2009 Endorsements

Just before the August primary, we told
you to vote for someone other than Seattle mayor Greg Nickels. We
suggested a new guy named Mike McGinn. He wound up coming in first, and
another new guy came in second. Mayor Nickels is out on his
ass—the top two vote-getters advance to the general
election—and now Seattle voters are speed-dating the dreamy Mike
McGinn and the idiotic Joe Mallahan. (And we’re sorry, Greg, we didn’t
know our own strength—honestly we’d rather have you to kick
around right now than that T-Mobile idiot.)

So the lushes and potheads called it. Our enemies—and they are
legion—claim it’s just dumb luck and mutter about stopped clocks.
Don’t believe ’em. The Stranger Election Control Board is now the
ultimate, divinely ordained, final, and eternally binding arbiter of
electoral success in this town. Don’t fuck with the lushes and
potheads.

With great power comes great responsibility, and so at
Stranger election headquarters we rolled a keg into the
conference room, amassed a pile of voter pamphlets, and called a slew
of meetings with the candidates who made it through the primary. Did
Seattle city attorney Tom Carr get through our interview without having
tuna thrown in his face? Did we stay awake for city council candidate
David Bloom’s pitch? Did Mallahan win us over? Read our endorsements,
heed our city-shaking commandments, and vote, bitches, vote.

No

First: Fuck Tim Eyman.

His latest initiative, like all the others he’s dangled in front of
voters in years past, is appealingly simple. Initiative 1033 would
essentially cap the amount of money that the state, county, and city
governments could collect from taxpayers and base this cap on how much
those governments collected the previous year (adjusted for inflation
and population growth). Any surplus would go toward reducing property
taxes.

Almost sounds reasonable, huh?

But this initiative would lock Washington into its current budget
forever—the worst budget the state has had in decades, due to the
recession—and prevent lawmakers from making necessary investments
in people and infrastructure when the economy improves. Picture this
lean year, when we had to lay off roughly 3,000 teachers and cut basic
health services for 40,000 people, as the best it’s ever going to get
from here on out. Or picture Colorado. Years ago, that state passed a
similar law that devastated its education and health-care funding, even
eliminating vaccines for kids. Or California, which is an economic
basket case thanks to initiatives like this one. We shouldn’t make the
same mistake those states did. Hundreds of groups—including
virtually every Democratic organization in Washington—oppose
I-1033. You should, too. Vote no.

And, one more time: Fuck Tim Eyman.

Approve

Earlier this year, the state legislature expanded the rights of a
same-sex registered domestic partnership to include all the
state-granted rights of marriage—except it’s not called
“marriage.”

And if you thought Tim Eyman was fucked, the guys behind Referendum
71 are gaping assholes. They gathered signatures to put the state’s
domestic-partnership bill on the ballot—thereby allowing
right-wing bigots to vote on the rights of committed same-sex partners.
R-71 backers insist that they’re protecting families and children. But
that’s a canard. This petition was the product of Gary Randall, a
carpetbagging Oregonian who makes money running hate-mongering
campaigns and, according to the Clackamas County recorder’s office,
owes $36,012 in unpaid federal back taxes. Also behind the measure is
Larry Stickney, a thrice-married Christian extremist who allegedly beat
his wife and refused to pay for his daughter’s college education until
a judge made him, according to records in Kitsap County Superior Court.
The two lied every step of the way to get this on the ballot, claiming
in television ads and on the petition that the measure was the same as
gay marriage and that “public schools K–12 will be forced to
teach that same-sex marriage and homosexuality are normal.” None of
that’s true. Neither is their claim that this is about family: Stickney
and Randall are deceptive bigotry-mongers.

But now it’s on the ballot. A vote to approve R-71 is a vote to
uphold the domestic-­partnership bill. If passed, it gives the
state’s 6,000 registered couples the right to take leave from work to
care for a critically ill partner, the right for public-sector
employees to share pension benefits with their partners, and dozens of
other rights that straight couples enjoy—and all committed
partners deserve.

Vote to approve Referendum 71.

Mike McGinn

Seriously, we couldn’t fit enough words into this tiny space to
fully explain how much we lurv Mike McGinn. But never fear! There are
about 1,000 words over here that you should check out. It’s the
second installment in our award-winning, million-part series, The Case
for Mike McGinn. Read our case for McGinn. Admire the portraits of him
we’re commissioning by local artists. Buy the commemorative plate. Vote
for McGinn.

