Remember how exciting this “voting”
business was last year? Those were the days, huh? We got to vote Barack
Fucking Hussein Goddamn Obama into the White House. We were making
history. Hey, any black lesbian Jews with scary middle names running
for mayor?
Nope.
What do we got instead? A closeted-Republican can of hair spray
outpolling her openly Democratic rivals in the King County executive
race. Two Port of Seattle races so boring that they ought to be
underwritten by Ambien. And the American Chemistry Council pouring $1.3
million into an effort to repeal a sensible city ordinance that would
require supermarkets to charge a small fee for the plastic bags that
strangle baby otters in Puget Sound and cause cancer in burlesque
dancers.
The bag fee will be decided on August 18. Meanwhile, the two leading
candidates in every other race—thanks to our “top two” primary
system—will move on to November’s general election. By voting in
the primary, you can help the best candidates in each race advance and
send the worst candidates packing. For example, in the county executive
race you can vote for a Democrat with the balls to call out the
Republican in the race. And for mayor, you can make sure that someone
who’s different than Greg Nickels—someone like Mike
McGinn—makes it through to the general election and save us from
having to choose between Nickels and Nickels-in-a-Dress in November.
Plus, two of the three city-council races on the primary ballot are up
in the air. So grab your ballot and a bottle—take a shot every
time you read the word “council”—and vote. This election may not
be historic, but your hangover will be.
King County Executive
When you’re going up against a stealth-
Republican like Susan
Hutchison—and, trust us, whichever Democrat gets through the
primary will be going up against her—you need to be willing to
call her what she is: a political lightweight and 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.
Dow Constantine, current King County Council chair and former state
legislator, had the balls to say just that. (Except that “piece of
shit” bit—that’s our thoughtful analysis.) It was politically
risky, fraught with the perils of taking on a well-liked former TV
personality and the dangers of going negative early, the kind of thing
that other politicians would have taken a pass on (and did—we’re
looking at you, Larry and Ross). Dow stepped up, took a risk, and
reminded us that he not only has great lefty politics—strong on
the environment, an ally of the local music and club scene, a leader on
transit—but the kind of daring, cunning, and grit required to
beat Hutchison in the November election and keep the county executive’s
chair in Democratic hands.
Which is important, because it’s really, truly,
fucking-frighteningly possible that this county—its protected
lands, its controversial needle-exchange program, its
reproductive-health services—could, after this election, fall
under the control of Hutchison, a woman who gave thousands of dollars
to anti-choice wacko Mike Huckabee, disparaged “evolutionists” this
year at the Governor’s Prayer Breakfast, served as a board member of
the right-wing think tank Discovery Institute, enthusiastically backed
George W. Bush, Dino Rossi, and Dave Reichert, and who has
zero—zero—relevant political experience.
And the shit that pours out Hutchison’s mouth about being a
nonpartisan running in a nonpartisan race for a nonpartisan position?
You know who helped pay to encourage voters to make it a nonpartisan
position last year? Hutchison. Her strategy all along was to hide her
true political colors from the voters. It’s a plan she’s been working
on for a long time, and one that could work. We need an authentic
liberal with a taste for the jugular to take Hutchison out and then
steer the county out of its budget crises and other myriad problems.
That’s Dow Constantine.
King County Council
Position 9
Bev Tonda is a pink-sweatered ray of strawberry sunshine. Bev Tonda
can take a nothing day and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile. Every
time Bev Tonda claps her hands, a fairy punches a rapist in the tit.
Bev Tonda is a self-described “Democratic-leaning Republican” who lives
in a log cabin she built with her own teeth on the banks of the Cedar
River and occasionally says the craziest thing ever (“I was
raised Christian, I’m converting to Judaism, and I hang out with
Muslims!!!”). There was no chance the SECB wasn’t going to endorse Bev
Tonda—her opponents are Reagan Dunn, the shriveled weasel who
fell out of Jennifer Dunn, and something called a Mark Greene—but
we really fell in love with her after her hour-long endorsement
meeting, when she e-mailed to let us know that she didn’t fucking want
our endorsement: “I do feel compelled to say that I was not looking for
an endorsement from The Stranger when I came to interview on my
lunch hour. The part-time unpaid intern billed the appointment as an
interview.” Vote for Bev Tonda. Vote the FUCKING SHIT out of her!
Court of Appeals Judge
Position 3
Anne Ellington is the incumbent in this race, and everyone in the
world loves her. Except Robert D. Kelly! He specializes in
personal-injury claims, has a website better suited to a mortician than
a candidate for the appeals court, and thinks he can do a better job.
No one in the hard-nosed business of ranking judicial candidates seems
to agree, and neither do we. (There’s no quid pro quo here, Ms.
Ellington, but should anyone from the SECB ever come before you because
some crooked cop planted dope on a straight-edge Stranger staffer or our publisher finally got arrested for sexting while
driving—just remember your friends at The Stranger,
okay?)
Port Commissioner
Position 3
Port Commissioner
Position 4
You don’t have to read our endorsements in Port of Seattle races.
