Time on Council
Current term: January 1, 2022 to December 31, 2025
Position: 1
Time in office: 2022 to present
Contact
[email protected]
Boards and Committees
Background
“The vision of Burien that my parents had when we settled here as immigrants from Guadalajara Mexico in 1991—a community that is welcoming, diverse, and inclusive—is what I still see when I look around our town. It’s a community that opens its arms to all residents in so many different languages. It is a place that supports and loves its small local businesses. It is a place that has shown you can have the values of a small town, without sacrificing on policies that protect the most vulnerable in our communities.”
Hugo Garcia was born in Guadalajara, Mexico and moved with his family to the Pacific Northwest as an 8-year-old child in 1988. His father waited tables at a Mexican restaurant next to the Space Needle and Coliseum (Climate Pledge Arena today) and with that income alone, the family rented their first home in Burien in 1991 where his parents still live today. He attended Shorewood Elementary and is a proud graduate of the Highline School District. He worked in a small family-owned Mexican restaurant through high school and college and saw firsthand how critical small businesses are to communities. He and his brother and sister-in-law wanted to stay close to their parents and have made a duplex in North Burien their home for the last 15 years.
The fact that a family of five could be supported on his father’s income as a restaurant waiter and his mom’s part-time income as a high school cafeteria worker has shaped Garcia’s understanding of the importance of building community and family resilience. It also highlighted for him how difficult it is for working families to save enough money to buy a home to pass down to their children or send them to college. Hugo’s parents taught him the value of giving back since so many neighbors helped them feel welcome, so he has committed to being an active part of the Burien community in as many ways as he can. Hugo served on both Burien’s Planning and Business commission for the last 4 years and connects regularly with neighbors, Burien faith community and grassroots community groups.
He works for King County Local Services as an economic development program manager, drawing on his lived experience of having worked in community banking and small business financing both in private and nonprofit sector for the last 15 years. From missing middle housing and on the ground small business finance and technical assistance, he is here ready to serve Burien. He is also a huge Seattle sports fan as both Seahawks and Sounders Season ticket holder for over a decade and does Spanish language stadium public announcing for the Seattle Sounders and their minor league Defiance team.
Updated March 21, 2022