An Open Letter to Seattle Mayor Durkan

Mayor Durkan,

I am profoundly disappointed that you lacked the courage to stand up to the City Council and oppose the job-killing head tax. For you to say that you were part of a "compromise" is disingenuous because the only compromise was between the City Council and the far-left fringe activists. They should have originally asked for $1,000 per employee because you would have agreed to a $500 per employee tax and called it a compromise. 

I expect the City Council to be openly hostile to business because they have held and demonstrated those beliefs all along. I had more hope for you to be a check on their profligate spending and government expansion. Instead, you showed that you are out-of-touch at best and hostile to business interests at worst. Your temerity is especially galling because you had campaigned on being the leader that Seattle needs right now. Seattle needs leadership, but you are not leading.

How can you say that the head tax passed by the Council does not "jeopardize critical jobs?" A head tax of any size is a tax on jobs. What sort of "compromise" is blasted by the entire business community, companies large and small, as blatantly anti-business? I had hoped that you would be a leader for the silent and not-so-silent majority in Seattle that is sick of the activist, anti-business City Council. 

Your support for the head tax shows your true colors as an anti-business politician more worried about offending the far fringes of our city than standing up for the job creators and workers that comprise the majority of people who voted you into office. I hope you will remember this when running for re-election, because you have lost my vote and the votes of many of my friends who are tired of living in a filthy city that is being run into the ground by a runaway city government. 

Regards,

Ted Dahlstrom
Seattle resident, Durkan voter, and former supporter