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And we're back. And we're back, y'all. Thank you for watching today. Go ahead and hit that like button, my people. You know that it helps us out a ton. And of course, it helps you because it helps us keep bringing you these stories every day.
Now, y'all, we've been following the saga of Katie Wilson, the mayorist up there in Seattle, Washington, who has been having a tough go of it, y'all. She's one of those socialistic types. You know, she comes into office saying, "Yeah, we're gonna make everything socialistic. Gonna take from the rich people. We're going to give to the poor people. We're going to give people free housing. Lots of free stuff for people, and the rich people are going to pay for it. Yay." And people voted for that, y'all. People still keep falling for this, y'all. People are falling for it. But now, it looks like her voters, her residents are actually calling her out, y'all.
If you remember, she boycotted. She joined a boycott of Starbucks. Y'all, we're going to start off with that because just yesterday she said she broke her boycott. Now, she didn't tell anybody in advance, y'all. She just secretly went and had herself a nice little blueberry little blueberry latte, y'all. Custom made for her. So, so she fell back on her boycott. And also, residents are calling her out for not keeping any of her promises. They're saying she doesn't have any answers. We're going to take a look at all of that today, but it's going to be a tight quick video. So, you know how we do here, y'all. So, first I'm going to start off with the flashback to her Starbucks boycott to Starbucks head Howard Schultz calling her out. And then you're going to see her say, "H yeah, I went over here. I went over there and had me a nice little blueberry latte the other day." Y'all, you know what you want me to do? It's Starbucks. This is Seattle, y'all. Without further ado, let's go ahead and get into it.
>> And I could not be prouder to stand here with Starbucks baristas in solidarity today. I am asking everyone who believes in fairness, dignity, and workers rights to stand with us on this picket line. While baristas are on strike, the baristas have shared that the best way to show our support is not to buy Starbucks in solidarity.
>> Well, former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz called out Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson in an opinion piece he wrote for the Wall Street Journal. In the op-ed te titled Seattle turns hostile to the great businesses it made. Schultz criticized the city's relationship with corporations saying Mayor Wilson quote has chosen to cast business as a foil rather than a partner. Her socialist rhetoric vilifies employers even while she continues to rely on them for revenue.
>> Let's start with Starbucks. Do you still support a boycott of Starbucks? Um, you know, I had the pleasure of visiting the Pike Place Market Starbucks a little while ago and I ordered a I think it was a blueberry muffin latte that was like a staff creation. So, uh, I guess I I guess I broke my boycott. Okay.
>> Um, and uh, yeah, but I, you know, I don't know. What do you want me to say about that?
So, now y'all, I'm going to play an an kind of an extended back and forth between Katie Wilson and one of her Seattleites. Seattleins. I guess Seattleite sounds better. I'm going to play a little bit of an extended back and forth between her because this woman encapsulates all of the economic all of the business frustrations that we've been hearing about coming out of Seattle. So, first again, just to set up this clip with the back and forth, I'm going to show you where Katie Wilson's like, "Bye, bye-bye to the millionaires. Y'all don't want to be here. Bye. We don't need you." And then we're going to see her walk that back as this woman confronts her on her anti- business attitudes and says, "Hey, without businesses, where the jobs coming from? Where's the revenue going to come from?" And the taxes, the property taxes from the businesses that are not paying property taxes cuz they're leaving now. All of the residents are going to have to pay it in their residential property taxes. What about that, Katie?
>> I think the claims that millionaires are going to leave our state are like super overblown. And if you know the ones that leave like bye.
>> I I I think listening to this conversation my biggest frustration is there is no answer. So talking about bringing new businesses into vacant properties when you have dis we have so many businesses leaving because we have not embraced them. We have not supported them. We have Starbucks leaving. We have Amazon leaving. So, why in the world would you build a new building to put a business in downtown Seattle when there's 36% vacancy that is only going up? There's absolutely no incentive to be here. It's unsafe. It is filthy. And until we decide to take actual action and not just talk without any steps that are actually concrete, this will never change. I lived in Seattle for 20 years and until Lori came in and actually stood up and said, "We're going to take concrete change," nothing happened. I have not heard one concrete answer tonight to safety. You want to defund police, there is no safety. I
>> I'm not sure when I said that. How are you going to act? When when are you going to come with concrete responses to the issues that will solve the problem?
>> Okay, guys, let's keep it cool. Let's keep it respectful, please, and let the mayor answer.
