Thank you all for being here.
Good morning. My name is Presley Palmer.
I am the division director for purchasing and contracting.
We're a division of finance and Administrative Services,
which is led by Kirsten Grove, who's sitting right here in front.
Hi, Kirsten.
Yeah.
So, my division, we're responsible for managing the,
city's property hire program.
And we're really excited about this opportunity to really celebrate, this.
You know, this milestone, this ten year anniversary of a remarkable program
that basically it creates opportunities for folks in,
in underserved communities
to come and help build Seattle,
while they build their own future.
So we're really proud of that.
So one thing is that neither this milestone
or this program would have been possible without the vision and support
from folks in this room.
So we're really happy that you all were able
to come here and celebrate that with us.
Folks like our union union leaders,
our carpenters, our building trades.
You know, we have our contractors,
the ones who have bought into the vision.
We have our construction workers who took that
leap and said, hey, I can do this.
We have our city staff.
City staff and our leadership who, you know, we keep our eye, you know,
on that North Star to make sure we're always moving towards where we need to go.
With this program.
This also includes, of course, our mayor,
Mayor Bruce Harrell.
We definitely appreciate you, mayor.
And, and one thing about, the mayor is
he did co-sponsor the legislation that started this, started this program.
So we appreciate that.
But most of all, what we do appreciate is the incredible community,
the members and leaders of the community.
Without you, this would not be possible.
And, and we really want to do a nice shout out to the Rainier
Beach community whose voices and,
and whose advocacy at the beginning of this is what really kick this off.
So we really appreciate that.
So, as I said, we're grateful to have,
some of the original champions of this priority hire program here with us today.
So we're so appreciative of that.
It just speaks to the volume of what this program is all about.
We're proud of the past ten years of impact that we've had here.
But more than that,
we're definitely looking forward to the next ten years and beyond.
So that's really what we're hoping to see this program grow even more than it is.
So today we have a we have a brief program.
We have some speakers that will be coming up.
We also have some videos you'll be able to watch,
some testimonials.
But we will come back to community and making sure that we have
conversation here.
So with that, I want to bring up our first speaker.
First speakers, party hard manager, Jeanne
Fulcher.
- Good morning.
I just want to start with saying
that my heart feels so full right now to see you all in the room here.
I've been so inspired, both professionally and personally from
all of you over the last decade, and I just am so happy to see everybody here.
So I'm Jeanne Fulcher, labor equity manager
with the city's priority hire team.
Thank you for being here today to celebrate the Priority
High Priority Hire program and the incredible impact
the program has had that for workers and the city over the last ten years.
I joined the team in
2013, when we were just beginning to pilot Priority Hire
and the community workforce agreement on the Elliot Baseball Project.
Everyone came together labor, community
training partners, contractors to create local job
opportunities on a major project that served the whole city.
That project was a success,
and because of community driven advocacy and your input,
the city expanded priority Hire and the CWA in 2015,
turning our pilot into a long term program.
I was early in my career when I started on this team.
I hadn't yet seen what true partnership could do, but I quickly
saw the collective power we have when we unite around a common goal,
even when things feel uncertain or overwhelming.
We can still drive change by showing up,
staying committed and working together.
I remember
how somewhere out there, Michael Wu led a strong community
coalition.
Partnering with labor
to advocate for and work with the city on the creation of this program.
I don't think I've seen them yet,
but Lee Nugent and other trades reps were out of community events
talking to young black and brown men and women about careers in the trades.
Martinson, the first contractor to engage with priority hire in this region,
made sure local workers had meaningful opportunities on the seawall project.
These weren't just one time wins to put on a flier.
They were the beginning of a new way of doing business, one
that recognizes and engages communities that have been historically underserved.
Over the years, we've faced a lot of challenges, some of them technical.
Getting the data right.
Navigating compliance.
Working through, the worker pathway.
Others were about trust.
Earning it. Keeping it.
Rebuilding it when things didn't go the way we hoped.
And of course, we face systemic barriers
racism, sexism, exclusion
and disinvestment that have shaped our region for generations.
But we didn't walk away from those challenges.
We stayed in it.
We listened. We adjusted.
We stayed committed because of that commitment.
Because of the incredible partners in this room, including community members
from Rainier Beach who were pivotal in this program's formation.
Today, we can look back and see how far we've come
and the results.
This year, we are on track to meet our goal
of local workers performing 40% of project hours.
This is a huge leap.
This is a huge leap from where we started.
We've doubled the money of workers earning from economically distressed
zip codes, money that they are earning and bringing back to their communities.