Seriously. The only thing duller than port races is the Seattle
Channel. (And the only thing duller than the Seattle Channel is
Seattle school-district races.) Do yourself a favor and skip ahead to
our endorsement for mayor, which comes next because that’s the order of
the races on the ballot, which is insane. Interesting races should be
at the top. Anyway…
The port runs the waterfront and Sea-Tac Airport, has a $604 million
annual budget, and oversees 4,000 acres in real estate (nobody knows
how much it’s worth—the port hasn’t appraised it all). It’s
also losing business (down 8 percent in 2009) and is best known for
scandals and lousy performance in state audits. Some hero needs to
march into the port and straighten shit out. But none of this year’s
candidates seems equipped for the job. Some candidates are ideologues,
some are egoists, some are too cozy with commercial real estate, and at
least one candidate is all three. (That’s David Doud, a “top broker” at
Wallace Properties who said he was running because the job “is
synergistic with my career.” However you vote, don’t vote Doud.)
We’re going with Rob Holland (lefty, uniony, big on jobs) and Tom
Albro (an entrepreneur who runs the company that operates the
monorail). Yes, Albro has some Republicans in his closet, but he’s also
got the support of Senator Ed Murray, who met Albro and grilled him
about “choice, the environment, and gay and lesbian issues.” During our
endorsement interview, Albro’s opponent Max Vekich was short on
specifics, long on rhetoric, and occasionally incomprehensible. The
port needs a business-minded person who isn’t evil. That’s Tom Albro.
(We hope.) The port also needs a reliably lefty, union vote. That’s Rob
Holland. (Ditto.)
Mayor
Mayor Greg Nickels has accomplished some things—did you know
that he built light rail with his bare hands? And he has the right idea
about cities—he’s pro-density, for instance. But he has been the
mayor for eight years, he’s not a popular guy, he’s waged a clumsy war
on bars and clubs, and it snowed a lot right before Christmas. Luckily,
there is one person running against Nickels who—unlike all the
rest—offers a real choice and who can prevent it from
snowing in Seattle ever again.
That’s Mike McGinn.
McGinn is the only candidate who disagrees with Nickels about one
very big issue: blowing billions (more than $900 million from the city)
on a tunnel to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct, the aerial freeway on
the waterfront. McGinn points out that we don’t need the tunnel, that
it’s a car-only infrastructure
project with a price tag equal to
every property levy we’re paying now combined, and that Seattle
taxpayers are going to be on the hook for all cost overruns. With the
city in distress in so many other ways (schools, gang violence,
economic development), we can’t afford a tunnel that we don’t need.
Simultaneously, McGinn is the only candidate for mayor who calls
bullshit on nonissues (like everyone’s sudden opposition to the head
tax, which requires businesses to pay $25 for each employee who usually
drives solo to work and helps pay for transportation projects—he
thinks it should stand). He’s got the strongest environmental record.
He’s got the strongest civic résumé among the candidates
who’ve never held elected office (founded the nonprofit Seattle Great
City Initiative, chaired the local Sierra Club). He used to practice
business and employment law. He rides his bike everywhere. He’s
mayor-shaped.
And he’s opposed Mayor Nickels on issues before and won. In 2007, at
the Sierra Club, he led the fight against the ballot initiative that
bundled light-rail funding with highway funding. McGinn argued that if
voters rejected the roads-heavy measure, the light-rail component would
come back to the ballot the next year and win. Nickels argued that this
was our only chance to expand light rail. McGinn was right and Nickels
was wrong: Even though the measure had been polling at 57 percent, the
campaign against it worked, and the following year, funding for just
light rail was on the ballot and passed by a wide margin. And in 2008,
while running Great City, McGinn chaired the campaign for the
parks-improvement levy, which won at the polls, despite the opposition
of Nickels. Unlike Greg Nickels, Jan Drago, James Donaldson, and Joe
Mallahan—the other major contenders in the primary
race—McGinn has no campaign manager and no staff outside of a
scheduler who works five hours a week. His is a volunteer-run
organization, grassroots, of the people. It is the opposite of the
Nickels campaign and the Nickels machine. For the good of the mayor’s
race, for the good of the city, McGinn is the man to challenge Nickels
in the general election.
City Council Position 4
After 16 long years on the city council, Jan Drago is vacating this
seat to run for mayor. Drago has been among the more
conservative—and erratic—voices at City Hall. She’s pushed
for onerous nightlife regulations and a smaller levy to build
affordable housing. Drago also recently said she wants to “establish
and enforce a norm for acceptable and safe behavior on the streets,”
which sounds like the last thing that happens before anti-democracy
tanks come rolling through Westlake Park. If a progressive candidate
takes her place, it will tip the council’s balance leftward.
But the current front-runner and top fundraiser in the race, Sally
Bagshaw, hasn’t demonstrated that she’s more progressive than Drago.
Bagshaw, who worked as an attorney and prosecutor for King County for
over a decade, has contributed to only the council’s more conservative
members in election years. And Bagshaw’s campaign-contribution filing
reports read like a roster of Rainier Club members—and those
people have enough friends at City Hall already. We wanted to like
David Bloom, a cofounder of the Seattle Displacement Coalition, but his
anti-density activism made us fear he would be an advocate against
sensible development. Bloom also told the SECB that he wants to rebuild
or retrofit the viaduct, which is a mind-fuckingly atrocious idea.
Bagshaw and Bloom are not young. And frankly, city council meetings
already look like an AARP bridge club. The city council lost its
younger members, Judy Nicastro and Heidi Wills, back in 2003, and it’s
time for some fresh blood on the council. So we’re throwing our ink
behind Dorsol Plants, a two-tour Iraq war veteran who turns 25 this
month. He’s assembled a battalion of supporters and speaks passionately
about the issues facing the city. He has dozens of smart ideas,
including rewriting neighborhood plans to accommodate more density,
especially around light-rail stations, and supporting targeted human
services to help people avoid losing their homes to foreclosure. Plants
wants to expand alternatives to incarceration for low-level drug
offenders and grow the youth-violence-prevention initiative.
