King County Council D2 Candidates Joust at Urbanist Forum

On June 10, the two leading candidates in the King County Council District 2 race squared off at a forum at Beacon Hill's Centilia Cultural Center hosted by The Urbanist, Tech4Housing, Tech4Taxes, and GotGreen. Crystal Fincher, a political consultant, KVRU radio station owner and the host of the Hacks and Wonks podcast, and board member at The Urbanist, moderated the forum.

The District 2 race is hotly contested with State Senator Rebecca Saldaña and Seattle Port Commission President Toshiko Hasegawa both vying for the open seat that has no incumbent running for reelection. Both candidates are running in the progressive lane in a heavily left-leaning district, and they painted many similar positions.

Both candidates stressed their organizer roots. Both support expanding affordable housing and transit and ramping up anti-displacement measures to keep communities of color from getting pushed out of D2 neighborhoods. Both espoused values around protecting immigrants and promoting environmental justice. Both of their personal narratives centered around trailblazing fathers overcoming racism and oppression.

For Hasegawa's Japanese-American family, that was surviving the internment camps during World War II and fighting to rebuild their livelihoods after. Toshiko's father Bob Hasegawa went on to become a Teamsters union organizer and a long-time state senator, where he still serves the 11th Legislative District.

https://www.theurbanist.org/king-county-council-d2-candidates-joust-at-urbanist-forum/?ref=daily-articles-newsletter