That income and benefits are transforming
lives and building generational stability.
And we did that together.
So please celebrate with us today.
Take pride in what you've achieved.
And tomorrow.
Let's get back to work transforming lives together.
Thank you.
- Our next speaker will be the mayor, Bruce Harrell here.
Mayor Hare, I want to. Garfield.
Nah I’m just kidding.
We're good, we're good, we're good.
But the man who needs no introduction.
So, we're all sort of family here.
We've been doing this work for a while, and while I was given some credit
when I was on the city council. We.
I won't take that credit because this is driven by community leaders.
See, Greg over here getting the picture on my bad side, Greg.
And on this side is my good side.
I see labor here.
I see people from the community.
If I could go off script for a moment.
I'm wearing a mariners jersey for the obvious reason
I have to show you this week.
I literally was.
You can't make this stuff up.
I was clocked in throwing a 94 mile an hour fastball.
I still have it.
I was caught that, a yes, Latin 94 mile fastball.
I was clocked at a slider at 86 miles an hour right over the plate.
So I have this video game
that, I like to play
this time of year to make sure
I can do those things.
When we first started looking at what the city could do, as you
may recall, I had a statistic I wanted to share with you.
I think it was, like, 6%.
The folks on these jobs that the city are doing
where people, from our community.
And that was sort of abysmal.
And when we first started to try to look at the,
yeah, at this time, only 6% of workers on public projects were saddled residents.
That's awful.
And what one of the first things I was concerned about
on the city council was, I mean, I'd go buy a construction project.
Let's just be honest.
You try to see what they look like.
Are the women are the people of color?
Are the people I know.
And if you don't see that, you're thinking, oh, can we do something about that?
And one of my experiences working for the city was
whether a mayor or a city council member or director,
whether they are saying the right things and putting the right policies in place.
But more importantly, whether the staff really got
this kind of work, whether their heart was in this kind of work
because they could be the biggest obstacle, the biggest gatekeeper.
And unless you get buy in from the top and the bottom and everything in between,
you will fail.
And so when I hear, Jeanne and Presley talk about their passion, you see it?
You can't fake that kind of commitment.
I'm very proud of FAS
And at your leadership position and the employees there
for being committed to actually getting it done.
So having said that, I want to start with a quote.
The course for justice is not a sprint,
is more like a marathon or a relay race.
You pass the baton to the next generation and you hope there's a smooth pass off.
But at the same time, you don't need the next generation
to run the race by itself.
That was Robert
Robert Bullard, an American academic known as the father of environmental justice.
So this priority hire program is our means to pass the baton
to the next generation of leaders, next generation of labor partners.
And as we celebrate our ten year anniversary, I'm issuing a directive
to make sure that we're going to be even better in the next ten years.
The program, as I
said earlier, was truly a result of community advocacy.
And I know you hear from Greg and others during the day
to ensure that our infrastructure projects
are built by the people that come from our communities.
It's quite frankly, as simple as that.
On city construction projects to create jobs for the people
who live in Seattle because we have qualified talent here.
One of the most exciting,
things that we're doing is next year, any student,
the graduates from Seattle Public Schools
can go to college for free for two years.
That's phenomenal.
Or, and if they don't want to be an artist
or in the culture field or write code for, high tech company,
they can get these apprenticeships, these good paying labor jobs.
And that's why our labor partners are so critical to this work.
We're doing.
This program has earned
over $120 million in wages.
And I would love an applause to you that.
We measure this in last year alone,
priority hire workers earn $16 million in wages plus benefits.
And last year 30% of the city funded pre
apprenticeship graduates who entered apprenticeships were women.
So we recognize we have racial, challenges.
We have gender challenges.
We have cultural challenges.
And these are good paying jobs.
And we're trying to make sure that we and everyone gets their piece of the pie.
We've become a regional and a national model in this space.
And, you know,
we don't denigrate the county, the Port of Seattle
Seahawks, Seattle Public schools, these are indeed our partners,
but we want to work with them to make sure
that they have similar local hired programs.
And the kind of commitment that we're trying to show.
These are great other jurisdictions.
And we want to
make sure that as we celebrate, they have something to celebrate as well.
So in a nutshell, the directive that I have given as mayor is very clear.
It does a few things.
Number one, it reaffirms our continued commitment.
We keep our foot down on the accelerator, on the pedal
to make sure we're doing, and it outlines how we will go about that.
It establishes an interdepartmental team to identify
public private partnership opportunities, particularly when we are investing.
