Blog – Page 6 – Puget Sound Sage

What a moment to step into leadership.

An introduction from our Interim Executive Director, Esther Handy

Dear Sage Supporters,

I write to introduce myself as Puget Sound Sage’s Interim Executive Director. What a moment to step into leadership.

First, a bit about how our team is responding in the COVID-19 moment:

- Our team is now set up virtually, mastering video-conferencing technology.

- We’ve postponed community gatherings, including the graduation of our first Community Real Estate Stewardship Training (CREST) cohort who spent the last year deepening their understanding on community control of land and development.

- Our Community Leadership Institute continues to gather virtually, preparing for roles on public boards and commissions, recognizing that these are the leaders that we need now more than ever.

- We are connecting with our Graham Street Community Action Team and SouthCORE partners to understand how we can best support them in meeting their communities’ immediate needs. These small community-based networks create resiliency in times of crisis and must be resourced to respond.

- We are advocating for swift government action to preserve medical benefits, halt evictions, prevent utility shut-offs and provide emergency income assistance.

- We’re sending our love to the incredible grocery workers, bus drivers, healthcare workers and many more who are on the front-lines of this response and recognize their unions helping to keep these workers safe while serving all of us.

During this crucial time, we are inspired by our communities’ response to care for each other and protect the health of the most vulnerable.

We also know the brunt of the economic impact of these public health measures are being borne by those with the least capacity to weather layoffs, business closures and loss of childcare. These are the folks who have been surviving in an economy rigged against them.

While we advocate for immediate safety nets to be put in place, we also have an eye on what comes next:

How will we weather a recession and insist on an economic recovery that shifts assets and power into the hands of Black, Brown and Indigenous communities, women, trans folks and workers?

It is in this context that I join the Puget Sound Sage team. Ever since I was a kid, I have known that community working in partnership with government can improve lives. I grew up in Olympia, the daughter of public servants. My mom was the second woman elected as a Superior Court Judge in our county, winning by a few hundred votes after a summer of grassroots doorbelling with four-year-old-me tagging along.

Over her thirty years of service, I watched her fight to establish a new local court focused on the experiences of families and kids, advocating for mediation systems as an alternative to the courtroom. I watched her listen to and respond to community interest, seeing that it was possible for government to respond to community needs.

Me (back, right) with Sage’s Equitable Development Policy Analyst Giulia Pasciuto (front, center) participating in Social Justice Fund’s Housing Justice Giving Project.

When I launched my own public sector career, I knew that community leadership and power was the key to making change.

I have been proud to work alongside Puget Sound Sage in that capacity – first, as staff to Seattle City Councilmember Mike O’Brien, where I collaborated with Sage on winning community campaigns for Priority Hire, $15 Minimum Wage, and the Equitable Development policy. More recently, I advocated for funding for this growing organization as the Deputy Director at Progress Alliance.

As my own analysis about how we make change deepened through these roles, racial justice continues to move to the center. Ten years of community organizing with the Coalition of Anti-Racists Whites (CARW) shaped my understanding of my role as a white woman working with other white people to undo the structural racism that pits our communities against each other to dismantle the whiteness that upholds it and instead find our place in a multi-racial movement for collective liberation. In the past two years, raising my mixed-race Indian-American daughter in the Central District has further anchored me in the fight for a just future – for her, and our family.

My role at Puget Sound Sage is as a steward leader: to clarify our strategic focus, solidify our organizational structure and prepare this women-of-color led organization for permanent leadership in 2021. It is an incredible honor to be here, working alongside some of the best organizers and policy analysts in our region.

Leadership is about achieving purpose in moments of uncertainty. I look forward to working with you, our allies and supporters, to respond to this moment and set the stage for a more just future.

Sincerely,

Esther Handy
Interim Executive Director
Puget Sound Sage

Announcing our new Interim Executive Director, Esther Handy

A note on behalf of Puget Sound Sage’s Board of Directors

Over the past three months, Puget Sound Sage’s board and staff have worked together to hire an Interim Executive Director that meets the needs of our growing organization. As mentioned in my previous letter, we chose to move forward with an Interim role to create the space and time we need to move the most effective, sustainable, and transformative work possible during this transitional period.

