Jessyn is a transportation-focused policy expert, having spent her professional career working in the transit space at the city, county, and state level. She served in Pierce County transit, at the nonprofit group Transportation Choices Coalition, and was recently a State Representative for the Laurelhurst area.
Jessyn is a superbly articulate, highly intelligent coalition builder. While she is very much a progressive candidate, she is more of a pragmatist and therefore likely to engage productively with tech companies and employees in creating a better city for everyone.
During our interview, she maintained a strong focus on better use of current government resources. This includes a commitment to inviting business as formal stakeholders in the problem definition as well as the solution phases of city planning.
She believes that current city revenues are not efficiently deployed and also probably not sufficient for the current need for basic services. While she believes that Seattle has a right to pursue new revenue measures (including the municipal income tax) she noted, without prompting, that most revenue policies are best left at the state level.
On issues of housing and affordability, Jessyn was blunt and declared access to housing is a human right. Not in the legal sense, but that housing is fundamental to a just society. She presented her housing plan that focuses on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood approach to address the issues of affordable housing. This included a mix of private and public housing investment. She links homelessness to housing affordability, but also noted that investments in mental health services, safety, clean-up, etc are all critical components to addressing this city challenge.
Jessyn has substantial experience as a coalition builder during her time in the State Legislature and in public transit. She showed political savvy when she noted the new district council system in Seattle as a way to leverage the mayor’s office to forge coalitions with an increasingly anti-business council. She was clearly eager to work with the business community, if elected, but did not have a marked knowledge of the tech industry challenges or specific ideas on how to partner with tech in solving city growth problems.
Jessyn has support from elected Democrat officials at the state level, several mayor and city council members from the region as well as the labor community.