Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan came to West Seattle on Friday Nov. 19 to offer her gratitude to the community for their support during her term in office. She chose not to run again after a single term and new mayor Bruce Harrell will take office in January. She came to the Husky Deli for what was described as an Ice Cream Social.

Her time in office saw the closure of the West Seattle Bridge, the worldwide pandemic, major demonstrations in Seattle following the murder of George Floyd, the occupation of part of Capitol Hill, and much more.

She was introduced by former West Seattle Junction Executive Director Lora Radford, and was joined for a time by Husky Deli owner Jack Miller. 

In her remarks, shared in total below she discussed those challenges and how she and the people of Seattle met them, expressing her pride in the many ways Seattleites demonstrated their cooperation and willingness to work for the common good. She spoke about getting test kits for Covid 19 by requesting help from the Mayor of Seoul South Korea, and about the establishment of testing sites and the vaccination site at Lumen Field, the largest civilian-led site in the nation. She was particularly proud of the 70% vaccination rate that Seattle has achieved.

 

 

 

Lora Radford

Thank you for being here today.And for honoring our amazing there Mary Jenny Durkan. 

Mayor Durkan 

This is better than a funeral 'cause I can actually hear! 

Lora Radford 

Being a leader and being the Mayor of Seattle takes vision and it takes not only doing the wide, sweeping things that Mayor Durkin has proxy at all, but also the small things as well that affects so many people. 

Oh man, she was the first mayor to achieve 70% vaccination rate in her city. 

She helped bring funding for the West Seattle Bridge. 

But she also did things like bring our high schoolers into higher education through the Seattle Promise and brought two years of free education through our community colleges. 

Not only that, but she brought orca cards to middle schoolers. 

I want to take the opportunity to thank our mayor our hard-working mayor. 

She has never taken a vacation day since she started working for us. And she has told me that when she leaves, she's gonna go to a beach and I hope. that she orders a large, complicated cocktail. And she sits and she takes a break 'cause my goodness, does she deserve it? 

Applause 

Lora Radford 

Thank you, Mayor. If you. 

And these are for you. 

I remember one of our walks around West Seattle. You went to Bakery Nouveau. So, and you wanted the macaroons so. Thank you. 

Mayor Durkan 

Lora, thank you so much. 

Where's Jack Miller? Yeah, there he is. 

First, thank you for hosting us here, but more than that to you and to all the other small business owners here in West Seattle and all the residents, it's been the toughest two years. 

It has just been so hard on everybody, and I don't know a small business owner that didn't dip into their own savings to help pay their staff to keep the doors open. Everybody had to and every family you know, suddenly everybody’s homeschooling their kids. People are home from school, and we are terrified because we don't know where this. Pandemic is going to take us; you know I'll never forget the day I got the call. It was Friday afternoon and then Chief Carmen Best and I lead a parade of Girl Scouts downtown to introduce the new Lemon drop cookies. Yeah, and that was the end of my week and I thought, OK, that's a pretty good end. Yeah, I was home for an hour. I get a phone call to tell me we had the first deaths in Kirkland and and from that moment on, everything changed in this city. 

We had to change how we did government we, like small business, had to pivot, had to innovate. City Council I want to recognize Lisa Herbold who is here, you know. They had to like change how they did business. 

You know one of my favorite places to go.I could tell before the pandemic when it was going to be hard day 'because I’d look at my schedule and they either have a Senior Center or Pre K on there.  

it was like ‘OK we got to give her something fun’ and our senior centers were great, you know we have great senior centers throughout Seattle. 

But they were also a place that people went, not just for the education and the society in the community, but for meals. 

It was such a critical meal and if we closed the centers, we suddenly had some of the most vulnerable adults who wouldn't be fed. 

So we had to pivot to figure out how do we deliver hot meals to people and so throughout the time everybody had to pivot and we had no guidebook, we had no handbook and we had negative help from Washington DC and every step of the way Seattle stepped up. 

It was amazing and inspiring. 

You know when we said you gotta go home and stay home, people went and stayed home. 

