VIDEO: Mayor Jenny Durkan takes office, with city tour including West Seattle stop

(WSB video of Youngstown event, replacing what was Seattle Channel live-stream window from earlier)

4:15 PM: We’re at Youngstown Cultural Arts Center in North Delridge, where newly inaugurated Mayor Jenny Durkan will be appearing soon. Though this was the initially announced time, it’s slid a bit, and is likely to be closer to 4:45. When she appears here, the Seattle Channel live feed will be accessible via the window embedded above, or by going here. She took the oath of office at the Ethiopian Community Center in Rainier Beach about half an hour ago, and declared it was time to “get to work.” We’ll update when she arrives.

The event here, by the way, is to be emceed by West Seattle-residing County Council Chair Joe McDermott, who has already arrived.

4:50 PM: The mayor is at the podium. We count 70+ people on the side of the room, including Police Chief Kathleen O’Toole and Fire Chief Harold Scoggins. County Executive Dow Constantine just administered a ceremonial 2nd oath:

The mayor said she realizes West Seattle used to be a city all its own but she’s glad it’s part of Seattle now.

5:03 PM: Mayor Durkan wrapped up her speech and signed an executive order about rent assistance (read it here), and shortly she will be off to her next stop, in the International District. Seattle Channel also planned to stream that, so we’ll leave the video window up for a while. We recorded our own video of this stop and will add it when it’s ready to upload. The mayor, by the way, promised she would be back in West Seattle often – so often we’ll “get sick of” her. In fact she is already planning a second visit tomorrow, at South Seattle College (WSB sponsor), to talk about her plan to expand college access. More later.

7:50 PM: Our video of the Youngstown event is now atop this story. We’ve added a few more photos, too. Among the people we talked to there was the police chief:

We asked her the question she said “everybody” has been asking her – is she staying on in the Durkan administration? She said she’ll be talking with the new mayor next week about the department’s future, but for today, she was planning to go to all five events, but staying on the sidelines because “it’s (Durkan’s) day.” Other top police brass were there, and County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg, too:

Not only is the new mayor coming back tomorrow as mentioned above, she also has a transition-team member coming to West Seattle tomorrow night to listen to community members’ concerns.

23 Replies to "VIDEO: Mayor Jenny Durkan takes office, with city tour including West Seattle stop"

  • Scott November 28, 2017 (4:55 pm)

    And so starts the new terror in Seattle’s lack luster Mayor’s since Greg Nickels left office. 

    • GOP in WS November 28, 2017 (7:32 pm)

      I could not disagree with you more, and I’m a moderate Republican.

  • TJ November 28, 2017 (5:42 pm)

    Why don’t you come all the way up into West Seattle to see what’s going on here mayor? That stretch of West Marginal hasn’t changed much in 30 years, so isn’t reflective of the changes going on up here. You know, lots of new giant boxes built, lots more on the way, continued desire by your friends to expand into our great neighborhoods, and NO infrastructure improvements to suppport this. Oh, that’s right, just wait until 2030 when the train comes. How about coming to the junction and saying you won’t support the further decay of West Seattle with HALA? If not, then don’t come back. And maybe it’s time to become our own city again. That was the big push in the 70’s being the city was ignoring the peninsula’s desires (like now), mainly a new bridge. It took a phony ship “accident” that took out the old bridge to get federal funding to get the current bridge and appease us.

    • AmandaK November 28, 2017 (6:38 pm)

      West Marginal?  You mean Delridge Way.  The often overlooked, underserved eastern part of West Seattle?  Right?

      • WSB November 28, 2017 (8:17 pm)

        To one of TJ’s points: Even if the mayor only got right back in her car and headed back to the bridge to get to stop #3 in the ID, she would indeed have seen new construction – immediately north of Youngstown. 

  • TJ November 28, 2017 (7:30 pm)

    I somehow had the Duwamish Longhouse in my head. Nevertheless, she should come up the hill to see the mess her predecessor helped create. And what exactly does “overlooked” and “underserved” mean? While I hate HALA and MHA, Delridge seems overlooked in upzoning for the debacle and would be prime ground for it

    • AmandaK November 28, 2017 (10:12 pm)

      TJ – I ‘m having a hard time entertaining your comments.   I don’t have the time or inclination to detail it all to you.  If you would like definitions of “overlooked” and “underserved”, look to a dictionary.  If you would like to know what happens in Delridge – dig a little bit.  But you can’t hate HALA and MHA and think it’s a great idea for an area you apparently know nothing about. 

