Durkan Adds Two Black Women To Her Cabinet

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan recently announced the addition of two Black women – Pamela Banks and Tiffany Washington – to her cabinet in the coming weeks. The post Durkan Adds Two Black Women To Her Cabinet appeared first on The Seattle Medium.

Durkan Adds Two Black Women To Her Cabinet
Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan recently announced the additions of Tiffany Washington, left, and Pamela Banks, right, to her cabinet.

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan recently announced the addition of two Black women – Pamela Banks and Tiffany Washington – to her cabinet in the coming weeks.

Washington will replace Shefali Ranganathan as deputy mayor, who will be departing from the position in January. Washington, who currently serves as the Deputy Director of the Department of Education and Early Learning (DEEL), and, according to Durkan, has worked on some of the “city’s toughest challenges before and during the pandemic.”

“Tiffany has built a reputation as a tireless advocate for underserved communities across Washington state for more than two decades,” said Durkan. “At DEEL, she has worked on some of my key priorities including building more opportunity for our young people through Seattle Promise, child care, and closing the opportunity gap. Her passion for racial, economic, and educational justice can be traced back to her early work as a youth outreach worker in the Central District.”

Banks, the former President and CEO of Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle, will join the mayor’s cabinet in a newly created role as the Director of Recovery and Equitable Investment to lead the city’s long-term social and equitable economic recovery efforts.

“As we have seen in the past month, we are still in the grips of the pandemic with challenging times for our residents and small businesses,” said Durkan. “Our cabinet, city employees, and deputy mayors have been on the frontlines of solving these immensely challenging issues.  In addition to continuing to deliver on the essential roles of City government, this pandemic has called on City government to completely shift our focus to a new framework to address this unprecedented challenging time to include a key focus on crisis response, reopening, and recovery.”

“As we look to social and economic long-term recovery in 2021 and beyond, I also believed it was critical to hire a cabinet level position solely focused on a just and equitable recovery effort to work with our Deputy Mayors and myself,” added Durkan in a statement. “To lead the City’s recovery efforts, I have hired Pamela Banks as the Director of Recovery and Equitable Investment. Pamela is a highly respected and accomplished community leader who has worked in government, non-profits and the private sector.”

Banks is expected to start in her new role next week.  

The post Durkan Adds Two Black Women To Her Cabinet appeared first on The Seattle Medium.