continue reading State of the City: Success For Some, But Not For Others