Plants lacks the experience of his competitors, but in the few
months since launching his campaign, he’s demonstrated organizing
skills and the nimble mind required by a city council member. Plants is
also a renter—an unrepresented group on the council—and he
doesn’t own a car, like a lot of people in this city. We think Plants
will be a reliably progressive vote on the council.
City Council Position 6
Did we say we wanted to see fresh blood on the council? We do. We’ve
gushed about Nick Licata before (see almost every issue between 1997
and 2007), but, as he runs for a fourth term, we figured his best years
in politics might be behind him. Licata, a devout lefty with some
latent anti-growth/NIMBY tendencies, has been on the lonely end of
8–1 votes lately, and, in 2002, he fought light rail. So we
listened closely to his primary challenger, Jessie Israel, an employee
of King County Parks and Recreation who says Licata is “bogging things
down” and promised to make Seattle “more livable.”
But some of what we heard from Israel stinks. For example, she said
she was voting for mayoral candidate Joe Mallahan, a dud when we met
him, who props his campaign on a thin résumé with
T-Mobile. Israel also supported repealing the bag fee, siding with the
American Chemistry Council, which was bankrolling the pro-pollution
campaign to the tune of $1 million at the time of our meeting. (Israel
reversed her position when the plastic lobby threw another $300,000
into the campaign, calling it a “game changer”—please note,
wealthy corporate interests, that you’ll get a pass from Jessie on the
first $1 million, but then watch out!) Israel talks about change, but
it’s not clear what revolutionary policies she would muscle through the
council.
Licata, on the other hand, has consistently pushed underdog
legislation that the SECB supports. In his most recent term, Licata
created a group to study whether the city could avoid building a new
$200 million jail. The group appears to support 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 career on the
council—where 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. He’s also fought against nightlife
restrictions. In addition, 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.
The issues we disagree with Licata about—sometimes favoring a
less dense city, his idiotic stance on retrofitting the
viaduct—are votes he doesn’t have a shot of winning. But no other
city council member has carried the torches that Licata has carried for
12 years, and neither candidate running against Licata this time
appears ready to pick them up. Licata still has fire in his belly, and
we want to see more.
City Council Position 8
Mike O’Brien, who rode his bike to meet the SECB, has a great ass.
But that’s not the only reason we want to see him on the council. He’s
simultaneously a granola-munching environmentalist (former chair of the
local chapter of the Sierra Club) and a business wizard (got his MBA
from the University of Washington). The combination of idealism and
realism is refreshing, and we think O’Brien’s approaches to increasing
density and transportation represent the sort of forward thinking
Seattle needs more of.
Others in the race didn’t impress us as much. David Miller, while a
strong nightlife advocate, concerned the SECB because his
anti-development fights as past president of the Maple Leaf Community
Council indicated a tendency to support irrational NIMBYs over sensible
city planning. In his meeting with the SECB, Miller was reluctant to
support towers on the Yesler Terrace redevelopment, the best way to
produce more low-income housing in the middle of the city, and was
reticent to endorse infill development outside of prescribed urban
villages. Others in this crowded race ranged from scary (Robert
Rosencrantz wants to “give neighborhoods more authority” over
nightlife) to bland (Jordan Royer loves Greg Nickels and doesn’t
present any particularly interesting ideas).
On the other had, O’Brien supports removing parking requirements
from housing developments, allowing developers to build small
apartments and condos to reduce housing costs, and maintaining the head
tax for pedestrian and bicycle improvements. He believes Seattle must
build much more housing within city limits to combat suburban
sprawl—to reduce the region’s carbon footprint and bring down
housing prices—and we wholeheartedly agree.
Referendum 1 (Bag Fee)
(uphold the disposable-bag fee)
This was a tough one, as both sides made excellent points. On the
one hand, environmentalists who know about things like “science” and
“dead sea mammals” have researched the issue thoroughly and say that
the 20-cent fee on disposable shopping bags—the proceeds of which
go partially to the stores and partially to fund recycling
programs—would help decrease the number of plastic bags currently
piling up in landfills, or being downcycled to shittier plastic bags
and then piling up in landfills, and, eventually, slowly
disintegrating in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch until they resemble
tiny, delicious plankton particles that fish mistake for food but are
actually POISON.
On the other hand, plastic-bag companies want more money!
Waaaaaaaah!!! Do you want to see plastic-bag companies and chemical
corporations cry? ON THEIR BIRTHDAY!?
Despite compelling arguments from the staggeringly disingenuous
anti-bag-fee spokesman, whose organization, the Coalition to Stop the
Seattle Bag Tax, has raised an absurd million-plus dollars from
chemical companies and trade associations like the American Chemistry
Council (but “one guy in Ballard gave $25!” he told us), we decided to
go ahead and endorse a “YES, FUCKING OBVIOUSLY” vote on upholding the
bag fee. Because 20 cents is approximately the same as zero cents if
you remember to bring a reusable bag to the store anyway, which people
who don’t want to pay the fee will do, and we’d like to continue having
oceans, thanks.