    • AMD November 29, 2017 (9:16 am)

      TJ, you should come down to Delridge more often.  The area this event was held has seen a ton of development, with empty lots and singly-family homes being replaced by multi-family and live/work units all over. 
      The vagueness of your post and complete disconnect from what’s happening in the area you’re trying to comment on make it sound like you just want to complain.   
      Shoehorning your complaint into what the mayor is actually doing isn’t going very well, since she’s standing practically in the middle of a construction zone, on a road full of potholes that backs up for a mile every day during rush hour, that’s slated for reconfiguration with the coming RapidRide, that’s a stone’s throw from where the Light Rail is supposed to connect, in an environmentally sensitive area, in an ethnically and economically diverse neighborhood.

      Tell me, TJ, what location do you think would demonstrate to her more of the Seattle she needs to see than the litany of issues she’s got a front row seat for at Youngstown?  

      • Elle Nell November 29, 2017 (7:02 pm)

        Listen folks—- TJ, (as many of US are) is sick and tired of our city being destroyed by people NOT paying attention to detail and putting ZERO thought into the invasion of this city… Your snide comments which ultimately show, you are probably new here(sorry) do not help.. hopenthos new Mayor regulates the money pushers to the core and slows the destruction. And BTW, I know Delridge Ok..! 

    • Jethro Marx November 29, 2017 (9:32 am)

      I’ve got time! TJ thinks we ought to put the needs of the richer parts of West Seattle over the seedy parts down by the river. I’m guessing he or she doesn’t spend a lot of time in Delridge but obviously feels like they ought to put stuff he doesn’t like there instead of his backyard. Delridge is a playground for developers and they are packing plenty of density in there. Give it a few years and all of the small houses lining it will be gone. The real question is, will it have a grocery store by then?

       I’m guessing TJ don’t care much about the loss of that particular section of the vaunted single family residential zoning. As for overlooked and underserved, that’s the truth, but now that any patch of ground within a couple miles of downtown is treasure, it suddenly looks a lot more desirable to people who would generally rather stay on the other side of 35th. Kinda reminds me of how native Americans got kicked off their reservations once we found oil and gold on them. We’ve come a long way, though: once redlining was outright racist, now it’s just implicit racism and poverty keeping Seattle proper mostly rich and white.

    • CMT November 29, 2017 (5:11 pm)

      It’s hard not to fall into the trap of pitting neighborhoods against each other.  That is exactly how the City set HALA -MHA up hoping we would be so busy fighting each other we would lose sight of the destruction of our City. 

      I do agree that the WS Junction has seen a more extended period of unchecked development than Delridge.  I also agree that there are areas along Delridge that seem like they could benefit from development of the services and amenities its population deserves.   On the other hand, as in the Junction, such development does not need to be and should not be at the expense of single family areas which are also an important part of the community.  Development that leads to displacement of existing residents should be minimized. The Delridge community should have a say how it grows.

      Let’s all work together to insist on meaningful and quality planning for ALL of West Seattle.  That’s what the 26+ groups, including WS JuNO and Morgan Community Association, that are appealing the City’s Environmental Impact Statement for its HALA upzones are trying to do. 

  • Erithan November 28, 2017 (8:06 pm)

    Hem reading over that thing is a bit confusing, how would it effect somone who’s been on the waiting list(and lost an apartment because of sha negligence…and 500$ at that..) since 06′?


    Hpping they address how SHA neglects and treats residents at their buildings eventually too.(sorry grumpy)

    • WSB November 28, 2017 (8:15 pm)

      Hi, E – there also was a news release that might explain it a little more clearly but I’ve been waiting for that to appear on the city website so I can link it, rather than cutting and pasting the whole thing.

  • Dr. Frank November 28, 2017 (9:15 pm)

    More morally corrupt leadership voted into office.  What is wrong with the people in Seattle?

  • wscommuter November 28, 2017 (10:46 pm)

     Dr. Frank … please, do enlighten us … what – precisely – is the basis for you saying Mayor Durkan is “morally corrupt”?   I’d love to know.   You must have inside information the rest of us don’t.  Please, share.  

    … 

  • Jon November 29, 2017 (4:52 am)

    On the bright-side: at least she’s not Cary Moon.

