SEATTLE — Seattle didn't face the pressures of prosperity as much when Mike McGinn was first elected mayor in 2009. It was the middle of the Great Recession.
Now he proposes a $100 per employee head tax on large businesses to pay for publicly financed affordable housing.
“That's something Redmond does right now that has Microsoft. We could do the same thing with our corporations,” he said.
McGinn sometimes grew combative on issues like the Highway 99 tunnel, which he opposed. That's part of the unique perspective he brings to the race.
“I've done the job,. I've learned from the job," he said. "I've learned from the job, both the ins and outs of the budget and city government, but also an understanding of the city and a little deeper understanding of myself. How do you tackle this job in a way that you can get results?”
The homeless problem grew during McGinn's term. Especially when the recession forced the state to cut money for mental health treatment.
Would he continue homeless sweeps? “You know, I think that we ask(ed) the wrong question there. The right question is how we insure that there's a roof available for everybody, a safe and secure place available for everybody.”
McGinn has made public safety his signature issue in the final weeks of the campaign. He's calculated a 69 percent increase in shots fired incidents compared to the same time last year.
“We need to get the police out on patrol, we need to expand the Seattle youth violence prevention initiative and need to make getting guns off our streets a priority.”
McGinn doesn't flaunt riding his bike like he used to when he first ran for mayor. Still he thinks we've run out of room for cars.
“It's a basic geometry problem, there are just more cars than road space.
So we have to provide good alternatives and shift people to other uses to relieve the gridlock," he said.
McGinn is the mayor who negotiated the deal to build a basketball arena in SODO. He says it’s even better now that $200 million in city bonds is no longer necessary.
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