Seattle School Board
District 5
This race pits incumbent Mary Bass, the dissident board member who
fought against the school-closure plan and a longtime advocate for the
needs of Central District families, against several challengers who say
Bass has become too dissident—and ineffectual—for her
district’s good. While we’ve supported Bass in the past, her
challengers are right. Bass lost the school-closure fight, which was a
familiar experience for her—in the right, but without enough
votes from fellow board members to win. Enter Kay Smith-Blum, co-owner
of the “European specialty store” Butch Blum, longtime
do-gooder-about-schools (creating and raising hundreds of thousands of
dollars for public-school “annual funds,” for example). Smith-Blum is
exactly as crazy as you’d expect for someone who really, really wants
to dive into endless collective decision-making about chronic,
incredibly knotty public-school problems.
A person has to be crazy—or Cheryl Chow—to want to serve
on the school board. But while Bass is ha-ha-wince-whatever crazy,
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 mind for
spreadsheets and track record of strong public-school advocacy—is
just what this position needs.
Full disclosure: Smith-Blum owns a business that advertises in
The Stranger. The SECB does not take advertising into
consideration when making endorsements. If we did, we’d have to endorse
a lot of local she-male escorts.
Seattle School Board
District 7
This race came down to two qualified candidates: Betty Patu, a
three-decade veteran teacher in Seattle schools, and Charlie Mas,
wonkiest wonk of all school-district wonky-wonks. Mas, who maintains a
creepily obsessive school-board blog, is clearly well-versed and
interested in the überboring intricacies of school-board
bureaucracy. But Patu—currently a teacher at Rainier
Beach—has that rock-solid, unflappable gravitas that comes with
sitting behind a public-high-school desk for 30 years, as well as a
concrete understanding of what works and what’s bullshit in Seattle
Public Schools politics, and a commitment to underrepresented
minorities like Asian/Pacific Islanders. Best of all, she’s
hard-fucking-core. In her endorsement meeting, Patu—in the
context of an anecdote about personally connecting with
students—told the SECB that she once talked down a former student
who was holding another student at gunpoint. “Give me that gun,” she
barked, barely blinking. Betty Patu, we will literally do anything you
say. Just please don’t cut us. 
Albro is only 1 degree removed from Pat Davis and the rest of the port insiders. The Stranger has made an avoidable mistake endorsing Albro.
As another commenter put last week, check this out from the group Port Reform (http://www.portreform.org):
“A leaked email reveals that Port Commission candidates Tom Albro and David Doud, who share a campaign manager, are appealing for help and funding from a large group of anti-environmental interests, real estate developers, and cronies of former Port CEO Mic Dinsmore.”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/DjBcx
Albro’s supporters include:
George (Skip) W. Rowley, Chairman of the Board of Rowley Properties and a real estate developer. He funded Pat Davis’ campaign and the Citizens for Healthy Economy PAC in 2007.
Randy Pepple, Republican strategist and chief of staff for Rob McKenna.
James Blackmore of General Steamship and Cruise Terminals of America, which has a contract to operate the Port of Seattle’s cruise ship terminals at Pier 66 and Pier 91. Blackmore was criticized for taking Mic Dinsmore on perks like fishing trips. He is on the board of the Port-owned World Trade Center Seattle.
Jim Dwyer, former Port of Seattle CEO. He is now President and CEO of the insurance company Delta Dental and was accused of helping Mic Dinsmore influence port elections in 2007.
Bob Wallace of Wallace Properties, a commercial real estate developer, and source of the Meydenbauer Center controversy at the Port during Dinsmore’s tenure. He came under fire in 2005, when he was treasurer of “Citizens for a Healthy Economy” an independent expenditure committee to shield port commissioner Pat Davis. He led the fight for the 3rd runway, dismissing community concerns about noise and pollution. Wallace is port candidate David Doud’s boss at Wallace Properties.
James Eddy Warjone, CEO of Port Blakely Forestry the second largest timber owner in WA and owner of Pacific Lumber and Shipping, a forest products export firm. He is also a real estate developer and former chair of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce. He helped the Port of Seattle come up with a response to the State’s scathing audit of the Port’s practices.
Mark Knudsen of SSA-Carrix, the country’s largest port terminal operator which controls 3 of the 4 cargo terminals at the Port of Seattle. He is a former senior staffer for Dinsmore. SSA-Carrix is controlled by Goldman-Sachs.
J. Tayloe Washburn, attorney for Foster Pepper. He is former chair of the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce and land use attorney. He is the lead advocate for the deep bore tunnel. He helped the Port of Seattle come up with a response to the State’s scathing audit of the Port’s practices.
and more…
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/DjBcx
McGinn is such a good choice, I could squeal like a little girl! And those sad, smart, sexy eyes…what is it about black and white that makes the familiar exotic?
Another round of good endorsements.
Port Commission races are a dull and dreary topic, but you’ve culled the best of the bunch. I worked with Tom Albro when he was board chair of The Municipal League around 2000-2002. The League was about to die after 90+ years and Albro really stepped up save an independent voice for good government in our region. He restarted the League’s oversight of local government activities, helping to instigate a major investigation into City Light that led to some major shakeups there. If Albro brings the same focus to cleaning up the Port, it can only be an improvement.
I’ve been around long enough to remember when the Seattle Weekly was the best port watchdog in town.
Too bad the Stranger is too young to remember that Albro-backer Ed Murray, who is great on lots of other issues, faced ethical questions for working on contract for Mic Dinsmore and the Port of Seattle in 2006.