We want the private sector to do what we're doing.
So we're going to make sure that we push them to do that.
And we have leverage, given the fact that we invest in a lot of these projects.
And then thirdly, the community and labor engagement is absolutely critical,
where you have labor
involved, if you have great outcomes and we want people to experience
that kind of labor experience and that kind of bargaining experience
to make sure you get the wages that you deserve.
In this 2022, city of investments have created and preserved
or funded the development of over 8000 affordable housing, affordable homes.
And this directive will strengthen how we handle those projects again, to can
to continue to hire local workers in a variety of our projects.
So I close by saying thank you.
It's been absolutely my honor to work with you over the last several years.
And this job is a big job, and I cannot do it
without this kind of challenge, this kind of commitment in this room.
And so next, I won't do what the last speaker.
Speaking next is Monty Anderson.
I'm proud to call him a friend.
He is the executive secretary, and he's not going to let this one down.
Executive secretary of Seattle Building and Construction Trades, which includes
19 affiliate unions and more than 20,000 construction workers.
And, if you know Monty, you know how passionate he is about
helping construction workers achieve the American dream.
And and the other thing about money, you just won't get on his bad side.
So today I'm on his good side.
Marty, you have the microphone.
Something for a video for a minute.
Okay. Yes, yes.
Okay. All right. Get it up first.
So we do have a six minute video that we're going to present first.
But I do want to again, thank,
Mayor Bruce Harrell again, strong support throughout this whole program.
Again, as I said, he co-sponsored the legislation for creating this program.
Thank you again, mayor.
That this is a great thing.
And and you can see the fruits of the of what happened, over ten years ago.
So I appreciate that.
So with that, if we can get a video, the first video going
that would be great.
- So. So
now we're going to bring up Monty again.
First of all, I want to give him another introduction because he had to wait.
So again, Monty is an incredible partner with the city,
and has been here for the program for,
basically since its inception.
Monty is basically, Monty
shows his dedication to this program.
But most of all, what we observe in Monty
is what he does with the workers and how he cares for the workers.
So we really appreciate that and appreciate the partnership.
And we are so happy that you're here to celebrate this with us.
Thank you, thank you.
- Thanks.
Is this your cell phone?
You can have it.
All right. I just
I was getting nervous when some of these are cell phone
up here, so, once again, thank you for everybody.
This is, a tremendous moment for.
On behalf of the 20,000 construction workers of the cell building
trades represents, we want to thank you for this.
You know, I had
a lot of things to say that I just crossed out because it was,
said a lot more, gracefully by my union brothers and sisters in that video.
But I want to get to the heart of what community hire is.
Community hire is about dignity, plain and simple.
When people struggle in a neighborhood
where they dream, where they, where they live, whether they see
or families come and go and they have to leave there
because they can't afford it, it's a travesty.
And we see it all over the place.
So, you know, the the trades have been around for a long time.
This is nothing new for us is, but what is new for us
is the dignity that the city of Seattle is providing for their own citizens
and the people that work here.
That is exactly what the city's doing.
And I want to I want to applaud the city for that right now.
So that's great.
You know,
you know, I would be remiss if I didn't think I could not
thank all the city council members and mayors,
of the the one name that keeps coming up for, obviously, is Mayor Bruce Harrell.
He was there.
I remember in 2015 when, you know, this wasn't always an easy sell.
People like Lee Nugent and a Pavlik Fred Podesta,
Nancy Locke, they took a big leap of faith and worked hard.
We have people like,
you know, Rick and Martin and everybody else in the field working there.
But also, this really is a collaboration.
We we always like to brag that our vote
on the community hire has always been unanimous at the city hall.
And that's why.
Because it impacts everybody.
These people live in everybody's neighborhood in the city.
And the fact that, that you would have to drive by a construction site
to drive somewhere else in your own community with your own money,
and the mayor had it right that that's not right.
And the idea that you're going to take people in your community, invest to them
is important.
I also want to thank
also, you know, this program wouldn't be possible without the unions.
I mean, the unions have been building everything here for over somewhere.
Units or 125 years old here.
I know it sounds like old.
We're also getting old.
I told somebody the other day that my dad worked on the Kingdom,
and they didn't know what the kingdom was, so I thought,
oh, so, there's a whole new generation of kids out there, right?
So, I was at the Mariners game, so
I'm going to do this.
I'm going to tell everybody this,
and I mean it from the bottom of my heart, that what the city has done
has literally changed the way unions function.
We now have a partnership that we that we relish, that
we can go to our members and say, look, it it's not just us against the world.
