Dorsol Plants, a neighborhood activist and homeless shelter counselor, ran for City Council this fall as an advocate for homeless Seattleites. He believes the City’s current plan to address homelessness just isn’t going far enough, so he joined the ranks of McGinn Campaign volunteers, believing that McGinn was the candidate who could bring the right kind of change to the policies that guide the City’s relationship with its homeless citizens.

“After spending time with Mike,” said Plants, “both as a candidate myself and while working with him, I have found him to be someone who understands that you just can’t treat the symptoms. You must get at the root causes of society’s ills. I have full confidence that Mike will address the issue of homelessness in such a manner, one that will put the needs of the people first and make strides towards providing a safe and stable environment for everyone.”

Read Mike McGinn’s homlessness and social services policy here.

.PDF Version

Dick Lilly, a former member of the Seattle School Board, made a strong case for the next mayor focusing on programs designed to put high school kids to work.

Lily wrote: Only the mayor can bring the city together to make it happen. The mayor can lead. He can jawbone. He can say this is what we’re going to do: We in Seattle, the businesses, governments, and nonprofit enterprises that are the economic engine of this place are all going to step up and provide every youngster in Seattle public high schools at least one year of part-time work, real work, during their four years of high school.

Dick Lilly is right. Putting high school kids to work is a mission that we need to accomplish as a city. Not only will we help build confidence and opportunity for our city’s less advantaged youth, but if we’re successful, we will have fewer kids turning to gangs and other negative directions.

I strongly recommend Mr. Lilly’s article to everyone interested in working on ways to re-vitalize our public schools. If elected mayor, I look forward to working with people from all backgrounds to
ensure that our city does not fall short of preparing our kids for life after high school.

The article, “Hey kids: Get a Job”, can be found at Crosscut.

This morning, Local 925 of the SEIU endorsed Mike McGinn for Mayor of Seattle.

With a membership over 23,000, the union represents workers in education and public service across the state, including employees of the University of Washington, public schools in western Washington, and family child-care workers.

The SEIU is Washington’s largest union, with 100,000 members in the state and 1.8 million nationally.

Monday’s endorsement was the second major union endorsement for McGinn in the last week, following the UFCW Local 21, which endorsed last Wednesday.

United Food and Commercial Workers Local 21 announced their endorsement today of Mike McGinn for Seattle Mayor.

“We made this decision because we feel that Mike McGinn is a candidate with a broad range of experience rooted in the local community. The election is about the future of this great progressive city and Mike will do right by our members and help advance the lives of working people,” said Steve Williamson, Assistant to the President of UFCW 21. “Looking closely at his values and the leadership he has already provided, we feel strongly that he would represent working people in our city.”

With membership in excess of 35,000, UFCW Local 21 is the state’s largest private sector union. It represents workers in grocery, retail, and other service industry jobs.

This weekend, our campaign hosted the final six of 18 town halls around the City of Seattle. The town halls followed on the heels of our policy outreach meetings.

McGinn Campaign Trail

Seattle is a great place to live because we care about our city. People’s ideas, what they want to see happen in their city, is the best guiding force in how elected officials should make their decisions.

“Part of Mike McGinn’s inexpensive mayoral campaign strategy has been to make himself available…around the city,” wrote Emily Heffter of The Seattle Times. McGinn spoke with over 1,000 Seattle residents during the town halls and policy outreach meetings.

The town halls were a chance not only for Seattle voters to ask Mike questions, but also a great way for us to hear directly from residents about what they think is important in their community. All too often a barrier is erected between a few decision-makers and those frustrated many who cannot get their voices heard.

The Beacon Hill Blog, after attending the Jefferson Community Center town hall, wrote that “attending a McGinn event is a refreshing change from closely-managed rallies with talking points.”

Thank you everyone for attending these great events. Our all-volunteer campaign depends on the support of Seattle residents. The town halls and outreach meetings are proof that a campaign powered by people is the best way to engage the citizens of our city.