Alexis Mercedes Rinck, an Assistant Director at the University of Washington, has thrown her hat into the ring for the Seattle City Council's Position 8 citywide seat. Rinck recently joined host Trae Holiday on The Day with Trae to share her vision and aspirations for Seattle, should she secure victory in the forthcoming November election. Rinck will be opposing Tanya Woo, who was appointed to the seat in January following Teresa Mosqueda's departure after winning a King County Council seat and leaving a vacancy within the Seattle City Council. Woo announced her intention to run on March 11th.

"I'm running for Seattle City Council because I've spent my professional career working in human services and public health. I know from that work, as well as my own lived experience and seeing my parent's interactions with systems of harm and systems of care," Rinck said. "There's some really important services that could be on the chopping block in the coming year. And I want to be a voice to make sure that doesn't happen."

Holiday and Rinck started the interview by delving into her approach for connecting with diverse neighborhoods and rallying support. Rinck emphasized her dedication to community engagement as a crucial strategy in achieving this goal.

"I spend my weekends in farmers markets, but also just been reaching through my networks. I spent a lot of my career working in human services and community organizing as well before that. Reaching out and just talking to folks to see where folks are naturally coming together, whether it be to talk about the issues or just to be in community with one another because connection, especially during these times, is so important," Rinck said. "With that, I've learned about a lot of other community spaces that I'll be hoping to connect with. Central District's community safety meetings are one key space that I'm really hoping to engage and learn from in the coming weeks, as well as connecting with other spaces that folks are coming together to have fun into. So that's really going to be a big focus. 

Continuing the conversation, Rinck emphasized her commitment to elevating the voices of all residents, with a particular emphasis on the Black community.

"How do we provide wealth-building opportunities for [the] Black community, given historical harms, especially in this city? We got a lot coming up this year. We have a comprehensive plan, which I know is a bit of an abstract concept to many, but really, it's going to shape the way our city grows and changes over the next 20 years," Rinck said. 

Rinck outlines essential components of her goals, including bolstering support for Black businesses through investments, confronting public health challenges directly, expanding housing opportunities, and advocating for strategic wealth-building initiatives. She particularly champions programs like black homeownership initiatives across the city, underscoring housing as a central pillar of her campaign and acknowledging its role in fostering equitable living conditions.

"Unfortunately, some really critical pieces of legislation related to renter protections and minimum wage legislation seem to be under threat right now," Rinck said. 

She continued, "How do we protect that and enhance that? How do we make Seattle a truly livable community for working families [and] working people and stand with making a community that's broadly affordable, accessible, safe, [and] welcoming to everybody?"

Rinck, who relies on public transit and doesn't own a car, also wished to prioritize enhancing the city's conveyance infrastructure to facilitate better neighborhood transportation for residents.

"Having a robust transportation system that is reliable and can get you from point A to point B safely is huge in terms of being able to also put money back into people's pockets," Rinck said. "Owning your car can be expensive. And I know my choice to not own a car has been rooted in wanting to save money and also a personal choice to try and cut my carbon emissions, but it can be really challenging."

She further elaborated, "It's very hard to get from where I live in [the] Central District to Ballard. That's a transfer bus ride downtown. That's a long way. We have a transportation levy coming up, which, again, shapes what our future public transit options will look like."

Rinck also emphasized the significance of public safety, a cause of personal importance to her. Having grown up in a family impacted by the consequences of gang violence and incarceration, Rinck highlighted how her upbringing has fueled her passion for investing in and supporting young people as well as their safety.

"When I think of the web of community safety, there's so many different branches [and] we need to figure out what are those branches. Whether it be the community routed support, those upstream preventions, and then how do we also figure out a way to properly respond when violence has happened," Rinck said. "How do we support folks who have been traumatized and harmed in that experience to actually seek and feel justice? "

Explore the Alexis For Seattle website here to learn more about Rinck's campaign. Watch the full interview below!

For more news stories happening in Seattle, tune into Trae every weekday at 11 a.m. on all Converge Media platforms and The Day With Trae YouTube Channel.