Video: Seattle Mayor Ed Murray’s first State of the City speech

(UPDATED with full archived Seattle Channel video of mayor’s speech)

2:08 PM: Live online via Seattle Channel – Mayor Ed Murray‘s first State of the City speech. Watch it by clicking the “play” button. We’ll update later with the archived video as well as any notes of particular West Seattle interest. (3:57 pm note – the archived video is now viewable above.)

2:30 PM UPDATE: Several notes of interest so far – a mention of the Youth Ambassadors program active at several local schools (the mayor mentioned Roxhill, Denny, and Concord); also a nod to the Duwamish River in a climate-change mention, and a promise that he’ll do something about deteriorating street conditions.

2:45 PM UPDATE: Speech over, but Council Chair Tim Burgess asks the mayor to stay for a special presentation – a photo from Murray’s days as a council staffer. Now it’s on to the council’s meeting. A few other notes in the meantime – he touched on growth without any promises of slowing it, and called the “urban village strategy” a success; he voiced support for the expected April vote on Metro/roads funding and August vote on “sustainable parks funding”; he said he intended to call for a maritime summit; he said the city needs to rebuild trust with neighborhoods, and reiterated his plan for a neighborhood summit April 5th.

3:57 PM UPDATE: Here’s the full text, sent by the mayor’s office as a PDF. We missed another West Seattle shoutout – a mention of the recently announced 35th Avenue SW safety project. The full video is also available, so we have added that above.

Diane February 18, 2014 (3:00 pm)

watched/listened via tv, and recording; will have to play back to check, but I’m disappointed that his several statements about social justice, unemployment, income equality; I didn’t hear anything about the largest group of working poor (single moms) or gender pay inequity or ageism that impacts seniors in employment; one of the reasons I voted for Murray, was his promise to advocate for seniors; so how is it that in his first state of the city address that there was not one mention of seniors? (btw, the fastest growing population, who still want and/or need to work); did anyone who listened hear any mention of gender and or seniors in his speech?
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most of the current Seattle jobs that are very high wage are predominantly male, the high tech sector; and he mentioned maritime, also predominantly male; I didn’t hear anything about increasing education, training, advocacy for women/seniors to enter these higher paying jobs; or breaking through the barriers of sexism/ageism
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I can’t believe how many city forums where senior citizens are not even acknowledged, as if anyone 60+ does not even exist, or is it just the youth oriented myth that anyone over 60 is retired? my dad just retired at 87, and that was only because the place he worked for 14 yrs just went out of business

WSB February 18, 2014 (3:08 pm)

I had to leave the room a time or two so pending distribution of the text, I can’t say for absolute certain that seniors were mentioned. Considering he turns 59 in a couple months, and so will be 60 and over for more than half this term, it certainly must be something of which he is aware. – TR

Half full February 18, 2014 (8:12 pm)

@Diane – I have quite a different perspective about opportunities in Seattle. Correlation doesn’t imply causation – meaning that the conditions you perceive aren’t always caused by the reasons you believe just because the numbers imply it. The maritime labor force is mostly young and male. This does not mean the maritime industry discriminates. More likely, the nature of the work is physically demanding and isn’t as attractive to women and older folks. As for the tech industry, it’s probably safe to assume that most of the “high tech” workers here are transplants. I make this point because getting a technical job at Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook or any of the other big-name tech companies here isn’t as simple as getting trained and suddenly getting hired. These companies literally have thousands of job openings in Seattle that even most of the “privileged” locals are unqualified for – thus the reason these companies recruit globally to find the talent they require. This isn’t a bad thing though. These tech workers spend the money they make and create opportunity for everyone else too.

Rick February 19, 2014 (7:31 am)

@Diane,just do the socialist thing and vote your self a better job with better wages and benefits. Let’s see how that works out. Somebody’s gonna run out of money.

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