Over the past several years, Puget Sound Sage has grown by leaps and bounds, and we see this transition as the perfect moment to take a moment to pause and make mindful decisions about who we are as an organization and how we want to move forward together. As an organization that is accountable to and serves the interests of Black, Brown, Indigenous, female, LGBTQ, low-income, and disabled communities across the Puget Sound region, it is critical that we take this time to do both the internal and external work necessary to meet our mission of growing joyful and just communities for generations to come.

The Interim role will steward us in running an organizational assessment to determine where we need to grow, help develop the recruitment process for the hire of permanent executive leadership, and set up the organization for a successful strategic planning process in 2021.

To help guide us in this work is Esther Handy, our new Interim Executive Director, starting February 24th.

Esther joins Puget Sound Sage Sage after serving as Deputy Director for the Progress Alliance of Washington where she organized donors to fund our movement. Esther brings nearly ten years of experience as policy and political staff in local government including to former Seattle City Councilmember Mike O’Brien and King County Executive Ron Sims.

At the City of Seattle, Esther worked closely with Puget Sound Sage and other community partners on campaigns to win Priority Hire, mandatory housing affordability programs, an equitable development framework, and raising the minimum wage. As Interim ED, she is eager to prepare Sage to kick-off a powerful next decade of winning research and advocacy campaigns.

Esther developed her own political activism as an anti-racist community organizer and she is committed to centering BIPOC community leadership and racial justice in our progressive movement. Esther and her husband Vivek are raising their daughter in Seattle’s Central District where you can run into them on the bus, or in many of their favorite parks and restaurants nearby.

As we get ready for Esther to join our team, we want to take a moment to extend our gratitude to Nicole Vallestero Keenan Lai, who served as Puget Sound Sage’s Executive Director for the past two years.

As board and staff, we thank Nicole for her commitment to the organization over the past seven years. Nicole first started at Puget Sound Sage as a Research & Policy Analyst who helped win living wages for workers at SeaTac Airport; Policy Director where she developed the research and framing for Seattle’s $15 Minimum Wage Ordinance; initiator of Sage’s Climate Justice Program; co-founder of the Fair Work Center which leads community implementation of local labor laws; and, ultimately stepping into the role of Executive Director at Sage in the fall of 2017.

Nicole has taken on a new role as the Senior Development Manager for our national network, The Partnership for Working Families and can be reached at nicole@forworkingfamilies.org.

We are excited to move forward in this new chapter as an organization, and will continue to keep you updated throughout the year.

Onward,

Michael Ramos, Board President

Moving On – A Letter from Puget Sound Sage’s Executive Director

Announcement of Executive Director transition:

Dear Puget Sound Sage community:

Over seven years ago, I walked into the doors of Puget Sound Sage as a policy analyst during a time when Seattle hadn’t yet passed a local labor law and had no labor standards enforcement infrastructure, had minimal infrastructure to prevent displacement, and hadn’t yet prioritized environmental justice.

As I look back on the work that thousands of people made possible, I cannot help but be awed by the work we did together.

However, after over a decade of working nearly 70 hours to fight for change – my health, well-being and relationships have suffered. A former Sage Community Leadership Institute alumnus, Laurie Torres, once told me that organizers have something to learn from how emperor penguins survive the long winter by huddling for warmth and taking turns facing the harsh winter. They said, I think movement work can be like this too and I believe they were right.

Over the past few years of working to build up dozens of other leaders in our work, I have learned that we all need to take a step back at some point or another to create space for new leaders to grow.

So, after much reflecting on my best use in this work, I have decided that I should move on from my role as the Executive Director of Puget Sound Sage in January 2020 to a new role as a Senior Development Manager supporting our national network, The Partnership for Working Families.