And they helped each other, and they figured out what to do and we had our frontline workers continue to show up in places that people needed to sell them what they needed. Grocery stores places like this. 

And we had no vaccine. We had no test kits. We had nothing. 

And through it all Seattle just kept doing what was right. We were the first to have mass vaccinations of many cities because we did not get any direct allocation of tests. Or vaccines  and so testing I happen to be on a committee with theMayor of Seoul, South Korea.'cause there's a group called Climate Mayors. 

It’s 40 mayors and I was the North American Vice Chair and we started COVID response and recovery. 

It was people for mayors from Africa and South America and Asia and the mayor of South Seoul, Korea. 

And I said, can I talk to you? 

Because at that time South Korea had the best testing and contact tracing, and I said ‘Look, is there any way you can help us get tests?’ 

And he said ‘Let me go to work on it,'’ so we went through the consulate. Then we worked through the UW. We got our first 100,000 test kits from South Korea. Now you shouldn't have to do that in the United States, but that started the thing. 

And then we went and we said that people need to get vaccinations but we didn't have any vaccinations. Instead Seattle, we stood up Lumen field. Before we had access to vaccine. 

And we just went to the White House, to the Public Health, to everybody, and our partners stepped up and we were able to do it. The largest civilian led vaccination center in America. 

And we were the first city to get a 70% vaccination rate. I just went to the vaccination site down at Neighborhood House here. All these kids who are now eligible in there getting their shots, adults getting their boosters, people doing what they need to take care pf each other, and that's what we've had to do through this whole Pandemic and layered on top of this in the midst of the pandemic we had one of the most significant civil rights reckonings in our city's history. And we had to really address and look starkly at not just policing. But every one of our governmental institutions and how they were designed to really, in a way that had racism built in. And how do we dismantle that and get true opportunity? And in partnership with people throughout the city, community-based organizations we moved forward on that. 

It's not perfect. We haven't gotten everything we want, but we know that really the best public safety. 

In my view comes from having healthy, resilient communities. 

Peace means every kid knows when they walk out that their families can have.a place to live that's. affordable, access to health care, educational opportunity good clean parks. 

So we as a city where they have to invest in that generationally, particularly for communities left behind. 

But we also need police. We need police to show up when we need them. And we need alternatives to police, and that's what we've been trying to build, I've been working with Councilmember Herbold this year to try to find ways where we can do those things together. 

And there's going to be areas where leaders disappear and disagree, I mean. 

I'm disappearing. 

Laughter 

But what I really want is for this city to know that when we come through this hard time, let's give the new mayor every chance to succeed. 

Applause  

It is OK to have robust disagreement, but at the end of the day we have got to focus on our common needs and aspirations and find ways to move forward together. 

And I think that we have come through this hard time as we come out of this pandemic I feel a little bit like It must have been in London. after the Blitzkrieg and you hear the bombs drop and drop and drop. 

And then people come out and say. ‘Whoa, what happened?' And I feel that's how we are, kind of coming through this pandemic. 

We stayed at home. And people came out and like. ‘What happened to my city?’ 

But know that it's every city in America right now. 

I was just really lucky I was invited by the White House to go back for the signing of the Infrastructure bill, so back in Washington DC earlier this week the Group of Mayors... It's been 20 months since most of us had seen each other, and it was a little bit like a college reunion but sharing the stories, everybody has the same struggles and challenges right now, but what every city doesn't have is Seattleites. 

And I really believe that Seattle always finds a way at the end of the day to come together to pivot, to innovate and to figure out what do we need to take care of each other and so I'm thankful you guys are all here. 

I really appreciate you doing this. I love the ice cream. 

Jack Miller

It's essential.  It's an honor to have you here.

Mayor Durkan 

Thank you. 

And I want to thank Lora too. 

She's got a new adventure signed up. 

She's been really such an advocate for all the businesses here in West Seattle, and we're wishing nothing but luck because we want Sound Transit to get here. 

And thank you so much. It's been really an honor and thanks for coming down here, I appreciate it.