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2021 Seattle Primary Election Voters’ Guide
Reading Time: 8 minutes SPEAK OUT SEATTLE is a diverse, non-partisan group of concerned residents and voters united by one goal: We all want a more compassionate, accountable, transparent government that uses evidence-based solutions and gets better outcomes for everyone in Seattle. We are volunteers who want Seattle to remain a livable big city that respects its greenspaces and is safe ...
Seattle’s wrong turn on public safety puts us all in harm’s way
Reading Time: 6 minutes Seattle takes a turn down a perilous ideologically-driven road With a hasty process that allowed for little true public input or any serious examination of alternatives, the Seattle City Council recently began a process of effectively removing 50% of our “public safety guardrails.” This dismantling is already producing predictably deadly results as Seattle experiences record-setting ...
Suddenly everyone is more vulnerable
Reading Time: 2 minutes Just two short months ago, before the Covid-19 virus arrived, homelessness was the number one issue in the State of Washington. And seventy-five percent of Seattlites said that addressing public safety downtown was an urgent issue. Now everything has changed and nothing has changed. With the virus spreading throughout our communities, the vast majority of ...
Sign the petition to reform the broken Seattle / King County criminal justice system
Reading Time: < 1 minute Seattle should be a safe place for everyone who lives in, works in, or visits our great city. In spite of emphasis patrols and other law enforcement measures, violent crime has increased by 43% in Seattle’s downtown core since 2016 (SPD and Crosscut 1/27/20). Many other neighborhoods have also experienced dramatic increases in violent crime. ...
Key Piece of Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) is Missing
Reading Time: 6 minutes Mayor Durkan is withholding funding for the LEAD program pending program evaluation. We sincerely hope that the Seattle LEAD program is not simply an emerging practice, but a highly effective practice. The difference between the two is that effective practices have ongoing, systemic measurements built into the program, which Seattle LEAD, no longer a "pilot" since its launch in 2011, is missing.
Onward Seattle
Reading Time: < 1 minute These last two years leading up to this election have been challenging and contentious. It has too often felt like a battle, not a community in collaboration, when, truthfully, most of the citizens of Seattle share common values and goals. We all want our unsheltered neighbors to have a warm safe place to stay. We ...
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2021 Seattle Primary Election Voters’ Guide
Reading Time: 8 minutes SPEAK OUT SEATTLE is a diverse, non-partisan group of concerned residents and voters united by one goal: We all want a more compassionate, accountable, transparent government that uses evidence-based solutions and gets better outcomes for everyone in Seattle. We are volunteers who want Seattle to remain a livable big city that respects its greenspaces and is safe ...
2021 Seattle Primary Election Voters’ Guide Candidate Rating Criteria
Reading Time: 3 minutes What We Looked For Speak Out Seattle (SOS) undertook a threefold approach to rate each candidate for Seattle City Mayor, City Attorney, and City Council. The approach included requesting individual candidates complete our questionnaires on topics of public safety, addiction, and homelessness. Additionally, SOS’s members were polled to gather rating input from our diverse citywide ...
Seattle’s wrong turn on public safety puts us all in harm’s way
Reading Time: 6 minutes Seattle takes a turn down a perilous ideologically-driven road With a hasty process that allowed for little true public input or any serious examination of alternatives, the Seattle City Council recently began a process of effectively removing 50% of our “public safety guardrails.” This dismantling is already producing predictably deadly results as Seattle experiences record-setting ...
Suddenly everyone is more vulnerable
Reading Time: 2 minutes Just two short months ago, before the Covid-19 virus arrived, homelessness was the number one issue in the State of Washington. And seventy-five percent of Seattlites said that addressing public safety downtown was an urgent issue. Now everything has changed and nothing has changed. With the virus spreading throughout our communities, the vast majority of ...
Sign the petition to reform the broken Seattle / King County criminal justice system
Reading Time: < 1 minute Seattle should be a safe place for everyone who lives in, works in, or visits our great city. In spite of emphasis patrols and other law enforcement measures, violent crime has increased by 43% in Seattle’s downtown core since 2016 (SPD and Crosscut 1/27/20). Many other neighborhoods have also experienced dramatic increases in violent crime. ...
SOS In the News
Citizens who want a better Seattle, speaking out
Headlines and events that defined a decade of recovery, growth, development, chaos, and crisis in Seattle
In the decade of the 2010s, Seattle has arguably experienced more change than any metropolitan area in the country. A flood of new...
D6 Seattle Candidates’ Forum: A Big Success
Thank you to everyone who came out to last night’s D6 City Council Forum! This was another standing room only crowd, and record...
City Council Candidate Forums
Presented by SPEAK OUT Seattle (SOS) SOS hosted the first city candidate forums in the 2019 elections, and has now completed them in...
Media Reports on Our D1 Candidate Forum
On March 21, 2019 Speak Out Seattle hosted the first of seven Seattle City Council Candidate Forums. The event was held at the...