Yes on All of ‘Em

What fuckwit wrote the King County Charter anyway? The thing was so
poorly drafted that voters have to approve an assload of amendments
every goddamn November. Was it written in Tlingit and mistranslated by
a room full of retards—oh, sorry. That’s rude. Let’s try this
instead: Was the thing written in Tlingit and translated by a room full
of “research fellows” at the Discovery Institute?

Okay, King County, we read all four of your stupid amendments, and
the only one we care about is No. 4. It would protect 156,000 acres of
natural open space that the county owns—including Cougar
Mountain, southeast of Bellevue—and set a high threshold for
changing the status of these “high conservation value” properties. If
the county wants to sell any of these properties in the future, or
change how they’re used, it will require seven votes on the county
council and public hearings. Good idea, since there will no
doubt be pressure to develop some of these lands as the county
population grows. Approve!

As for the others… Amendment No. 1 deletes references in the
charter to sections that no longer exist. Approve—why do we have
to vote on crap like this? Amendment No. 2 removes requirements for
outdated budget procedures. Approve—but who writes budget
procedures into county charters anyway? And Amendment No. 3
requires the county council to confirm appointees to the commission
that writes charter amendments—you know, all those ‘tards from
the Discovery Institute. Approve!

Dow Constantine

Dow Constantine’s opponent, Susan Hutchison, is a political
lightweight, a partisan extremist, a shitty fit for the most liberal
county in the state, and a blow-dried, brain-dead, lying, hypocritical,
and cowardly piece of shit. Oh, and she’s a closet Republican, too. You
have to be a self-defeating idiot—or a right-wing douchebag,
which is basically the same thing—to want her as county
executive.

Hutchison is a fan of George W. Bush, Mike Huckabee, Dino Rossi, and
Dave Reichert. She also hates county government more than
anyone—or, at least, that’s her “populist” platform—and in
pursuit of the votes of rural guv’mint bashers, she’s been wandering
around the region sounding like a Northwest version of Grover “Cut
government down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub”
Norquist.

Dow Constantine is on the King County Council, has worked in the
state legislature, and has been calling Hutchison out on her deceptive
bullshit ever since she jumped into this “nonpartisan” race (which is
only a nonpartisan race because Hutchison helped pay for a campaign to
make it so, allowing her to run as a stealth Republican). Sure, King
County has problems—budgeting problems, parks problems, and yes,
we know, terrible, awful, no-good dog-catching problems—but
Constantine has been in the trenches working to fix those problems and
will be in a better position to do so as county executive. He’s the one
you want in charge of the county’s forests and wetlands, its
controversial needle-exchange program, and its reproductive-health
services.

Vote for Dow. And when you do, consider the broader service you’ll
be doing for the country. Susan Hutchison, whose wide name recognition
comes from her years as a local TV-news anchor, is basically Sarah
Palin (minus the political experience). Only you can help prevent
another Sarah Palin.

Bob Rosenberger

Bob Rosenberger has worked as an appraiser for the King County
Assessor’s office since the Tlingit first sat down to draft the King
County Charter. He recently tried to retire, but then his boss
drunkenly plowed into another car while driving the wrong way up I-5
(the fool resigned and got eight months in the pokey). A chief deputy
at the assessor’s office was going to run to replace the fool, but was
hospitalized with a stroke and dropped out. Thankfully, Bob stepped out
of retirement and into the race, because all the other candidates seem
either inexperienced or crazy. (You’d think anyone running for KCA
would be a walking abacus, all calm and rational. Not so.) Plus,
Rosenberger vowed to fight Tim Eyman with everything he’s got. Vote
Rosenberger.

Rob Holland

We didn’t have to think too hard about endorsing Rob Holland.
Holland is progressive, intelligent, and charming, and his opponent,
David Doud, is a Republican and so stupid he could be a Discovery
Institute research fellow. Doud cochaired King County for
McCain—how’d that work out for you, Doud?—and says
he’s running because the job is “synergistic with my career.” Gee, it’s
your world, Doud. The rest of us just vote in it.

And we’re voting for Holland.

Um… A Greasy, Half-Empty Tub of Crisco?

Jesus Christ, this race gives us heartburn.

People hit the ceiling when we endorsed civic gadfly Tom Albro in
the primary, which we did because his opponent, union-man Max Vekich,
bombed in our interview. Vekich was vague, unprepared, and didn’t seem
to understand exactly why he was running or what he was running for.
Albro spoke eloquently about the need for transparency (because the
port is a scandal factory), protecting habitat, reducing fossil-fuel
consumption (with specifics about taxis, tugboats, and airplanes),
creating jobs, and saving public funds by overhauling the way the port
manages its massive real-estate holdings (nobody even knows how much
they’re really worth because, unbelievably, the port hasn’t appraised
them all).

