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1/ BREAKING: Current mayor targets Seattle’s Black community by slashing the Equity Fund in yet another display of anti-Blackness. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/seattle-mayor-jenny-durkans-budget-plans-include-elimination-of-30-million-equity-fund
2/ Despite the current Mayor's cultish refusal to cut from the police dept., her current budget plan slashes the $30M Equity Fund created last year to "combat displacement & advance community equity."
3/ The Equity Fund was funded by the City's massive $143.5M sale of the "Mercer Mega Block" in South Lake Union. https://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/seattle-moves-to-sell-mercer-mega-block-to-developer-for-record-breaking-143-5-million/
4/ At the time of sale, the current Mayor shamelessly put out a press release claiming quickly that “[u]nder @MayorJenny, the City of Seattle [would] nearly double homeownership opportunities for families earning under 80% area median income." https://durkan.seattle.gov/2019/09/mayor-durkan-applauds-city-council-passage-of-her-legislation-to-increase-investments-in-affordable-homeownership-on-city-owned-property/
5/ FACT-CHECK: To date, the community has not seen a dime of this supposed investment.
6/ When asked about slashing the $30M Equity Fund & its implications to Black people, current @MayorJenny’s office shrugged it off stating: “seeing as the $30M had not yet been spent…the City used the money to help rebalance the budget & and address our $300M revenue shortfall.”
7/ Let that sink in. In 2020, the current Mayor chose to PROTECT the bloated police budget and SLASH one of the minimal programs meant to support equity, Black, low-income, and working-class folks access housing.
8/ In a national uprising against anti-Black policing & anti-Black inequity, facing only worsening gentrification, what does @mayorjenny put on the chopping block?
The $30M Equity Fund intended to support affordable housing & equitable land development.
The $30M Equity Fund intended to support affordable housing & equitable land development.
9/ These are the policy decisions that create the Jim Crow, Apart-heid state we see in Martin Luther King Jr. County.
@mayorjenny, your budget is a moral statement. This is white supremacist policy. This is white supremacist decision-making. We see you.
@mayorjenny, your budget is a moral statement. This is white supremacist policy. This is white supremacist decision-making. We see you.