We have people that are elected that care about us and put funds towards us.
And you know what? That's done.
The unions, the business managers who were I love sitting at that table.
In 2014, we were slugging it out, and in 2015
we had a lot of managers who were very reluctant to say,
listen, we're going to give up our First Amendment rights to strike
and give this program to this city and bureaucrats.
And we took that leap of faith, and it's worked out great for us.
So the business managers of the unions have since then took resources
and helped an apprenticeship, and also helped
on the back side of this project, which has made it come together.
That kind of money doesn't happen accidentally.
It happens on purpose.
So once again,
I want to thank all the unions and all the reps that are here because,
it's your members money that keep our side going and our partnership.
So thank you very much for the unions that are here.
And I'll be.
You know, Seattle's commitment to community hire is a commitment
to justice.
And I think that's what we're seeing here today.
And also, my very last closing, here is this program.
It wouldn't be it it wouldn't be, it wouldn't be successful without Lisa Parks.
She is the backbone of this project.
She's been, she's handles every issue that comes up in priority hire.
Not every other every issue for for a decade.
So I'd like to thank her personally for.
So in closing,
we want to say that, you know, a true measure of a city
isn't what it builds, but who would built it for?
So thank you very much for the city.
And, it's a pleasure to be here.
Thank you.
- Thank you Monty. Really appreciate that.
Yeah.
Partnership is so, vital for this thing to work.
And it's just great to have great partners.
Great, support in the community for this.
So with that, we have one other video, at least another video
we have, I think there's 45 seconds, video.
- Okay.
Before we bring up our next speaker,
I just want to make sure that,
to kind of lay out what
happens after that because, you know, the mayor will come in and do it.
We'll be ready to go.
But anyway, the mayor's going to be the last speaker on the,
on the to close out the event.
So we'll bring up the next speaker.
I think we have one of the video. Do we
so after this speaker, we have one other video,
and then we'll bring the mayor up to, close us out.
So, with that, now I want to bring up Gregory Davis,
Gregory Davis,
So Gregory Davis is,
is the managing, strategist of Rainier Beach
Action Coalition and a member.
And and
and he's come to share a few little remarks with,
but Gregory leads the outreach in the community,
which is one of the most important things that we can do is
how do we make sure we're reaching the folks
we need to reach to do part, be part of this program?
So, Gregory and his his organization is very instrumental in supporting
this program and most importantly, supporting the work of Gregory.
If we can come on up and, have your thoughts.
Yeah.
- I haven't had a chance to meet you yet.
We would. Congratulations on your leadership.
Thank you so much.
I am excited.
I'm honored to be able to represent the community here.
Also.
I want to congratulate everyone
and anyone who's had a touch
on this particular opportunity.
There are some names I don't want to forget.
You know, I see Michael Wolff out there.
Michael.
There, I see you.
Thank you.
I see Violet,
who was ultimately the poster person on the
I think it was the Seattle, Seattle Change when we, we're getting this going.
Thank you. I see, Mayor Harrell.
Thank you.
Organizations like the South Seattle Job Committee.
And you might remember that.
Yeah, the construction job Equity coalition.
Anybody remember that.
Columbia Legal Services
okay.
That was a gift from a private donor
to Seattle University that allowed,
a person to be cited
to do some policy work on this particular initiative.
So when you get to community and a policy wonk resource together,
something's going to happen.
And a pilot out there.
Thank you.
Puget sound SAGE wow. Yay.
Thank you.
Got green.
Thank you.
This is one of those wins that we seek.
Despite his humble beginnings,
it has had far reaching impact.
I think you might have heard that King County eventually picked it up,
right, that Seattle Public Schools,
through a community workforce agreement, picked it up.
Port of Seattle picked it up.
Let me tell you about a neighborhood.
It's a neighborhood that doesn't forget on whose shoulders it stands
is this
neighborhood that, despite being underinvested
by the private sector,
still strives for equity and justice.
It's a neighborhood that believes in targeted universalism.
And when you heard of that,
targeted universalism as it relates to structures and institutions, emphasize
is identifying and changing the structural and cultural barriers
that prevent different groups from achieving their goals,
rather than placing the problem within the individuals
or the places themselves it understands.
Place zip code matters.
It's a neighborhood that understands the value of data.
Before I go too far, I want to make sure that you have a chance
to meet the Rainier Beach Economic Development Team.
We've got here.
Before I go too far, I also want to congratulate
all of those folks on the video.
Y'all look good.