Seattle Weekly: Ed Murray’s Port Job
The state House transportation chair wanted to consult for the Port of Seattle, so the Port found work for him.
http://tiny.cc/T80CN
According to emails obtained by the Seattle Weekly, Murray had SSA’s Hemingway get him a contract from Dinsmore. http://tiny.cc/T80CN
Who was Pat Davis’ big supporter? Hemingway.
Who was Ed Murray’s big supporter? Hemingway.
Who is one of Albro’s biggest supporters? The Hemingway family.
The Stranger just got played.
Good endorsements, but I’m still voting Jessie Israel over Nick Licata. I think you are giving Licata way too much credit because he is an incumbent — Jessie Israel is more progressive on density, public safety, education, the environment, and transit.
Yes, she changed her mind on supporting the plastic bag tax, but as she explained, it’s because she originally wanted a ban on plastic bags — not because she supports free plastic bags like the chemistry council. Would you criticize Licata if he flip-flopped on wanting to rebuild the viaduct?
If you want specifics about what progressive policies Jessie Israel supports, she lists literally dozens of specifics at super-progressive Friends of Seattle’s thorough endorsement page (with video):
http://www.friendsofseattle.org/2009-vot…
Nick Licata’s non-endorsement page for comparison:
http://www.friendsofseattle.org/2009-vot…
Also, like you said, the city council is fairly geriatric, and will also be 78% male if Israel (and conservative Bagshaw) lose.
(I’m not involved with any campaign, or Friends of Seattle, in the slightest.)
Forgive me for sounding 1,000 years old, but the language in these endorsements is terrible. (Fuck! Shit! Fuck! Shit!)
It just doesn’t sound smart.
@6: Sounds like a personal problem.
I’m still conflicted about Albro/Vekich. I wish the endorsement had said a little bit more specifically about the chioce.
Does anyone on your election board have children in Seattle Public Schools? I do and don’t find the school board elections even a little bit boring. I also read that “creepy” blog that actually covers education issues, unlike most other sources in town.
The only thing worth reading in the Stranger’s Port endorsements is the first paragraph urging readers to ignore them.
Its clear that you really don’t get how important the Port of Seattle is. Even I know that the the Port creates thousands of jobs. Without the Port of Seattle, we would be Olympia.
When an agency this important is as fucked up as the Port of Seattle, one would expect the Stranger to take this race a little more seriously.
Maybe next time the Stranger can get its shit together, get off its ass, and give this race (and voters) the respect they deserve.
I’m sorry but when did Mike McGinn get so hot?! I am super happy someone is throwing down over that tunnel also.
@7. I have the same problem. Though I’ve suspected since the picks were announced that Albro just fell into the “token Republican” slot.
So you think Bloom’s idea of a viaduct retrofit is a “a mind-fuckingly atrocious idea”, but isn’t the tunnel worse? You endorsed O’Brien, McGinn, and Licata, all of whom want to revisit the tunnel. And then you endorse Plants, Bloom’s opponent, who thinks opposing the tunnel at this time is a bad idea.
What gives? Oh, right, Dorsol Plants is 24 years old. Which means he’s hip. Old people are so LAME! Plants has some ideas he thought up about human services on the campaign trail, while Bloom has been involved with human services advocacy for 30 years. He’d maybe like to see some affordable rental housing near transit hubs, while Bloom co-founded the displacement coalition. We can trust Plants to be a “reliably progressive vote” more than Bloom, who has been a community activist since before Plants was born.
The reason we can trust Plants is because he is young and untested. He’s also pretty nice and earnest. Those people last long in politics! They come in with fresh new ideas and become instant game changers! Like his idea that we should all support the tunnel now. And did I mention density? He favors that.
I don’t live in Seattle so I normally just skip over Slog’s election coverage, but I want to compliment whoever took that incredible photo. It makes me wish I could vote for the guy, and I don’t even know who he is. Yeah, I know, I’m totally superficial.
Carry on.
None of them are Jewish! I cant vote for any of them! they all suck!
Your school board endorsements clearly show that either you couldn’t care less about the schools, or you really didn’t take a minute to research or think about your endorsements.
Mary Bass is qualified and experienced. You insult our children by thinking that somebody else should have her position because she is “crazier”.
And Patu? Seriously? First of all, she’s a teaching assistant, not a teacher… there is a big difference. Second of all, it’s at one of the lowest-performing schools in the state. How does that qualify her to run anything except her mouth? I saw her at a candidate’s forum and she had nothing to say. Platitudes spilled from her mouth. Furthermore, I don’t see how a commitment to a very small minority of her own race would benefit the schools as a whole or the board.
Smarter endorsements: Bass or the dude with the glasses, and Charlie Mas
Three points of fact:
1. Charlie Mas is Jewish. Go ahead slade and vote for him.
2. The Board job does not include disarming students, but does include engaging and deciphering wonks.
3. Betty Patu has retired, so she is not “currently a teacher at Rainier Beach”.
Mostly good endorsements, even if you’re wrong on the port (Rob Holland is great in Posn 2, but you blew it on the other in Posn 4) and wrong on the I’m A Wimp Afraid To Ban Plastic Bags Tax On The Poor.
But hey, the bag tax will die cause people realize we need to get real and ban them anyway, wusses.
@8, I’m with you. Having been in the public school game for a few years now, I’ve become impressed with Charlie Mas and his blog. Betty may be sexy, but he’s where the action is.
