We ask Mayor McGinn to publicly apologize for his administration's role in Sakara Remmu's firing. We condemn the use of the Mayor's office to punish critics and ask that the McGinn administration swear off such tactics in the future.On September 2, Sakara Remmu, who writes a political blog under the pen name
Sable Verity, lost her job. It sounds like a familiar story, but the scenario was very un-Seattle, like something you might see in a movie. In the weeks before, Sable Verity had been hard on Mayor McGinn and his administration was taking it hard. Still smarting from her criticism about the city's policing priorities, the Mayor's office struck back with a textbook hardball political tactic -- destroy your enemy's livelihood. They had a talk with her employer, Tabor, Inc., a non-profit that depends on a significant amount of city funding, and expressed "discomfort" with the position she held there. As a reliable, responsive partner, Tabor fixed its patron's problem and fired the political blogger.
This is a clear and simple case of injustice. Though the predictable excuses have been made and the victim has predictably been blamed, the truth is commonsensical -- powerful people used their position to undermine what they saw as political enemy. That in their conversations with Remmu's employer, the Mayor's office didn't explicitly demand she be fired is only proof of their power -- it was enough to frame it as a problem and let her employer decide how to solve it.
We see the occasion of Sakara Remmu's firing as part of the larger pattern of belligerence and inflexibility from the Mayor's office. The impression McGinn and his inner circle give today is of an embattled minority beset by enemies they themselves have chosen. Where compromise would be prudent, they rush to confrontation; when facing vehement criticism, instead of listening or at least showing the adult forbearance that leadership demands, they seek revenge. We expect much better.
As Seattle voters and citizens, we the undersigned ask Mayor McGinn to publicly apologize for setting into motion a chain of events that any reasonable person could anticipate would jeopardize Sakara Remmu's livelihood. We condemn the use of the Mayor's office to punish critics, whether they come from the media or from the community. We also ask that the Mayor swear off such tactics in the future. Remember it is the citizens of Seattle that invest the Mayor's office with its power and we demand that it be exercised with honor and integrity.
Mayor McGinn, we await your response.