>> Yeah. So, I mean, I I think we've been talking about some concrete actions, also recognizing that these are challenging issues. So, I I don't believe that I have called for defunding the police when I've been sitting up here. So, I said that we are working very closely with our police department on how to improve, especially our on the ground visible presence in downtown and other neighborhoods around the city. Um, and we're also working really hard on how to improve coordination between our police department and the care department and other service providers uh service providers that provide kind of alternative response um for crisis situations. So, we're doing a lot of work to try to improve that on the ground experience for people um again both downtown and neighborhoods around the city. And um yeah, do you want to keep going?
>> No, one more question. Because all of this costs money, but when you are pushing out the tax base from a corporate standpoint and then all of the tax burden is going to be pushed to the individual, then if individuals can't afford to stay here. So it's a mismatch of the money that we have and the issues.
>> Yeah. No, no, I I am very, believe me, as the mayor, I am very acutely aware of how much our tax base and our ability to provide high-quality public services depends on um really on growth and on a thriving economy with um frankly with high wage jobs, right? Um and so that is uh that is that is something that our city needs in order to be able to fund the public services that we depend on. Um yes, every time a downtown office building goes down in value, that property tax burden is pushed on to residents. That is a truth, right? And so it is very important that we are figuring out this larger picture of economic development and how we are um how we are creating good high-paying jobs in our region and how we're making it more affordable for people because that also is is also bad for businesses, right? When their workforce can't afford to live in the city. So all these things are connected. Um, and we absolutely need to make this a great place to work, live, raise a family, uh, start a business, run a business, grow a business. That's that's the goal.
But there were other Seattle residents also calling Wilson out for failed promises, not just from businesses, crime. People are saying, "Look, we have to wear whistles around our neck because we're the victim of crime to the extent that we know we're probably going to need help one day. So, we're just wearing a whistle so we can alert people." People saying, "What about the homelessness?" people saying it's dirty here. So, yeah, y'all. Uh, she's having a bit of a rough going.
>> Community members were able to ask Wilson direct questions and many of them focused on public safety. Fox 13's Alejandra Guzman shares some of their biggest concerns.
>> Public safety dominated the conversation, starting with Mayor Wilson's newly proposed sales tax to fund more bus services. I am all for taxes when the system is working, but I'm not sure if I'm going to get home safely tonight. Others shared stories of shootings, stabbings, and employees carrying whistles for their safety as businesses are paying for private security, claiming police never show up
>> because if you know spend 10% of your revenue on private security, that's like an extra sales tax.
>> Do you know that almost 25 employees have had to use that whistle? They're not safe in downtown Seattle. Some said they feel the candidate they campaigned for has turned their back on them.
>> You're talking about gun violence and it's not at the top. We helped you campaign and you forgot all about us.
>> Homelessness was another major topic.
>> When will the power washing stop?
>> Wilson said a new approach is coming to 12th and Jackson very soon.
>> Right now we don't have a lot of options for people which is part of why it feels like we're just moving people around because in a sense we are.
So she doesn't have answers. Katie Wilson doesn't have Well, she probably does have answers, but she's looking in the wrong place, right? She's looking to socialism for the answers. That's not where the answers are. That's not where the answers are. The first set of answers is take the money you have, make sure it's working extremely efficiently, and then identify additional sources of revenue if what you already have is not enough. Okay, so that's the first thing. That's the first step. But all of this free housing, free this, free that. Like you just United States can't afford that. No, no place in the United States can afford to give people stuff for free. Okay, we need to just get rid of free. Free needs to be a thing of the past. It needs to be an idea that is gone, that is over with. Help, yes. Free, no. That's it. You need help, we might be able to give you some help. You need some free stuff. Well, this is not the land. This is the land of people who are free, but this is not the land of getting free stuff. See, you're free to go out and get your own, but you're not entitled to free. You see, you're entitled to freedom, but you're not entitled to getting stuff for free. I think people got it mixed up. When they say the land of the free, they thought, "Oh, I get free stuff over there." We need to put an end to that. That's my opinion, y'all. Let me know what y'all think. Drop a comment down below. But before you do, please stop, hit the share button, share this video out over email, text message, WhatsApp, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, all your favorite social mediums. And of course, if you're not a subscriber, please do subscribe. Thank y'all for watching. Love y'all and we'll see you back in the next one. You know that we are a parallegal school. If you've been watching our program now, you know that we've been around for 23 years. You know that we help people get going in the parallegal field. You know that we've helped hundreds of people since 2003 start their career in the parallegal field or even move up in their career. Our certificate is good nationwide and our program comes with an internship placement so that you'll get real experience on your resume. If you're interested y'all, we we are running a discount for all of our YouTube subscribers. Click the first link down in the description. Join us.