Also, Kay Smith-Blum? Not impressed. It’s easy to raise a hundred thou if you go to the right school in Seattle. I’m more concerned with the Central Cluster schools (Stranger, do you know what a cluster is?), where one school barely scraped together $2,000 this year. The system is inequitable, and Kay’s from the plush side of the tracks.
That’s where Andre Helmstetter and Joanna Cullen, whom you’ve rendered invisible, come in. I love me some Mary Bass, but for results I’m voting Andre. He knows the District 5 issues.
It would be great if the Stranger would quit thinking that School Board is soooooo dull. Hey! They help run the school district that thousands of Seattle residents send their kids to. Yeah, your child’s education, so boring. You want to be smarty-pants and smart-ass about something, go for the mayoral candidates but with School Board, we’re talking about the future of this city.
As for your endorsements. Kay Smith-Blum is very energetic and smart but unfortunately, does not know this district well enough and certainly doesn’t show that she could work as one of seven. She won’t be out there on her own and part of the reason not to vote for Mary Bass is because she was too much on her own. Same thing would happen with Smith-Blum but for different reasons. Andre Helmstetter is the better, smarter choice (or even Joanna Cullen).
Charlie Mas isn’t the only person writing for Save Seattle Schools. I do,too and if we’re obsessive, again, it’s about educating the children who will run our country (and pay for our Social Security, remember that?). We’re the ones going to the meetings and actually reading the budgets and figuring out where your tax and levy dollars are going. So yeah, having someone like Charlie who knows this district inside and out just might be the ticket. Betty Patu for all her good works, isn’t going to be encountering gun-toting students at Board meetings (way too dull for that,remember?) and we need someone who understands governance and policy-making.
Both your School Board endorsements sound like you are more afraid of the candidates than endorsing them. The School Board isn’t really the place to kick ass and take names. It’s about defending and creating great public education.
What is this Goodspaceguy nonsense all about?
@12 No, O’brien and McGinn are in favor of the surface/transit option, not a tunnel of any kind.
Nick was sitting right next to me in the endorsement interview and said he was voting for Mallahan for Mayor.
While you have every right to make whatever endorsement you please, it seems odd to point to that as the example of your decision?
I’ve heard a lot of trashing of Albro, probably by the reform-the-port campaign, but I haven’t heard a damn thing that’s good about Vekich. Is an entrenched union man that much less corruptible than an entrenched corporate man? This isn’t the Pete Seegar and Mother Jones era anymore—we live in a post-Hoffa era. Many (most?) unions are dirty chiselers, just like the corporations they pretend to fight. It’s a Hobbesian world, folks: A war of all against all. The smart money isn’t on factions anymore. It’s on individuals. So Vekich is pro-labor and did his time in the compromising halls of power—so what?
Sounds like tired, lazy liberal defaults at work. Somebody, please, give me a specific reason to vote for Vekich.
I’m coming around just a little on McGinn, though I admit it’s on the same basis as the endorsement above: he’s totes the best of a bad lot.
And I still wonder whether he’s actually interested in doing all the mayor work, or if it’s more about gaining the power to do what he wants about the relatively few things that seem to capture his attention.
I mean, I’d definitely elect him as “tunnel-thwarter” if such a position existed – I know he’d work nonstop and be good at it.
And overall, a really informative endorsement explanation page. The editorial positions are a little bit “I know what I like and I like what I know,” but you guys do one hell of a lot on that shoestring you got.
And oo, @22, your comment’s last sentence is not a question? So it doesn’t get a question mark? For example, if you’re drafting council legislation containing only declarative sentences, don’t use any question marks? Or else the other councilmembers will make fun of you? Like this?
@5 — how on earth is Jessie Israel “more progressive” than Licata on public safety issues? I don’t agree with Licata on the viaduct and similar issues, but on public safety, one would be hard pressed to find any local elected official nationally who has been more progressive AND more effective. He is responsible for the existence of a model pre-arrest diversion effort for low-level drug offenders that may help turn around national drug enforcement policy. He led the successful effort to amend Seattle’s car impoundment ordinance so we stopped abducting and selling the vehicles of the poorest people in the city when they couldn’t pay minor traffic fines. If the jail gets re-thought, it will largely be because of Licata’s leadership.
@25: So, as it turns out, comments on a web site aren’t the same thing as City Council legislation.
Also, I heard that Marty Kaplan once wrote “lol” in a text message.
@23 I’ll tell you why I am supporting Vekich over Albro:
1. Vekich has oversight experience. He’s a former 4-term state legislator in Olympia who passed landmark environmental legislation and workers’ rights (specifically farm workers) legislation. He knows how to ask tough questions instead of just rubber-stamping port staff proposals and he’ll speak up when no one else will.
2. Vekich actually wants to improve the Port. When I’ve heard him speak he talks a lot about addressing the port’s impacts on the communities, environment, and jobs. He’s focused on making the Port a better economic engine and reducing its negative impacts — he is not using it as a political stepping stone like Tarelton and Albro.
3. Vekich is who he says he is. Maybe he got flustered in the Stranger interview? That’s understandable because those guys can be dicks.
Great comment on Court of Appeals! Great endorsement!
My experience with Mary Bass.
I came to know Mary Bass through the closure process, being a parent at TT Minor I was active in the process trying to keep TT Minor open. Up that point I had never thoughtfully considered who I was voting on the school board; it didn’t seem important. I was incredibly naïve about how schools are managed and still feel woefully uninformed about the ins and outs of how the district manages schools. I was raised in Department of Defense schools, this was never a conversation my parents had, there was one neighborhood on base and one school.
