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Mary and me at this year’s dragon festival downtown. The festival was put on by Renton Arts Commission, a group that has benefited immensely from Mary’s involvement and volunteer work.
I’ve been encouraging Mary Clymer to run for Renton City Council for many years. She is an inspirational leader in our community, an experienced Renton business owner, and a beloved producer/promoter of the arts. She has been demonstrating in all her work and community activities that she is perfectly-suited to help lead Renton towards an even brighter future.
Mary has been around Renton leadership all her life. I enjoyed serving on Renton Council with Mary’s grandfather, Earl Clymer, when he was Mayor of Renton. We worked together on such key projects as finalizing Renton’s Aquifer Protection Ordinance, creating our first Economic Development Department, bringing IKEA into town, and accommodating rapid growth in manufacturing at Boeing and Paccar. Mayor Clymer wanted to hear from residents, giving each resident TWO five-minute opportunities to converse with council at every council meeting– once near the start, and once near the end– a practice which kept us connected to our residents and their needs. Mary has told me she wants to help foster that same degree of open dialogue her grandfather did, even on difficult subjects, and ensure the Council, Mayor, residents and businesses work closely together on a bright Renton future. Mary’s parents, like her grandfather, modeled Renton community engagement and service to her throughout her life.
In contrast, the incumbent is finishing her first term on Renton Council, and has unfortunately made many enemies through her combative, impulsive style. No current Renton elected officials are supporting the incumbent for reelection. Countless Renton residents and all of the incumbent’s council colleagues have been on the receiving end of her calling them liars or even worse names simply for having reasonable differences of opinion with her. A recent Axios article describes the incumbent’s past domestic violence arrest and ongoing anger management issues. Even worse, some of the incumbent’s policies have proven dangerous to Renton residents. For instance, she aggressively lobbied to keep a state law banning almost all police pursuits even while Renton’s other six councilmembers all lobbied for the opposite, to allow reasonable police pursuit authority. The police pursuit restriction passed the legislature, but then had to be rescinded three years later after it led to skyrocketing rates of reckless driving, car theft, violent road rage, smash-and-grab burglaries, and fatal car crashes. The incumbent later promoted a legislative bill which would prevent police from pulling over motorists who lack basic safety equipment like brake lights, another law which would have increased fatal accidents if the legislature had not rejected it.
To get the positive, safe future that everyone in Renton deserves, we need a healthy change in Renton Council Position 2. Mary Clymer is ready to be that change. Please vote for Mary by August 5.
From left, me, my wife Cathy, Mary Clymer, and Former Mayor Denis Law at Renton’s Farmers Market
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Well said. It’s not just sufficient to tell everybody “I’m a liberal”. We need representatives who will be actively working to make Renton a better place for all of us.
Let’s cut the crap Little Randy. Carmen Rivera is just not here to stroke the egos of scared little white cis men who wilt at the sight of a powerful Latina refusing to play nice. Clymer hasn’t done a thing to help the LGBTQUIA+ community.
This tired backlash is about control. Carmen doesn’t smile for cameras or apologize for having a spine. That’s threatening only if you’re used to being coddled by performative politics and empty platitudes.
Carmen River shows up for homeless, queer youth, black trans womxn. The folks the pearl-clutchers forget exist. If calling that “toxic” helps fragile men sleep at night, sweet dreams. But the rest of us know: she’s not the problem. Your comfort is.
Real leadership doesn’t pander. It disrupts. Carmen’s doing exactly what she was elected to do. And she’s not going anywhere no matter how much you pretend to ‘care.’
When you say disrupting…
Do you mean groping a trans person at Settle Pride and getting kicked out?
Do you mean stalking someone at night and violently attacking them by trying to break into their car and getting charged with domestic violence in the third degree?
Do you mean being rejected from the SPD because she failed her psychological evaluation?
I think I’ll vote for Mary instead. Sanity is a virtue nowadays.
Sadly I think of Council Member Rivera as a “disrupter” of lives, because of the horrendous deadly car crashes she and others with her same ignorance of engineering safety brought upon our streets. Chase Jones probably thought Councilmember Rivera’s disruptions were great, enabling him to drive 112 miles per hour without fear of getting stopped by cops, right up until he killed four amazing people going home from a Renton school.
