[EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is a Letter to the Editor, written and submitted by a verified Burien resident. It represents the opinion of the author, and does not necessarily reflect the views of South King Media or its staff.]
I am going to vote for Kevin Schilling, and I think that you should, too.
We visited Burien many times before we moved here three years ago. Friendly people, diversity, walkability, and more.
Within five months, things changed. We had many people living in tents by the library and elsewhere. Drug addiction and behavior, sex trafficking, drug dealers aplenty, and more. No one seemed to care about the everyday citizens; especially those residing in Town Square. So called do-gooders were moving people around like chess pieces for drama, not long term solutions.
Service organizations were here daily trying to place people. Local businesses were threatened and experienced a lot of stealing. I witnessed this daily. Thieves told me to mind my own business when I watched them blatantly stealing and then they laughed.
Kevin Schilling, our city manager, and some city councilmembers thoughtfully and with dignity, stood up for Burien citizens and offered many services to those in need. They were caring and steadfast.
I am receiving flyers almost daily from Kevin’s opponent who frankly, has no platform and is misinformed. Has he ever even been here?
Kevin Schilling has been a great mayor who really cares about ALL people. I ask that you join me and cast your vote for Kevin for State Rep. Common Sense needs to stay in Burien!
– Kathleen McNee
Burien Town Square Resident
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I agree wholeheartedly, Burien’s loss of his leadership will be a setback but if we collectively keep the Activists off the Council we will still be ahead thanks to his efforts.
Thanks for writing this and 100% agree
Kevin Schilling sold out Burien workers for political donations.
If you had your way everyone would earn the same in your Socialist utopian dream, what Kevin did was point out the incorrect data that the wage groups didn’t bother to research.
Are you even a Burien worker and your complaining about Kevin? No? Then maybe sit this one out. You’re speaking from the sidelines with zero understanding of the realities on the ground.
If anyone’s sold out, it’s those who choose to whine and demean others instead of stepping up with real facts or workable solutions. You’re not here to help—you’re here to stir the pot and feel self-righteous doing it. That’s not activism; it’s ego wrapped in a empty slogan.
Kevin Schilling has taken strong, transparent positions on labor rights, economic development, and public safety, his positions did benefit the entire city of Burien. He’s done the work. But your hollow attack(s) prove you have no argument but only more noise to add.
The undeniable fact of the matter is that Kevin Schilling sold out Burien workers.
He took away worker protection against wage theft, because he had cozied up to rich donors. You might think that sort of corruption is ok. That says more about you than it does about me.
And then he tried to gaslight this entire community into thinking it was the right thing to do.
Kevin schilling and his cronies have been an absolute disaster for this city.
Any informed voter would know this, maybe you should sit this one out.
Perception seems to hurt activists the most. A balanced mind seems to be what’s missing.
Lol coming from an activist who has been supporting the destruction of Burien – that’s really rich. No thank you, Seattle I’m sure will have open arms for you though
False and misleading statement from the (small) Burien activist mob. He took a political donation from the same car lot owner that gave to EVERYONE, including Krystal Marx.
Burien activists sold out Burien for Seattle special interests, King County and drug dealers… – There, fixed that for ya!
I’m voting for Kevin Schilling for many of the reasons Kathleen pointed out. Homelessness coupled with drug addiction is not only a public health and safety problem, but also an economic problem. Businesses close earlier, give up and relocate, or not even start up at all. Customers are reluctant to walk to nearby restaurants and other establishments at night if they have to walk by homeless and / or drug addicted people. Property values decline. Who wants to relocate to Burien and live next to an encampment? Mayor Kevin Schilling and like minded council members have made some incredible progress in making Burien a safer city to live in. Much more needs to be done, but good progress over the last two years.
Kevin Schilling wanted the police to enforce a law before it was constitutionally reviewed. A small group of individuals on the council wanted the police force beholden to their whims, without a vote of the citizens. Allowing *anyone* to control a police force without due oversight is a terrifying concept, and a mayor who cares about their citizens would accept the review process as standard procedure, rather than firing a police chief over it.
He’s campaigned as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, but had no words when I asked about the fact that LGBTQ+ youth are the most at-risk group of individuals for homelessness (Over 25% of LGBTQ+ folks report being homeless at some point in their lives). Instead, he passed law to criminalize homelessness. This law and other “camping bans” like it, is now being weaponized by MAGA, who state that such laws can no longer consider “housing first” agendas (which ours currently does). (See the executive order ‘Ending Crime & Disorder on America’s Streets’, Section 5: “ending support for “housing first” policies”).
This is exactly what many people feared would come to pass by enacting such a law, and especially the underhanded way in which it was done. Did it clean up our 3 blocks of downtown? Sure. Did it just move encampments to less visible places? Absolutely. Will it have been worth it when the EO rewrites such laws to give authoritarian servants carte blanche to send people with “mental health conditions” to “long-term institutions” involuntarily?
