Ask anyone in Seattle where they live, and you will hear about their neighborhood. Our city’s greatest asset is people, and our neighborhoods are our soul.

As Mayor, and someone who is proud to have been deeply involved in my own neighborhood, I will honor and celebrate our diverse neighborhoods. If I am elected, healthy and vibrant neighborhoods will be a top priority.

The essence of this administration’s approach to neighborhoods is to regain trust and rebuild relationships. Strategies include:

Pay attention to who is (and is not) at the table.
We must recognize that we have not always done a good enough job harnessing a broad spectrum of voices in our City. I will start by finding out what works and what needs changing so we can engage the talents, passion and insight of an ethnically and economically broad base of constituents.

Make City Hall more accountable to neighborhoods.
Re-establish citywide Neighborhood Development Managers and strengthen the role of the Department of Neighborhoods. Neighborhoods need “go-to” persons to listen, engender trust, communicate policy, and serve as “traffic cop” and connector across City departments to expedite and streamline responses to neighborhood concerns. The Department of Neighborhoods will play a leadership role in the city in working with neighborhoods and agencies.

Re-invigorate Neighborhood-Driven Strategies.
As Mayor, I will support approaches that build upon existing neighborhood assets, uplift neighborhood-driven strategies that are working, and help neighborhoods help themselves. We will focus on bottom-up neighborhood planning to help identify how best to use our resources in a time of tightly constrained budgets and to ensure that new development enhances the quality of our neighborhoods.

Strengthen Neighborhood-Based Funding Strategies.
Small grants to neighborhood-level organizations can leverage volunteers and private dollars. The Neighborhood Street Fund and the Parks Opportunity Fund can support the best neighborhood projects. If elected, I will work to ensure that City resources support neighborhoods undergoing growth.

Keep our doors open and accessible.
We need to find ways to make City staff schedules more flexible to better facilitate involvement and be more responsive to citizens’ needs.

Together we will build a stronger, more equitable City, and restore confidence and partnership with
our neighborhoods and their diverse and enthusiastic citizen stewards.

<- Issues - Immigrants and Refugees
Issues - Arts, Culture, and Heritage ->