All national work starts at the local level – and to see the changes we really need – it’s time to make space for new leadership in our movement. As I look at what Puget Sound Sage is today, and the people I have had the joy of working with, I see a leaderful organization of mindful and committed people who are building the infrastructure our movement needs to see positive change and doing the hard work it takes to change culture and policy at the same time.

Puget Sound Sage is also an incredibly fun place to work – I am going to miss the team and the board. I cannot imagine a more flexible, loving, and experimental place to work. However, loving a job as much as I have loved the work at Sage can become consuming and I do not want to model martyrdom.

With that, I am staying in Seattle, continuing to support Puget Sound Sage’s mission and work, but in a new way that will allow some time for family, rest and modeling the changes I hope to see in the world. I hope to see you in community.

In Solidarity,

Nicole Vallestero Keenan-Lai

A note on behalf of the Board of Directors:

Today is a bittersweet moment, as we announce the departure of Puget Sound Sage’s Executive Director, Nicole Vallestero Keenan-Lai.

Nicole has played a critical role in the development and success of the organization over the past seven years. We will deeply miss her and her leadership. We wish her much success as she embraces her new role as the Senior Development Manager with Puget Sound Sage’s national network, the Partnership for Working Families.

Since Nicole started with Puget Sound Sage back in November 2012, she has played many key roles in our work: Research & Policy Analyst who helped win living wages for workers at SeaTac Airport; Policy Director where she developed the research and framing for Seattle’s $15 Minimum Wage Ordinance; initiator of Sage’s Climate Justice Program; co-founder of the Fair Work Center which leads community implementation of local labor laws; and, ultimately stepping into the role of Executive Director at Sage in the fall of 2017.

Puget Sound Sage has grown in many ways over the past several years.

In 2017, Puget Sound Sage had eight full-time staff and a budget of just over $700,000 and has grown to an organization with 15 full-time staff and a budget of over $2 million. The organization has moved (twice!) into their current location in a beautiful new office across from Hing Hay Park in the International District.

And while there is never a good time to say goodbye, the organization is poised to handle the transition due to the steady leadership of Sage’s staff and board of directors, the financial health of the organization, and the incredible support of Puget Sound Sage’s individual donors, foundation supporters, and community partners who make this all possible.

This past month, we have taken time as a staff and board to reflect on lessons learned from previous transitions in order to ensure we’re taking mindful, measured steps as we move forward.

Based on our discussions, we have chosen to move forward with hiring an Interim Executive Director early next year.

Our goal is to work with the Interim Executive Director as we prepare for our strategic planning process during this transitional period. Investing in our long-term visioning and relationships is and always will be critical to moving the most effective, sustainable, and transformative work possible.

We will keep you updated as we move forward with this process. If you have any questions, please reach out at mramos@thechurchcouncil.org. We’re so grateful to have your support as together we build healthy, joyful, and just communities for generations to come.

Sincerely,

Michael Ramos, Board President

Future Generations Thriving: A Green New Deal for Seattle

By Got Green & Puget Sound Sage
Photo by Peg Hunter

Got Green and Puget Sound Sage are excited by the opportunity the Green New Deal presents to build good jobs, clean our air and water, and leave a healthy planet for future generations. We know what a Green New Deal looks like locally, because we’ve been working on it in coalition with our partners at SouthCORE, Front & Centered, and The Alliance for Jobs and Clean Energy.

Community control of development, affordable housing, rooted communities, living-wage jobs, public transportation, healthy food, renewable energy, clean air, water, and land, and corporate accountability are the components of a Green New Deal. Community connection is how people survive and bounce back from emergencies. Strengthening community cohesion is a climate adaptation and resilience strategy.