I will not be voting for Mary Bass and this is why.
I attended several meetings regarding school closures with Mary Bass at the table. At almost every meeting she implored people to “look at the numbers – look at the numbers”. A strange mantra to my ears because I thought, “you are the school board member, why aren’t you looking at the numbers? Why aren’t you telling us about the numbers and the arguments to be made against closing the schools in your district?”
At one of these meetings, I directly asked her about what proposals she thought would be palatable to other board members to keep schools opened, she said she didn’t think that way. The message to me was, in essence, I don’t play political games in trying to get things done and voting for what I think is right. And this is a very important point for me, while it is commendable to be on the side of the righteous and brave to stand alone while speaking your truth, it is nonetheless impossible to get things accomplished on a school board when you are one vote of seven, your no vote means nothing more than an “I told you so” which I am sure feels good for her but for the rest of us that suffer the inaction it is very unsatisfying. Nothing is accomplished when you are unwilling to offer a proposal that might not be all that you want but acknowledges that there are valid differences in what intelligent people believe is the right thing to do.
At the 11th hour, and I mean that literally, the eve before the final vote there was a meeting with Mary Bass. I was there until almost 11pm and people were still there when I left. The meeting was full of discussion about what the numbers said about what viable options could be proposed tomorrow. What was the point? What was she doing up to this point? I couldn’t figure it out. How was she going to get any board member to vote for her last minute proposal when they had no time to seriously consider it? I am willing to consider part of this is an issue of how governance is set up for the school board but it still doesn’t answer why she was doing what seemed to me an about face. Hadn’t she been begging us to look at the numbers? Why hadn’t she been? Hadn’t she said she was unwilling to negotiate alternate proposals? Wasn’t that what she was doing now?
Admittedly, this is my version of what happened, there were others at all those meetings who will have different impressions than mine, I am sure. Intelligent people can disagree. However, the impression I have been left with is that Mary Bass does not even walk her own talk. She at the final hour was looking at the numbers and calling other board members trying to work out some sort of proposal. And what did she finally end up with, a proposal to please everybody except those that could make a change, the voting members of the school board.
I know that it would take important time away from drinking, and whoring, and smugly not driving, and showing disdain, and doing drugs… but as “Seattle’s only newspaper” with a physical distribution throughout the “greater” Seattle area, I am once-again disappointed that the SECB doesn’t cover the region.
I blame you for Reichert.
(Well, the SECB and that Simms guy who appointed him sheriff.)
Yeah, I didn’t give a rat’s ass about the School Board until I had kids in the system either. Now it’s more important to me than the city council. Hasn’t the Stranger staff started aging and having kids? Dan Savage? Charles Mudede? I’m sure there are others. Are you letting the twenty-nothings and college interns handle the endorsements these days?
I love Mary Bass, bless her heart, but got really disheartened seeing her on the losing side of 6-1 and 5-2 votes along with Harium Martin-Morris. Harium should be on notice, as well if he can’t find an effective coalition on the board. I’m hoping that some fresh faces will provide that opportunity. I’m leaning towards Charlie Mas and Andre Helmstetter.
I don’t see how the board can sleep at night with the trail of broken promises and busted math curriculum they have following in their wake. Call Charlie an obsessive wonk, but I can tell he lies awake at night contemplating how to get SPS to be accountable for a change. That’s the kind of guy I want working for me.
Yeah, I didn’t give a rat’s ass about the School Board until I had kids in the system either. Now it’s more important to me than the city council. Hasn’t the Stranger staff started aging and having kids? Dan Savage? Charles Mudede? I’m sure there are others. Are you letting the twenty-nothings and college interns handle the endorsements these days?
I love Mary Bass, bless her heart, but got really disheartened seeing her on the losing side of 6-1 and 5-2 votes along with Harium Martin-Morris. Harium should be on notice, as well if he can’t find an effective coalition on the board. I’m hoping that some fresh faces will provide that opportunity. I’m leaning towards Charlie Mas and Andre Helmstetter.
I don’t see how the board can sleep at night with the trail of broken promises and busted math curriculum they have following in their wake. Call Charlie an obsessive wonk, but I can tell he lies awake at night contemplating how to get SPS to be accountable for a change. That’s the kind of guy I want working for me.
So… if we go back and kill the tunnel where do we stand? Surface option? Please don’t tell me you are seriously endorsing a new or repaired viaduct.
Can we please get a real waterfront that real people who really live here frequent? Does anyone believe that can happen with a highway running down the middle of it?
To say that the Seattle Port Commissioner’s Race is boring, and readers should simply go to the next race is silly! The port has the ability to create jobs (how many of you are unemployed), tax, and can make some of the largest changes that can impact our carbon imprint. I don’t know who wrote the article, but is sounds like they are not serious writers, and they don’t know much about how these elections impact our society.
All that being said, for the most part they selected the right candidates (outside of Albro). I don’t get it, Albro is a Rebublican who has washed down his political opinions on the environment, unions, and social issues; and he is in the pocket of real estate firms (the ones who caused the port corruption in the first place, and on a national scale, the industry that caused the economic meltdown).