  • Earlybird November 29, 2017 (8:26 am)

    I was thinking the same thing – in the three blocks between the bridge and Youngstown Cultural Arts Center, there are several sets of brand new giant boxes that have been built recently with more on the way. They all look very similar to the giant boxes being built in/near the Junction!

    • West Seattle since 1979 November 29, 2017 (8:59 am)

      And I’m sure Mayor Durkan is very aware of all the construction going up around the city.  

  • Mark November 29, 2017 (11:53 am)

    I’m hoping the new Mayor moves back to the pragmatic center left now that the election is over. 

    Mayor Durkin has strong credentials and I for one am waiting to see her in action before making a opinion.  

  • TJ November 29, 2017 (8:18 pm)

    I don’t wish rezoning development for ANY area actually. I certainly see main arterials as logical places to add density, but the city has a lot more in mind. Keep in mind the initial HALA report a couple years ago said all single family zoning in Seattle is bad. While the urban village plan has been around for 20+ years, if we lose this fight on what they eant now, it won’t be another 20 years until they come back and want to push rezoning further into neighborhoods. My guess is it will be 5 years or less. And yes, I know Delridge has boxes going up, but my impression is the junction area and California Avenue will see more. And AMD, we have the same potholes that Delridge has and rechannelled roads and priority given to Rapid Ride. Getting that line there is not going to help traffic at all with whatever added ridership it may add, just make it worse. And Jethro, I have never understood why there hasn’t been a grocery store there. I do know the corporate grocery chains have geographic economists who must think it isn’t a good investment. And your analogy to development there being akin to raiding native american lands is just beyond ridiculous. No neighborhood should be spared of this because of who lives there, whether that be rich (north Admiral) or poor or the racial diversity of it. Part of the problem with HALA is the stupid MHA and transferring someones money to someone else to help them live somewhere they can’t afford. Housing was never a role intended for government. Sorry

    • Jethro Marx November 29, 2017 (10:27 pm)

      I guess development will go where it’s profitable. I’m not saying it shouldn’t happen in Delridge. The analogy to reservations is more of a musing on how we sometimes change our mind about how desirable a thing is after the fact. That’s where the term “Indian giver” came from, I suppose. See the CD, too.

       Nowhere has potholes like Delridge.

      I don’t know about the fees developers pay for affordable housing: it’s not taking money from anyone forcibly; they could do any number of things whereby they could profit and not pay it. I guess we’ll see how it’s spent.

       You keep saying it was never government’s role to provide housing. Who cares about what used to be whose role? Today we’re going to ask government to provide the services we want/need and we have this weird and questionably effective system for that with the voting and review boards and all. Sure, it’s a crappy system that favors the rich and privileged, but that’s what we’re going on with. Seems like Durkan is more or less going to do what she campaigned on, at least for the first few days, so I don’t think she’d turn up her nose at dense boxes “up the hill” on California. I see you do not care for this style of architecture, but that’s just an arbitrary style preference, not the blight you seem to think should be unanimously rejected.

       I don’t care for plastic fake wood decks, but some people like them. In the end, it’s a city- it’s going to be dense, and you’re going to think some of it’s ugly.

    • AmandaK November 29, 2017 (11:07 pm)

      TJ – The reason the AK Junction has the bulk of the development is the structure of the Urban Villages that were developed   20+ years ago  AK Junction is an “Urban Hub Village”, slated to grow the most, with the most density focused there.  Then, “Residential Urban Village” (Morgan, Admiral, Westwood/Highland Park).  At the time, the only neighborhood plan in Delridge was Westwood/Highland Park.   

      In 2014, the City commissioned Peter Steinbruek’s firm to do a report on the Neighborhood Plans  showing that AK Junction was 300% over it’s growth target and Westwood/Highland Park at only 40% of it’s target.   Instead of the City trying to use this information to level things out, they threw the baby out with the bathwater and started developing HALA.  When the neighborhoods pushed back, Murray cut ties.

      Seattle is growing, no doubt.  But it’s not paying attention to the root causes of it’s problems.  It likes to focus on band-aids and catch phrases.  And ultimately, rich people.  So – investment by private developers for financial gain and not affordability and livability is not going to make things better.  The City needs to keep the land it owns, and be in control of developing it for affordable housing and livability concurrency.
      It needs to buy up, or incentivize owners of older units (and SFH) not to sell to the highest developer bidder.. 

Sorry, comment time is over.