In the last few weeks, the King County Citizens for Port Reform
campaign—which backs Holland and Vekich—kicked into
overdrive, trying to put a stink around Albro. And it’s working. The
Port Reform people are beating their gongs about Albro taking
significant contributions from folks and lobbyists who backed Pat
“Scandalpants” Davis and Mic “Scandalthong” Dinsmore. Albro also gave a
little money to Dino Rossi, and that sort of shit matters to us. And
Albro and David “King County for McCain” Doud share a campaign manager.
(Did we mention we really dislike Doud?)

We’re sticking with our original endorsement… sorta… but we
wouldn’t blame you if you voted for Vekich. Or a greasy, half-empty tub
of Crisco. We’ll be fucked either way.

Pete Holmes

We have it in for Seattle city attorney Tom Carr. This clown has
spent two terms in office harassing employees at bars and clubs (by
Carr’s own admission, his beloved Operation Sobering Thought, which
swept up more than 20 nightlife workers on picayune charges, ended up
undermining a far more important legislative effort to make Seattle
nightlife safer), aggressively prosecuting pot smokers long after
Seattle voters in 2003 made busting them the city’s “lowest
law-enforcement priority,” and throwing the book,
Mark-­Sidran-style, at everyone from a guy who makes racy balloon
figures at Seattle Center to a troubled man who shoplifted a $1.72 can
of tuna. (When we brought the tuna case up in our meeting with Carr, he
accused the SECB of “bad lawyering.” What the fuck, dude?)

Pete Holmes, Carr’s first serious opponent in eight years, is the
former chair of a city board designed to hold police officers
accountable. He’s also an experienced civil litigator and an advocate
of the idea that the city attorney should represent the people of
Seattle rather than representing some self-serving interpretation of
the city’s best interests (which is how Carr operates). Moreover, in a
clear break with Carr’s policies, Holmes has promised not to prosecute
one more person charged inside the Seattle city limits with simple
marijuana possession. To quote: “Under my tenure, I will not charge
another minor marijuana-­possession offense—either in
conjunction with other charges or standing alone. Period.”

Vote for Holmes.

Richard Conlin

Richard Conlin is the current city council president
and—wonder of wonders—pretty sane about what’s really the
most urgent council business. (Though he is remarkably proud of writing
the legislation to legalize pygmy goats.) The guy should have run for
mayor. He probably could have slipped through the primary, given how
disgusted voters were with Nickels, and if he’d done that he’d be the
man in the race with the most political experience. If Dan Savage had
followed through on his
run-for-mayor-then-resign-and-make-the-council-president-mayor plan,
Conlin might still have a shot. But that was then.

On to his good decisions! Conlin spearheaded last year’s parks levy,
supported a light-rail extension to Ballard, and stood up to the
bullying tactics of Greg Nickels. Conlin’s opponent, David Ginsberg, is
a former “solutions architect” at Washington Mutual—there’s a
record you can run on, huh?—with zero political experience and a
campaign platform that, as far as we can tell, consists mainly of vague
opposition to the construction of the downtown tunnel. (We prefer Mike
McGinn’s specific opposition to the downtown tunnel.) Ginsberg couldn’t
keep track of time well enough to show up as scheduled to the Stranger
Election Control Board’s endorsement interview. And did we mention that
he was a “solutions architect” for Washington Mutual?

And did you know that Conlin decriminalized the possession of
itty-bitty goats for personal use in Seattle? He did! Vote Conlin!

Sally Bagshaw

We wanted to love David Bloom, a man-of-the-cloth progressive with a
long history of advocating for the poor and the homeless. But while
Bloom’s bleeding heart is in the right place, his head is up his ass.
Bloom opposes streetcars (“they replace buses”), rejects light rail to
Ballard and West Seattle (“no extension of light rail”), and dislikes
any major investment in infrastructure (“if it comes down to a capital
project or people, I will invest in people”). He would, however, invest
in rebuilding the motherfucking viaduct! (Psst, David? People ride in streetcars, people take light rail, people rely on infrastructure for clean water, electricity, transportation,
etc.)