In fact,
I want to make sure I get an autograph from you before we were going to.
Tonight.
Back to the neighborhood.
It's a neighborhood that in 2010, took on a Department of Justice grant
that the city of Seattle was awarded and turned it into a community led,
neighborhood based, non arrest crime intervention model that over time, reduced
the incidence that contribute to youth crime at specific
hotspot locations by 30%
upon its initial deployment and held to this day.
It's a neighborhood that in 2012, involved youth
in looking at transportation policy that negatively impacted them.
They found one organized around it,
and not only did their organizing result in the King County
Metro free Orca cards for all program, now, anyone under the age of 18
in the state of Washington can ride public transit for free.
This includes the Washington State ferry system.
It's a neighborhood.
All due respect to the Bulldogs Mayor Harrell,
where some of the best basketball in the state has played.
It's a neighborhood that, along with all the other organizations
ten years ago, acts, the then mayor, what they were going to do
with the proceeds of a land sale across the street from City Hall.
And it's suggested it'd be used to prevent displacement
by assisting culture based nonprofits
purchasing land and building on it.
We call it Equitable Development Initiative.
Now, you may ask, why am I talking about a neighborhood?
Oh, it's Rainier Beach, by the way.
Just out.
I'm talking about a neighborhood
because, as we said in the video,
this neighborhood was ground zero
for this very initiative
that we're celebrating today.
Place matters.
It was 15 years ago
when its community center
was being demolished and rebuilt,
when it was learned that the contractor
was from Tacoma.
That's when more organizing started.
Organizers felt, and they were right,
that any City of Seattle capital construction project
should be built by the people who live where that construction is occurring,
particularly from those under invested zip codes.
It was called targeted local hire.
Then it's become priority hire.
Yeah.
Go ahead, get the good sign.
As I mentioned, it has since been picked up by King County,
by, Seattle Public Schools through a community
workforce agreement by the Port of Seattle.
Now, despite all of this,
we still got some work to do.
Will you join me?
Okay.
We need Sound Transit to adopt it.
Okay.
We want it to apply to the Affordable housing
that the city has invested in.
I just want to thank everyone for your contribution.
Again, it's an honor here to represent the community,
on this and Mayor Harrell,
I can't wait to find out what Rainier Beach comes up with next in support.
The city of Seattle.
So you all enjoy yourselves.
And thank you very much.
- Gregory gave an ideal close.
Thank you.
That's, that's commitment to the city.
Commitment to a neighborhood, commitment to people.
So what's very important about this moment right now
is that we are affirming something we've done right through Gregory.
And I agree with, the whole group put up by name.
We're affirming what we're doing. Right.
And you're right. We have a lot of work to do
For African Americans who remember the
story of the Middle Passage,
probably one of the most
atrocious periods in global history, when over 13 million enslaved
people were transported here to the Americas,
one fifth dying
only to see later Jim Crow laws and legal decisions
like Plessy versus Ferguson or the Dred Scott decision.
Jim Crow laws, murderers, lynching,
rapes is a brutal part of our history.
But they were resilient,
resilient and strong.
My mother was interned in an executive order 9066 when Japanese
were in a concentration camp during World War two, but they were resilient.
Two days ago, it was, Indigenous Peoples Day.
This is their land.
We're just borrowing it.
They've been here since time immemorial,
but they are resilient.
So I say this to say that when we have a president
that we have right now and he tries to implode us,
try to turn us against one another, tries to pull out the worst in us,
we are resilient.
This priority higher brings out the best in us.
We will win and we will double down on this work
because we realize the challenges that we have, whether it's
affordable housing, whether it's disparities in education,
whether it's public safety, whether it's the fentanyl that is killing
our community, ravaging through our streets,
we will win because we are resilient.
So I close to say this,
as Gregory said so eloquently, thank you.
We hope you draw inspiration.
I always ask young folks, and
Gregory and I talk about you when I say young folks, just
just say just because I have the record clear here.
I always ask at the young folks, Monty said, we must be talking to me.
No, I'm not talking to you there Monty.
Where do you draw your inspiration?
Where do you draw you?
Is it a song?
Is it a book?
Is it a movie? Is it a play? Is it a person?
Wherever you draw your inspiration, your hope, your faith
doubled and tripled down on it because now is the time to call upon
that inspiration.
I get my inspiration from above.
I begin on my knees.
Wherever you find it, dig in and we will win.
Because we are resilient and we are doing the right things in this program.
So thank you very much for being part a part of this.
And the day wouldn't be remiss if I didn't say go Mariners!