And it’s not just road safety CM Rivera ignores. It may not be long until another fire or similar catastrophe in the former Red Lion or Park Avenue building (both of which she has ignored as Public Safety chair) tragically takes people’s lives.
As a city leader she needs to focus on laws, safety codes, open public meetings, the legislative process, and public input– not social media memes and tiktok videos.
We don’t need anymore reckless experimental “disruption” that puts everybody’s life in danger.
Instead, we need a community leader who will help inspire the city to come together to make well-thought-out positive improvements where they are needed, and to maintain and celebrate those aspects of our city that are working well.
I’m afraid with her harassments, her bad record on the issues is going to go ignored.
Carmen is going to use her domestic violence as a distraction from keeping Renton from thinking about the core issues that hurt them. Camren’s persistent demands to defund and abolish the police should be front and center.
With the name calling, childish disruptive outbursts, claims of victimhood, and diversion tactics – all without achieving any solid legislative results – Carmen is just another Donald Trump, albeit with better hair. In fact, I strongly suspect Carmen is behind this post.
And it’s too bad because Carmen is a very accomplished person and cares deeply for her community. Unfortunately, her tactics are counterproductive to moving our city forward.
So the next time Carmen throws a tantrum, think of Donald Trump, and vote accordingly.
You tell them Gabe…sorry, “Flower_Tierra”.
A whole lot of nothing in this comment for a Councilmember who has accomplished ZERO in four years except alienate the people closest to her. Let’s look at her accomplishments over the last four years:
1. Asked for police support because she started a firestorm on twitter about something that had nothing to do with Renton.
2. Had a colleague ask human resources to mediate a dispute because Carmen doesn’t have the emotional maturity to know that you shouldn’t confront a colleague in an aggressive manner.
3. Cuss out the mayor in his office because his worldview doesn’t align with hers.
4. Because of her penchant for lying no staff member will meet with her 1 on 1 every meeting has another person in the room as a witness.
5. Made a downtown business owner cry because they didn’t support the raise the wage campaign.
But go ahead and keep telling us that identity politics is the reason why people don’t support her.
Flower-Tierra’s comment sounds remarkably like something Steven Cheung, Donald Trump’s communication director, would post. Like flower-tierra, Cheung likes to hurl insults as a sort of distraction from Trump’s dismal record.
Could this be Steven Cheung behind flower-tierra’s messages?
Carmen defeated Ramen!
For those of us committed to socialist values, it’s deeply frustrating to see individuals who have benefited from public systems or international solidarity turn against us, and then advocate policies that undermine those very principles.
We welcome diverse voices, but we expect solidarity, not betrayal of the values that build just and equitable societies.
Now the focus will be on Mary and we’ll beat her too.
The idea that newcomers have to prove their loyalty or always agree with us just because they came from somewhere else doesn’t sit right with me. It reminds me of the kind of thinking that pushes people out and makes them feel like they don’t belong. We don’t need to make people pass some kind of test just because of where they’re from.
Congratulations to Raman Mann for running a strong campaign and getting more than a quarter of the votes in a three-way race. He stepped up to offer his services to the residents of Renton, brought forth many good ideas and perspectives, and had a very solid finish for a first-time candidate.
This will now become an important and close race in the general election. The voter turnout will be about twice as high as the primary, so anything can happen. If the General Election voters have exactly the same preferences as the voters in the primary (which they probably won’t exactly), then Mary Clymer needs about 80 % of Raman Mann’s voters to win the General. Ms. Clymer and Mr. Mann got many dual endorsements, and Ms. Clymer will undoubtedly receive the lion’s share of his votes. I don’t foresee too many of Mr. Mann’s voters switching to Councilmember Rivera. For those that share my excitement for Mary Clymer’s candidacy, please contact her campaign and give her whatever support you are able. The following table shows the results of the election as of August 6.
Did you get the mailer from Carmen. She’s spent about $40,000 to tell everybody in Renton she’s for the police and that she’s normal. A lot of us know what’s going on, but there’s a huge swath of voters that don’t know any better.