Seattle mayoral candidates clash over real estate speculators

Mayoral candidate Cary Moon promises to study how real estate speculation is driving up housing prices-- and maybe implement taxes to stop it.

“This is about, ‘is housing for people, or is housing a commodity for Wall Street and the global financial elite to play in?’”

But with Seattle popular among Chinese buyers, mayoral candidate Jenny Durkan fears the work could lead to racial discrimination.

Durkan was asked how a problem can be addressed if the city can’t gather information about what might be causing it.

Durkan responded,“If you think that there's a problem, you address that problem. But again, we don’t want to create, for example, a database that says tell us every investor who's foreign, who's maybe Chinese, who's not from here."

Moon points out that she has never singled out any nationality while talking about her plans.

“For her to extrapolate that it's somehow about race, everybody's scratching their head like where'd she come up with that? That seems invented,” Moon responded

“I don't think that's what Cary Moon intended, I'm not saying that she did, but a leader has to be really careful about the language they use and the unintended consequences of any problem,” Durkan said.

Moon reassured voters.

“Under my leadership I will make sure we respect privacy and we respect the folks who are moving here from other places.”

Both candidates are boasting of big endorsements today. Moon won the sole endorsement of the King County Democratic Party. Durkan won the endorsement of Service Employees International Union 1199NW. It represents 29,000 nurses.

Cox Media Group