Here is the promised footnoted version, with a little prologue.

Prologue

I do recognize that some of my readers will be angry that I chose to be “negative” by criticizing my opponent. Negativity does in fact stink, and we need less of it! 

Alas, when a politician engages in particularly egregious behavior and has nearly a quarter million in outside corporate and developer money actively distorting reality, I think it is even more important to make sure the truth is heard. In fact, it has emerged in recent days that the Democratic Party of King County (which provides data support to all qualifying Democratic party campaigns, including both mine and Rivera’s) publicly reprimanded Rivera for adopting MAGA tactics, including “gaslighting and outright fabrications” about me. ¹

So, for those who are angry about the negativity–I do understand, but respectfully suggest this is one of those times that making sure the truth is heard is the priority. I do hope when it comes to “negativity,” you hold my opponent to the same standard–who sent out negative postcards about me before I sent out anything and has actively lied about my platform in forums (part of why the Democratic party reprimanded her).

Ron

—

Hello neighbor! 

I’m Ron Davis and I’m running to represent you on City Council. I’m picking up the conversation from the letters I sent you in July. Many of you said you liked these long-form, substantive letters, so I’m writing again. As you may remember, I’m running to make sure Seattle is an affordable, safe, thriving place where people from any background can start a career, raise a family, and age happily at home.

I am a former startup CEO, and a graduate of Harvard Law School. In my recent professional work, I help other startup CEOs take new enterprise products to market. My wife is an amazing family doctor, and we are raising our two young boys, who go to Bryant and Eckstein. Since earning awards in law school related to public policy and economics, I’ve worked to bring good policy into local politics. I’ve most recently served on the boards of the University YMCA, Roosevelt Neighborhood Association, Seattle Subway, and Futurewise, where we passed the climate bill in Olympia this year.

As the policy nerd in this race who has a plan for everything and a history of delivering, I’ve outlined the concrete steps we need to take to make this city affordable, economically thriving, beautiful, and safe on www.seattle4ron.com. If we execute diligently, we will ensure we have housing that is affordable at all levels of income, in safe, conveniently navigated, beautiful, leafy neighborhoods we love to live in, and that are accessible to people with disabilities. As one of the richest cities in the history of human civilization, there is no excuse for the fact that we leave thousands of people on our streets, that we have dismantled our mental health system, and that we are failing to deliver basic recovery services for our neighbors caught in addiction. And as one of the most educated cities in the world, we have no excuse for our continued failure to follow evidence-based best practices. Let’s get to work! 

Ideally, this letter would discuss the details of how to accomplish that. (To see a clean comparison of me and my opponent, I encourage you to watch us answer questions in forums. www.youtube.com/@Seattle4Ron/videos.) But my opponent and the “University Neighbors” PAC that is supporting her–mostly big Trump donors, developers and lobbyists who don’t even live² here–have mounted a disinformation campaign that distorts reality and makes it harder for voters to make an informed decision. So I will address these repeated falsehoods with the facts. 

First, Rivera misrepresents her experience at City Hall. She says her time at the city, “working to lift people up,” is a reason to vote for her. But at Seattle’s Office of Arts and Culture, 26 of her 40 former employees signed a letter to the Mayor saying she created a toxic work environment, hindered staff’s ability to do its work, and shouldn’t be trusted with taxpayer money.³ When asked to release the letter; Rivera refused.⁴ She has since resigned.

(Allied Arts, which represents the community she was supposed to serve through the Office of Arts and Culture, recently endorsed my campaign)

Rivera has not been forthright about conflicts of interest. She frequently mentions her endorsements by Bob Ferguson and Bruce Harrell but never brings up her and her husband’s financial relationship with them.⁵ In fact, Rivera fought to get out of the financial disclosure requirements that every candidate has to meet.⁶ (Since I wrote this letter, it has emerged that Rivera appears to have failed to disclose payments from politicians to her husband’s company.⁷ This was referenced in the statement from the King County Democrats I mentioned earlier.⁸ I do not mean to imply some grand conspiracy with this (as Rivera has done with me on a clerical error on our mailers). Only that it matches the pattern of resistance to financial transparency.)

Rivera repeatedly makes statements that are easily documented to be false. When I identified that MAGA donors were funding the PAC supporting her campaign, she said it was “dishonest” and “outrageous,” but their identity is public record.⁹ She repeatedly asserts that I want to “subsidize drug dealers” simply because I agree with the Harrell administration's policy that we should divert addicted street-level dealers into recovery services.¹⁰ In a forum she claimed I previously supported defunding the police. This is also false; I never supported defunding,¹¹ and the record is on tape. In a recent press release, she claimed I sent “illegal mailers,” a gross misrepresentation of a minor clerical error–five words of text missing from my disclosure.¹² I’ve chosen to start a fact-checking website, with documentation, to keep up with her disinformation campaign. www.seattle4ron.com/factcheck

Finally, she is backed by a small group of elites that do not share Seattle’s values. Some MAGA donors and big developers formed one of those “PACs” that can spend unlimited money on her behalf. Their ringleaders have given nearly $100k to Trump and Republicans in the last few years, much after the January 6th insurrection.¹³ The PAC spent $80k to buy the primary for Rivera out from under Ken Wilson (who had real neighborhood support) because these power brokers know they can count on her to hold their corporate taxes down, while the rest of us pick up the tab with property taxes.

In the end, the MAGA PAC and Rivera stand together in their quest to protect our upside down tax code.¹⁴ (In Seattle, a retail worker pays ~17% of their income in state and local taxes, but an executive making $1M a year pays ~2%. Giant corporations have it even easier.) 

Because of the slowdown in the real estate market, tax revenue is declining and we face a $200M budget deficit next year. We either have to raise taxes on the richest among us, or gut basic services. When we are asked about this, Rivera repeatedly says “we should look at the budget.”¹⁵ At the time of this writing, not once has she identified a line item that she would cut when pressed in multiple interviews and forums. After two years on Jenny Durkan’s staff and six months of campaigning, how much more time is she going to need to “look at the budget” to conjure up $200 million in savings? How long to find relief for seniors on fixed incomes? She recently hinted on a radio show that she might be open to further cutting taxes for big corporations. The only way to follow her plan is to decimate basic services, like road repair, public safety, homeless shelter staff, or drug treatment. My plan is to make it so the richest and corporations pay their fair share and we get the city back on track.

This city needs serious leadership. I am not perfect, but I am a high performer with a history of treating colleagues with respect, being honest with voters about tradeoffs, and whose values align with our community. I hope you’ll consider that when you vote. I am sorry to have to use this letter to combat disinformation, but alas, this is the time we live in. 

Sincerely,

Ron Davis