Bloom’s vision of Seattle is a city packed with buses spewing diesel
plumes over throngs of fat-and-happy homeless people. In interviews,
Bloom repeatedly said new construction should require a “one-for-one”
replacement every time less expensive housing is demolished. Asked
when—if ever—this idea has worked, Bloom cited one housing
development in Washington, D.C., and a neighborhood in Vancouver, BC.
But those aren’t citywide rules, which he wants for Seattle, and it
appears that widespread development would remain economically feasible
with the rule in place. He’s fine with increasing density, he says, but
in order to build, you have to do something economically unfeasible.
Uh-huh.

So we’re endorsing Sally Bagshaw, a former attorney in the civil
division of the King County prosecutor’s office. She isn’t the best,
either, frankly. When we asked what she has done to help the
downtrodden, Bagshaw told us about the time she helped victims of a
Metro bus accident. The moral of her tale: “Because they were so well
taken care of, they didn’t sue us.” Touching. But Bagshaw has a
résumé of effective work for the county, lives downtown,
and gets urban Seattle life. She’s also created legal clinics for
indigent women and helped create accommodations for homeless women at
the YMCA—so she’s done more for the downtrodden than she can
recall. In addition to being smart, practical, and progressive-ish, she
supports investing in rail transit and other municipal infrastructure
projects. She likes itty-bitty goats. Vote Bagshaw.

Nick Licata

Nick Licata joined the city council at a key turning point… in the
American Civil War. Yeah, yeah: He’s been in there a while. But he’s
still alert and effective. In his most recent term, Licata has
delivered on key issues of social and criminal justice.

In 2006, he sponsored and passed legislation to increase
transparency of police records—even though the police guild
challenged the legislation. Licata also created a group to study
whether the city could avoid building a new $200 million jail. The
group supported diverting low-level, nonviolent offenders into less
expensive, more effective treatment programs. Licata also fought to provide better public defense for indigent people in the
municipal court system while raising standards for judges.

When considered along with his entire career on the council—he
secured funding for pre-arrest diversion programs, led the first
council discussions on reforming drug policy, and called City Attorney
Tom Carr on his bullshit—Licata has proved to be the strongest
council member on issues of civil rights and smarter criminal justice,
and a stalwart ally for nightlife. In the last few years, he’s passed
bills to provide more workforce housing, increase standards for
pedestrian safety, and get more police on the street.

He is wrong about the viaduct, though, and he knows it. Because we
told him.

We’re less impressed with Jessie Israel, a King County Parks
employee, who has strong ties to conservative police and fire unions
and has constitutionally dubious proposals for dealing with
panhandling. Israel wouldn’t bring the innovation to handling
criminal-justice issues to the council that Licata has pushed for
years—and we don’t want the council to forget those issues. If
Israel wins, she’ll morph into Sue Donaldson faster than the American
Chemistry Council can buy an election. “Sue who?” you ask. Exactly, we
say.

Vote Licata.

Mike O’Brien

Mike O’Brien, who answers phone calls while riding his bike, has a
granite ass. If he doesn’t die in traffic before November 3, we want to
see his granite ass sitting on the city council. He’s an
environmentalist (former chair of the local chapter of the Sierra Club)
and a business wizard (got his MBA from the University of Washington).
O’Brien’s mix of idealism and realism in city planning is refreshing,
and we think his approaches to building a dense city and funding
transit represent the vision Seattle needs. But just as much as we love
O’Brien’s big brain and granite ass, we fear his opponent.

Robert Rosencrantz, a high-end real-estate broker and apartment
landlord, is disconcertingly conservative. Rosencrantz has favored new
roads and paving projects at the expense of building new transit, he
backs heavy-handed law-enforcement measures, and he prizes NIMBY
complaints over a vibrant nightlife. And on the issue of abortion,
Rosencrantz believes parents should be notified when a minor seeks an
abortion and he has refused to answer questions about abortion rights,
instead quoting Obama’s statement that we need to “honor the conscience
of those who disagree with abortion.” Yikes.

And, yes, yes, we know: The city council doesn’t handle abortion
issues. But city council seats—like heading up county
government—can launch someone into a political career that
eventually puts that person in a position where they are making decisions about women’s reproductive freedoms.

O’Brien is more progressive on almost every issue—on density,
pedestrian and bicycle improvements, and removing parking
requirements—than his opponent. He believes Seattle will become
more hospitable to residents and businesses by expanding transit
systems and making livable neighborhoods. We agree. Vote O’Brien.

