Meet Olympia City Council candidate Talauna Reed
Editor’s note: This is one in a series of interviews with candidates running for Olympia City Council. At the end of each interview, The Olympian asked every candidate two questions: what they pay in rent or mortgage, and if they could correctly state the median home sale price in Olympia, which is $430,000.
Talauna Reed remembers the exact day she decided to run for Olympia City Council.
It was June of 2020, shortly after the murder of George Floyd, and Reed, who was already a recognizable figure from her activism around the death of her aunt, Yvonne McDonald, was listening to Olympia Mayor Cheryl Selby speak.
“We need people of the color to not just be at the table, we need you at the head of the table,” Selby said at the time, during a press conference outside City Hall.
To Reed, it sounded like an invitation, but one that has since proved difficult to redeem.
Reed is now running for Olympia City Council Position 5 against Wendy Carlson and incumbent Lisa Parshley. The field will be winnowed in an Aug. 3 primary.
In one of Reed’s campaign videos, she is jogging when she gets an unexpected phone call directing her to come down to City Hall immediately. But when she gets there, the doors are locked. Confused, Reed then opens her phone and shows the video of Selby’s speech to a passerby (played by another candidate, Sarah DeStasio).
“Each one of them has said, we need people of color at the heads of the table, at the decision-making table,” Reed said in an interview with The Olympian. “In my opinion, they’re trying to pick what types of people of color they want there, ones that conform to their way of thinking. … Their idea is someone of color who is more passive, I guess, or who won’t go against them.”
That the doors of City Hall are locked when Reed gets there symbolizes the provocation she has spent the past several years refining as an activist and frequent public commenter at council meetings. It goes something like this: “You (the mayor, city leadership) say you want Black women in charge. Do you really mean it?”
If elected, Reed would be the second Black woman to serve on Olympia City Council. Cora Pinson, the first and only Black woman to serve, held her seat between 1987 and 1991, according to the city’s Heritage Commission.
Reed is running against incumbent Parshley, but said she doesn’t have anything against Parshley specifically, but chose the seat by process of elimination because she didn’t want to run against another person of color. Dontae Payne announced his candidacy for Renata Rollins’ Position 6 seat the same week Rollins said she wouldn’t run for re-election.
Reed, who works on staff at the Interfaith Works homeless shelter, and formerly at the Salvation Army shelter, said her interest in activism began with the death of McDonald.
In 2019, she closed the wig and beauty supply store she owned in Lacey and poured her energy into attending city council meetings. She organized a movement called Justice for Yvonne McDonald that has called for an independent investigation into her aunt’s death, which she believes was the result of “racist negligence.”
Around that time, she started an event during the holiday season called the Joy and Justice book giveaway. Reed credits her friendship with Crystal Chaplin — whose sons, Andre Thompson and Bryson Chaplin, were shot by Olympia Police Officer Ryan Donald — with motivating her activism.
Reed’s agitation around her aunt’s case and the movement she leads is rarely addressed at council meetings, even when allies speak at public comment. By Reed’s estimation, Rollins was the only council member to ever respond directly to her comments.
“I would speak, and they wouldn’t address me,” Reed said. “I was a part of SURJ (Showing Up for Racial Justice) and the idea I came up with was having white folks amplify the need for justice, because the city responded to my white peers when they would go speak to them.”
Reed said that the experience of being stonewalled in her efforts to get answers about her aunt’s case led to her belief that the current council were prioritizing their own careers over confronting the possibility that wrongdoing played a part in her aunt’s death.
Reed’s advocacy has put her at odds with city council members and city officials — especially current city manager Jay Burney, who she has criticized in public forums and who the organization BLAST (Black Leaders in Action and Solidarity in Thurston County) has called on to be fired.
“I go hard at the council because that’s their position,” Reed said. “They’re there for people, and they should be held to a higher standard than anybody. But when I seem so argh against them, it’s not because I hate the people. I don’t dislike the people, I dislike the system that is in place that for years has perpetuated this and drawn people that will not stand up for the public to those positions. Obviously they’re engulfed in the system and we just can’t get anybody in there to shake that whole culture and stand up for people.”
Since her campaign began, Reed has broadened her message, taking on issues such as homelessness, police reform, and economic inequality, earning her endorsements from the Thurston County Progressives and the Olympia chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America.
“I purposefully haven’t really talked a lot about Yvonne’s case during the campaign,” Reed said, “because I kind of want to, not that I’m not going to, I will, but I want folks to realize there’s not just one issue that I support.”
Housing is another issue where Reed’s agenda flows directly from her own experience.
In an interview, she described a lifetime of housing insecurity: having to move on short notice, receiving 20-day notices (which have since been banned statewide by the recent just-cause bill), and being charged screening fees, security deposits, and other fees she described as excessive when applying to apartments.
Those struggles are part of what qualifies her, Reed said.
“People want to see some type of results, and want to see some change,” Reed said. “It’s like, I’m here, and I want to be a part of that. I think that, just my background and my experience alone — I’ve been homeless, I’ve gone through treatment in different phases of my life, I’ve been the victim of domestic violence, I’ve gone through so many things that — am I the only voice, no — but I’m very comfortable sitting with marginalized people, vulnerable people.”
Reed’s big idea is to create a city housing authority, which would facilitate the construction of public and nonprofit-owned housing. She wants to pass stronger renter protection policies that would cap security deposits and move-in fees, and proposed a landlord registry for better oversight of predatory practices.
Reed has called for “meaningful cuts” to police spending and a freeze on hiring new officers. That money could be redirected to the Crisis Response Unit and a fund for victims of crimes, especially victims of police violence. On her website, she pledged to create a citizen oversight committee with power to trigger an investigation into police misconduct.
How much do you pay in rent/mortgage?
Reed’s rent is $1,180 per month.
What’s the median home price in Olympia?
“I think it’s around $430,000?”
This story was originally published June 7, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
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