Got Green and Puget Sound Sage recommend substantial investment from the federal, state, and local level to kick start, support, and scale up frontline community-led work on:

Living-wage jobs that benefit or conserve the environment and preserve or expand environmental health for workers and the surrounding community

Living-wage and unionized jobs in the renewable energy and building trades sectors

Renewable, local energy infrastructure, including solar, wind, battery-storage, and other community-owned and -driven energy solutions

Rapid, convenient, affordable, and electrified public transportation

Energy-efficient, affordable housing and capacity to weatherize existing housing stock

Support for workers and businesses transitioning out of the fossil fuel industry and into renewable energy or other industries, including job training and pension security

Support with energy bills, weatherization, and transportation costs for low-income people

Subsidies going to support the fossil fuel industry must be phased out and reinvested into renewable energy. Resource investment and infrastructure development must prioritize communities most impacted by the damaged climate and ongoing pollution. Also, frontline communities need to have power over how development occurs and how resources are deployed because they know what solutions will be most effective at addressing the problems in their community.

A Green New Deal for Seattle must not include cap-and-trade or carbon market-based policies, harmful geotechnologies, or energy produced from fracked gas and nuclear power. Cap-and-trade policies do not eliminate carbon emissions ^{1 2 3}, fracked gas produces unacceptable carbon emissions ^{4 5} and earthquakes ^{6 7}, and nuclear power produces deadly byproducts ^{8 9 10}.

All of these policies and fuel sources harm frontline communities and workers at sites of extraction and production, and pollute our air, water, and land. Their use is unnecessary when we have renewable energy options increasingly available for our use and development.

We have a plan for how to build healthy, resilient communities in Seattle and beyond. We call on our city to set an example for the nation by modeling what it looks like to invest in and follow the lead of local communities on the frontlines of climate change and ongoing pollution.

Join us in building a future we are proud to pass on to our children.

^{See more of Peg Hunter’s photos here. Photo license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/}

^{1 Four Years In, What Can We Learn from California’s Cap and Trade Program, Front and Centered, 2016, https://frontandcentered.org/four-years-in-what-can-we-learn-from-californias-cap-and-trade-program/. Accessed 20 Mar. 2019.}

^{2 Cushing L, et. al., A Preliminary Environmental Equity Assessment Of California’s Cap-and-Trade Program, – USC Dornsife.” 2016, https://dornsife.usc.edu/PERE/enviro-equity-CA-cap-trade.}

^{3 Cushing L, Blaustein-Rejto D, Wander M, Pastor M, Sadd J, et al. (2018) Carbon trading, co-pollutants, and environmental equity: Evidence from California’s cap-and-trade program (2011–2015). PLOS Medicine 15(7): e1002604. Retrieved September 2018, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1002604}

^{4 Fracked Gas, PSR – Physicians for Social Responsibility. https://www.psr.org/issues/environment-health/fracked-gas/. Accessed 20 Mar. 2019.}

^{5 Howarth, R.W., Santoro, R. & Ingraffea, Methane and the greenhouse-gas footprint of natural gas from shale formations, A. Climatic Change (2011) 106: 679. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-011-0061-5, https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs10584-011-0061-5.pdf.}

^{6 Ellsworth, W.L., Injection-Induced Earthquakes, Science, Jul 2013, Vol. 341, Issue 6142, 1225942. DOI: 10.1126/science.1225942}

^{7 National Research Council. 2013. Induced Seismicity Potential in Energy Technologies. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/13355. https://www.nap.edu/catalog/13355/induced-seismicity-potential-in-energy-technologies.}

^{8 Barron, R.W, Hill, M.C., A wedge or a weight? Critically examining nuclear power’s viability as a low carbon energy source from an intergenerational perspective, Energy Research and Social Science Vol. 50, 7-17, 2019, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2018.10.012.}

^{9 Wheatley S., Sovacool, B., Sornette, D., Of Disasters and Dragon Kings: A Statistical Analysis of Nuclear Power Incidents and Accidents, Risk Analysis, Vol. 37 Issue 1, 99-115, 2017, https://doi.org/10.1111/risa.12587}

^{10 Nuclear Power and the Environment – Energy Explained, U.S. Energy Information Administration, https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.php?page=nuclear_environment., 2019}

Graham Street: A Community Driven Neighborhood Vision

“We found ourselves here in many different ways. Some of us came a long time ago. Some of us came recently. Many of us grew up in Seattle. Many of us grew up across the globe. We are black, brown, and white. We are Filipino/a, Somali, Ethiopian, Vietnamese, Cham, African American, Latinx, American, and much more. We are Muslim, Buddhist, Christian, and more. We speak many languages, but share the same home.