Vote for OUR values and vote for:
Position 3: Rob
Position 4: Max
To say that the Seattle Port Commissioner’s Race is boring, and readers should simply go to the next race is silly! The port has the ability to create jobs (how many of you are unemployed), tax, and can make some of the largest changes that can impact our carbon imprint. I don’t know who wrote the article, but is sounds like they are not serious writers, and they don’t know much about how these elections impact our society.
All that being said, for the most part they selected the right candidates (outside of Albro). I don’t get it, Albro is a Rebublican who has washed down his political opinions on the environment, unions, and social issues; and he is in the pocket of real estate firms (the ones who caused the port corruption in the first place, and on a national scale, the industry that caused the economic meltdown).
Vote for OUR values and vote for:
Position 3: Rob
Position 4: Max
This is the first time in at least several years that the SECB and I have differed wildly. Seems that too many of you are slapping the label progressive on regressive ideas and people with recycled versions of environmentalism that are unsustainable. McGinn is a joke and Licata is an ass, the bag fee is a punitive measure pushing people away from reusable materials, and this city should go to a dictatorial format of govt, with Butch Nickels ruling with an iron gut.
This is the first time in at least several years that the SECB and I have differed wildly. Seems that too many of you are slapping the label progressive on regressive ideas and people with recycled versions of environmentalism that are unsustainable. McGinn is a joke and Licata is an ass, the bag fee is a punitive measure pushing people away from reusable materials, and this city should go to a dictatorial format of govt, with Butch Nickels ruling with an iron gut.
Dear “Serious,”
Mayhaps you have never read The Stranger before, but you should try looking through all of their tongue in cheek humor and get to the bottom line:
– Albro is competent, and hopefully not evil
– Vekich is also hopefully not evil, but “short on details, long on rhetoric, and at time incomprehensible.”
I’ll go for a Port Commissioner I can trust, but in the absence of that, I’ll go for one I can understand when he speaks.
I just got a robocall for Nickels from area code 224-which is in Chicago. Hey, Greg-still want to claim you’re a true Seattle person?
Dear “blahblahblah,”
Ok, I will look “through all of their tongue in cheek humor and get to the bottom line:”
First I would like to address their first assertion,
“Albro is competent, and hopefully not evil”
There are many Republicans that are competent, but I have a liberal philosphy that they don’t agree with. However competent a candidate is, if they don’t buy into my world view, they will not make decisions that I would agree with (eg. John McCain was competent, but not a Democrat).
There are Democracts that I don’t find all that competent, that I would have voted for in the general election because the alternative would have been a Republican (eg. Bill Richardson over McCain). Simply put, I have values that make me a Democrat and I will not be smoothe talked by a Republican to make me think he understands me.
As for the second assertions,
– Vekich is also hopefully not evil, but “short on details, long on rhetoric, and at time incomprehensible.”
He may not be all that articulate, and when that is the case, I give my fellow Democrats the benefit of the doubt and do some research about where they stand. From the content on his website, and the people at Portreform, it appears that his values are consistent with mine.
I just wonder how much research was put into the decision on Max.
As I previously stated, the Stranger did a wonderful job on the rest of the endorsement for all of the others positions, just not the Albro one!
Am I the only person who thinks that just about all of these names sound like they came from a comic book?
McGinn has the right stuff to beat Nickels. We just need to help him get thru the primary and its a done deal!
http://thegreennw.com/2009/08/seattles-s…
Imagine buying a bottle or can of pop, paying 20 cents and then NOT being able to return it for recycling to get your 20 cents back. What kind of system is that? A tax system plain and simple. So many loop holes. May I double bag your pack of gum?
Dear “Serious,”
Looks like we’re getting into a legit Internet relationship here. Ooh. La. La.
I get what you’re saying about the need for someone to line up with your philosophy and vision in order for you to vote for them. Heck, that’s why I vote for most people. However, on a purely as-stated-in-their-campagin-materials-and-at-official-forums stance, Vekuch and Albro don’t differ much, if at all. They are both running on the same basic platform:
1. We need jobs. The port can make jobs.
2. Pooping on the environment sucks, let’s make the port green.
3. Lying and corruption also suck – go accountability!
So at the end of the day, when there’s no difference in vision, what matters? I’d go with competence.
@34: Chicago has a surface highway running near the waterfront through most of the city, and a vibrant waterfront enjoyed by many people. It’s very possible — in the sense that it’s already been done.
nice
Accountability, Accountability….
The Central Administration of Seattle Schools speak about that and data driven decision-making while using only “Club Ed” politics and failing ideology in decision-making.
Charlie Mas is the only current candidate, who issues a real call for accountability and has enough command of the situation to bring it about. To bring change and convince a majority of 7 directors will require extensive knowledge and the ability to communicate; Mas brings both skills in abundance.
Consider Andre Helmstetter, Mas, and Martin-Morris as a potential thinking force that could generate enough thought to produce something other than another two-years of “Rubber Stamping”.
It occurs to me that the reporters from The Stranger who cover the local music scene and City Hall politics have a knowledge on those topics as deep and broad as Charlie Mas’ knowledge of school district issues. Does that mean that your reporters and your paper are “creepily obsessive”? Will that become your new slogan?
Absolutely agreed that Kay Smith Blum is a terrible person for the school board job.. Not only is she from the [very] plush side of the tracks but she’s known for her open disdain for those who don’t exist socio-economically at her level. How this fits in to a diversity in schools agenda is not encouraging.
She’s also well known to be a bully and treat people very poorly to get her own agenda met. Not a team player.