The issues
Public safety
For Saka, public safety is paramount. Saka blames the City Council’s calls to reduce the police budget in the wake of 2020’s Black Lives Matter protests as the turning point for public safety in Seattle. Though Seattle Councilmembers walked back their pledge and did not cut the police budget (save for moving parking enforcement to a different department), Saka thinks it contributed to the departure of 400-500 police officers, in turn leading to problems with crime in both his neighborhood of Delridge and across the city.
Saka wants to rebuild a police force of at least 1,500 deployable officers from the current 900-1000 officers at SPD and
→ Continue reading at Crosscut