We do many things in our community—raise our families, go to school, work, worship, celebrate, do business, shop, build, care-give, and hope for the future. We are youth, elders, and everyone in between. We are strong and resilient together.

Some of us no longer live here because rent became too expensive or we didn’t own land. But we frequently return because our families, businesses, schools, cultural cen¬ters, and places of worship are still here. We have roots here.

For all of these reasons, and despite increasing economic pressure to make us leave, we intend to stay.” - Graham Street Community Action Team

We set out to plan differently.

We're proud to have worked over the last year alongside community groups in the Graham Street Neighborhood to develop a shared vision for the future. Together we imagined what development without displacement could look like for our neighborhood after the new light rail station is opened in 2031.

We aren’t waiting, though, for property values to rise and rents to go up – we are planning now to ensure that the communities who are here can choose to stay here.

The full vision may be accessed here.

Stopping displacement in the Graham Street neighborhood, especially with a new light rail station, won’t be easy. We needed a different approach than the usual community design process that emphasizes physical improvements to a neighborhood, like open space, lighting, public art and facades. What is the point of those improvements if the community is no longer here to benefit from them? We need a more fundamental shift in the planning paradigm that includes creating the power and resources to drive development and investment ourselves.

Over the last year, the Graham Street Community Action Team formed to both envision the future of the neighborhood and start building the capacity and infrastructure needed to make the vision a reality. This was our strategy:

Invest in organizing and building power: Puget Sound Sage and the CAT shared resources to ensure we could do the community organizing needed to engage our neighbors in multiple planning workshops and tap into a wealth of community expertise. With many languages and cultures in the community, we knew that building a shared sense of identity would make a stronger vision and create more power to advance it.

Center leadership of people of color: People of color, low-income people, immigrants, and refugees are the most vulnerable to displacement in our region and, thus, the experts in both understanding the problem and developing the solutions to thrive in place.

Build on existing assets: Despite decades of disinvestment in the Graham Street neighborhood, our communities have built and sustained multiple institutions, faith centers, homes, gathering places, and green spaces. We can build on these assets and experiences to as we take our vision to scale.

Plan for systems change: Building a few community projects won’t be enough to stem displacement. Our planning also must emphasize the systemic racial inequality that leads to displacement. By weaving in a racial justice analysis, we can advance solutions to undo systemic racism in housing and economic opportunity by creating new, more just policies

Plan for self-reliance: To implement community-ownership, we will need both public and private sector partnerships. But, we start with an assumption that we will drive development ourselves. This includes how to own land, find climate resiliency solutions, grow food, and build strong communities.

What’s next?

Over the next year, Sage and the CAT will learn together how other communities have driven and created resources for their own development projects We will combine this with existing expertise to develop a policy, finance, and ownership plan for the next decade.

We are proud of the work we have done together. Stay tuned for more updates from the Community Action Team throughout the next year!

Update on Mandatory Housing Affordability

Rendering of the future senior housing and Filipino Community which received $1 million in funding from the City of Seattle Equitable Development Initiatve. We believe MHA can determine a permanent and adequate funding source for projects like this.

The Seattle City Council has officially started deliberations on the Citywide rezones to implement MHA (read our original blog post here) after more than 6 months of delay due to an appeal to the Environmental Impact Statement, the Council will move forward to adopt the rezones. So, to remind Council with what our demands were for a companion resolution we have resent a letter that has made the full round through Seattle City Council, Mayor Durkan’s office, and other City of Seattle departments. Click here to read the updated letter sent from Puget Sound Sage and our community partners.