Yes

We didn’t endorse David Bloom, but we support people! Up with
people! Especially poor people who don’t have homes! We want to get
them into homes built out of infrastructure using our tax dollars!
Because, hey, we’re not heartless!

It might seem like a terrible time—with this recession and
all—to approve a $145 million property-tax levy to fund
low-income housing. But we think now is the best time for it. A vote to
approve is really a vote to renew the housing levy passed in
2002. And today, many of the construction projects funded by that levy
are moving forward—creating construction jobs, getting people off
the street. This levy would maintain the same level of
affordable-housing production and assistance as the levy voters passed
in 2002, while increasing the median property taxes from $39 a year to
$65 a year for inflation and increased building costs. Most of the
money would build about 1,670 housing units for the lowest-wage earners
in Seattle, with other portions going to provide emergency rental
assistance and help for first-time home buyers. We’d be getting people
off the street, which saves money on emergency services, while keeping
workers near their jobs and creating new construction jobs. Vote
yes.

Beverly Harison Tonda

Oh, Bev Tonda, flaxen Cleopatra of Maple Valley, coy queen of the
Cedar River: How ardently, how loins-burstingly, we endorse thee. Woe
betide the foes of Tonda—wastrels and heathens and pederasts
all—when, wild of eye and foamy of mouth, army of loyal
she-beavers at her back, Tonda bursts forth from her watery den to
crush and sweep aside the enemy like a cleansing rain. In the name of
all that is sacred twixt heav’n and earth, vote for motherfucking Bev
Tonda. VOTE THE FUCKING SHIT OUT OF HER.

Kay Smith-Blum

We identified two clear front-runners in this race during the
primary, and they both made it through to the general: Mary Bass, the
“dissident” incumbent board member and a longtime advocate for Central
District residents, and Kay Smith-Blum, co-owner of a “European
specialty store” called Butch Blum and a longtime fundraiser for public
schools.

Both of them are batshit crazy.

Which is exactly as it should be: You have to be nuts to want to sit
on the school board, grind your teeth through its decision-making
processes, and believe that someday, if you can just pass one more
resolution, you’ll beat a bunch of intractable problems that are mostly
beyond your control anyway.

The question, then, is who is the best kind of crazy for this job,
and while in the past we’ve been impressed with how successfully
bonkers Bass can be, her bonkers hasn’t produced enough tangible
results. Plus, we were blown away this year by Smith-Blum’s new style
of nutso. As we wrote in our primary endorsement: “Smith-Blum is
holy-shit-she’s-probably-right-and-she’s-going-to-chew-my-face-off-if-I-disagree-with-her
crazy. And that fresh brand of crazy—plus Smith-Blum’s track
record of strong public-school advocacy—is just what this
position needs.”

Yes, we know, it’s since been revealed that Smith-Blum claimed a
double major in marketing and statistics from the University of Texas
when all she really had was a major in marketing and some statistics
courses under her belt. Um. Who gives a shit? And we rest our case.

Also, the way Smith-Blum reacted to the news—by using it as an
opportunity to remind voters that she took a lot of statistics classes
and has always been committed to “data-driven” leadership—was
pretty slick. Like we said, don’t fuck with Smith-Blum. Also: Vote for
her. (Full disclosure: Smith-Blum’s business advertises in The
Stranger. The SECB does not take advertising into consideration
when making endorsements. If we did, we’d be running a write-in
campaign for the Rad Dyke plumber for county executive and backing a
slate of nearly naked American Apparel models for city council.)

Betty Patu

Just like Smith-Blum, Betty Patu, a three-­decade veteran
teacher in Seattle public schools, stepped into a little bit of a
résumé scandal around the time of the primary election.
Patu had claimed a master’s degree in education from Antioch University
in Seattle when, in fact, she didn’t yet have one. Well, in late
September, Patu finished her master’s degree at Antioch and put the
scandal behind her (all while showing the children—think of the
children!—what you can achieve if your white lies involve a truth
that just hasn’t quite happened yet). Anyway, we still have love for
Patu. She’s a retired teacher from Rainier Beach High School, has that
rock-ribbed confidence that comes with toiling in the trenches for 30
years, and aims to represent Asian/Pacific Islanders and other minority
groups, all while—yes, this really happened—wrestling guns
away from students with her vocal chords.

Patu’s opponent, Wilson Chin, seems like a nice enough guy and has
been involved in public-school matters for some time. But not as long
as Betty Patu has. And when has he ever stopped a bullet with his
voice? Never. Vote for Betty Patu. Obviously.