Last Thursday night, in a recommissioned elementary-school cafeteria near the southwestern terminus of the city, 10 city council candidates and a number of other hapless civil-service contenders (among them four unfortunate aspirants to the Burien City Council, who had to wait until after 10:00 p.m. to have their say) piled in behind a rickety card table and fielded feisty questions from the 34th District Democrats.
Maybe it was the free-flowing beer and wine, or maybe it was the overheated roomâwhich was, by the time the hall filled up at 7:30, hotter than the center of the sunâbut everyone present was acting a little punchy. (Even the rubber ficus, festooned with sagging strands of white Christmas lights, looked a little wilted.) Ăngel Bolaños, opposing Jan Drago, took it upon himself to inform the crowd that he was alive, noting sarcastically, "I've been at every single event and the media has not said one word about me. So thank you for seeing me." Richard Conlin opponent Paige Miller, meanwhile, defended the monorail, declaring, "Every transportation project in this region has had major problems. I've been involved with a lot of them."
Thursday's forum also marked the first joint appearance by Drago and former Greg Nickels spokesman Casey Corr, who took pains to disavow the mayor's agenda, with mixed results. Asked whether the council was right to divert Metro transit dollars to Nickels's one-mile trolley line in South Lake Union, Corr snapped: "The council was wrong. The mayor was wrong.... I agree with Nick" Licata, the most outspoken opponent of the mayor's plan.
Politically, Corr is in a bind. After four years crafting Nickels's agenda, he needs to distance himself from the mayor if he wants voters to take him seriously. He also needs to make a strong case against Drago, whose race he just jumped into early this week. But coming from a guy who one month ago (when the trolley was on the council's agenda) was unable to come up with a single issue on which he disagreed with Nickels, Corr's sudden turnabout seemed forced and unconvincing.
Strippergate, the 2003 scandal in which four council incumbents accepted donations from affiliates of Rick's strip club, which was back then seeking a controversial rezone, resurfaced last week, when five former Ethics and Elections commissioners called for public hearings into the scandal. According to campaign finance reports, one of the five, Timothy Burgess (along with his wife), has given contributions totaling $2,100 over the last three years to two opponents challenging Strippergate incumbents. One, David Della, defeated Heidi Wills in 2003. The other, Robert Rosencrantz, finished third against Judy Nicastro in 2003 and is now challenging Richard McIver. McIver is one of four incumbents who participated in secret meetings with Rick's associates, took money from affiliates of the strip club, and later voted for the controversial rezone at the center of the scandal, making him the candidate with the most to lose if Strippergate again becomes an issue. â
