It’s with heavy hearts that my wife and I have made the unexpected decision to leave Seattle for Texas. We’ve each called this city home for 15+ years. Here we met, married, bought our first home, and have been raising two kids.
While we have heavy hearts and hadn’t seriously contemplated this move until a week ago, ultimately it was an easy decision to make. Reopening plans changed at our kids’ excellent private school and there is now no prospect that our daughter will receive five days a week of in-person education. It’s yet to be determined if her younger brother will, and even if our school wants to deliver in-person education to one degree or another, there’s the very high likelihood that its wishes will be trumped by our governor and state superintendent of schools.
As parents, we’re adamant that the best thing for our children is to not return to remote learning, and for them to be with teachers and fellow students, following sensible safety protocols. Not only do they need a good education, but also the social nourishment of being with other kids as they navigate their life stages. Unfortunately, that’s no longer an option here.
Texas, my wife’s home state, had only ever been a remote Plan B for us. While our children have been receiving a quality education, it’s been easier to tolerate some of the policy madness that goes on here. And I’ve always been optimistic that the time would come for the ideas I’ve fought for alongside others, which are necessary to turn this city around.
During my time here I delivered three speeches to groups in Seattle and the East Side outlining how to get us off the policy path we’re on, including this one in January to the Bellevue Chamber of Commerce. In all of these talks, I explained that New Zealand succeeded in getting off its policy course (where Seattle has yet to) because business leaders stepped up and got on the front lines of the policy debates, not leaving all the hard work to the think tanks and lobby groups they contribute money to.
Because I’d never ask others to do something I’d not been willing to do myself, I sued the Seattle City Council as a plaintiff in the case against the city’s income tax and I was the secretary of the Opportunity for All Coalition. I also put my name to op-eds such as:
The Incredible Whiteness of Washington State’s ‘Progressive’ Policies
Seattle exemplifies the fast-growing private-public school pandemic gap
And most recently:
Reopen schools for the sake of our children
As soon as we learned proper schooling is no longer a possibility, our mental equations suddenly shifted dramatically in favor of Texas. The negatives started outweighing the positive things we love about Seattle, and Texas started looking more attractive. Our kids will be able to return to in-person schooling five days a week and I’ll be able to keep my job, because everyone works remotely these days anyway.
What saddens us is that the situation we find ourselves in is typical of the outcomes of policies in Washington. We have the means to ensure that our family does fine, no matter how this city or state underperforms for its poorest residents, but increasingly those in the middle class too.
I’m optimistic that this situation can be turned around because I’ve seen firsthand that it can be done. While I fully expected to continue the good fight to make it happen, I’ll now be rooting for you all from afar. In my January speech, I explained where I think a critical gap is:
…most of the time those that do speak out are only saying no to crazy policy proposals. While that is critically important, it’s not a sustainable or long-term strategy for winning. When groups that are openly hostile to business are out on the front lines every day, coordinate their policies and have sympathetic politicians on the local council or in the legislature, you’re never going to win any battles of ideas let alone wars.
…Businesses and business leaders can pour money into election after election, but it won’t make a difference if there’s no policy debate influencing voters’ decisions by making the case for change and ensuring that the case is heard.
I recently came across a 1993 speech by my father to an Auckland employer’s group entitled “On Doing What is Necessary”, which seems particularly pertinent to the point I was making. Like me, he was an eternal optimist. But he concluded his talk:
I have to say that I get a little tired of people who tell us privately how much they admire our efforts but keep their distance when the going gets tough. The fact is that the going is always tough when you are confronting vested interests who do not take kindly to the idea of having their privileges removed… But if you want to work, live and do business in a country with a real future; if you think there are past gains worth defending and future gains worth fighting for; and if you are not content to leave the field to vested interests and congenital pessimists, then I suggest you remember these lines by the poet Charles Mackay:
‘You have no enemies, you say?
Alas, my friend, the boast is poor.
He who has mingled in the fray…
Must have made foes. If you have none,
Small is the work that you have done…
You’ve never turned the wrong to right,
You’ve been a coward in the fight.’
Apply these lines about New Zealand from almost three decades ago to the situation Seattle finds itself in today. If business leaders here muster the courage to mingle in the fray of Washington policy debates and speak up on these matters, I know this situation can be turned around.
We wish you all the best. The past 15 years plus have been a blast and we’ll miss all the friends we’ve made.