The “camping ban” is a disgusting infringement on civil rights and is being openly praised by an objectively fascist federal regime. This is the kind of person Kevin Schilling is. He’s shown this to us time and time again. This is a man who will roll over and accept fascism as long as the streets look nice and he gets more votes. No thank you.
Thank you, Tom, for your clear evaluation of a candidate who claims to be a Democrat and then operates like a MAGA. A Democrat in Name Only (DINO) is not someone we need in the Legislature to represent us.
Clear?
“The “camping ban” is a disgusting infringement on civil rights” With that quote from you I now understand that anyone who doesn’t condone or enable the addiction, filth, squalor is wrong. Also, trying to link Burien as a Facist puppet of the Federal Government is preposterous and makes you look all the more foolish.
This attack on Kevin Schilling is a mix of bad faith, misinformation, and reckless hyperbole.
Tom – First, enforcing a law after it’s passed isn’t unconstitutional, it’s how government works. Schilling didn’t sidestep oversight; he enforced a democratically enacted law. Claiming he wanted the police “beholden to his whims” is a dramatic lie by *your* own perception. Personnel decisions happen in city government all the time, and twisting that into some authoritarian fantasy is pure theater.
Second, invoking LGBTQ+ homelessness to attack Schilling, who is himself a member of that community is also disingenuous and insulting. He’s supported housing-first policies and expanded shelter access. The so-called “camping ban” doesn’t criminalize homelessness…
it balances public safety with compassion. And yes, it cleaned up downtown because residents demanded real action, not performative outrage. You may want to see other democratic ran cities and see their outlook- ALL OF THEM ARE IN SHAMBLES BY THEIR OWN GOVERNING. Proof and point
Finally, blaming Schilling for how extremists twist local laws at the federal level is absurd. That’s like saying zoning laws are fascist because a bad regime might exploit them.
This isn’t rightous activism it’s slander. If you want to critique policy, do it honestly. But smearing someone as a fascist because you didn’t get your way is lazy, dishonest politics.
No thank you to activists or progressive agendas, no more in Burien, it’s what has almost destroyed it.
I’m a member of the LGBTQ+ community too, which is why I find it so offensive that he would use that as part of his platform but turn his back on folks of the same community who are concerned for our lesser privileged cohort.
Sounds likes Tom T. should disclose if he is employed by the Homeless Industrial Complex or has a financial link to it as he sure beats that drum.
Dog-whistling “fascist” is childish and anti-factual. Facts are fine for arguments, name calling is immature and detracts from any attempt at reasonable discourse.
I don’t know live in Burien or know Kevin, or any candidate in the race, but I do shop in Burien and have over 60 years. It’s a wonderful city. It’s a diverse city (a far cry from when I graduated from Highline and there was one (1) black student). It’s a city that suffered mightily trying to respond to people sleeping in public places, open drug use, and businesses with big hearts and limited tolerance for the well-documented, and unavoidably obvious, disgusting behavior of the “homeless”.
The lawsuit the city won proved that the policies it had adopted were legal and that there was no reason to follow the wrong policies and opinions of King County. Citizens should be proud that their government didn’t bow down to an incorrect interpretation of our Constitution.
Those who disagree with the courts and assail Kevin Schilling are much closer to being fascists than those who follow the rule of law..
I did not call Kevin Schilling a fascist. I do not believe he is a fascist. At the same time, he’s standing by policies that a fascist federal government is praising and turning against American people, just as many of us warned could happen by setting this precedent. I don’t think he deserves a promotion for leaving the door ajar for people who want to weaponize this law, especially when he ignored people’s pleas who were afraid of exactly this happening.
To claim that either interpretation is “correct” is a fallacy here. There are constitutional lawyers exactly because the constitution is often up to interpretation. KCSO acted responsibly by seeking a judgment before asking police to enforce this law. Kevin Schilling acted hastily, and bullied KSCO, setting a precedent I find chilling. I do not believe he deserves a promotion for this.
And in the end Kevin was correct and the law stands, legal processes took place and all attempts to counter it have failed so why do you not except the findings of the legal system? Get over it.
I do accept the findings of the legal system as they stand, even though I disagree with them and would like to pave the way for change in the future. I DO NOT accept a candidate who was not willing to wait for that system to complete before flexing authority, and neither should you! I’ve said this time and time again, Louis G., those were your rights, too, that Kevin Schilling was unwilling to consider.
Thanks to Tom and his activist inspired personal opinions of the truth, we now know how he personally feels which doesn’t change facts in reality…. sorry Tom.
Kevin is being lambasted by the small group of Burien activists and Edwin Obras’ political gang. Completely Pathetic, make sure to vote !