Will the Stranger go into speed dating mode to interview all of the candidates?

A lightning round survey with a few twitter like blurbs might be a better way to go in the primary. Handle the candidates like a focus group.

Yakima is fighting tooth and nail against implementing a similar system. But that change is being forced upon them by the federal government, it's good to see Seattle at the forefront of what will probably be a positive change.

What's up with the condescension? I don't like this tack of "You probably think this is really boring because you're just some dumb citizen with a short attention span."

@4, agreed. That framing was total horse shit.

@5 but not surprising.

I mean really, all those words could have been analysis. What about the fact that nobody wants to run against Sally Bagshaw? Why has Mike O'Brien only raised 1200 bucks? Are all of those eleven West Seattle candidates are serious? Is anyone running for a citywide street, or could you just not figure out how to depict that on the map?

tl;dr

@4, Heidi has been in Seattle all of 4 months, which is no doubt responsible for her flakey approach. I hope she learns something about Seattle political history before again writing on the topic of city council elections.

What's to keep the "wealthy downtown interests" from funneling money into the campaigns of the candidates who are "beholden to wealthy downtown interests"? Nothing.

In the end we'll see if districts lead to a more accountable City Council. For now, all I know is that I used to be able to vote for all nine of my councilmembers. Now I can only vote for three, making six of them unaccountable to me!

District elections were the worst thing ever to happen to San Francisco politics, and Seattle will soon regret this decision. When all it takes to get on the city council is a small number of votes from one district, all sorts of unqualified people end up running the city -- like Chris Daly and Leland Yee for starters. SF's history predicts Seattle's; read it and weep.

I love the idea. San Francisco North.

"allowing a slate of NIMBY candidates to push the council to the right."

proving that Groover isn't the smart journalist we were led to believe she was, and instead just parrots the silly aphorisms of the neo-liberal crowd...

Holy shit. The Stranger was THE leader in pushing forward district elections and in fact I think their preferred city council candidate at that time (2008? 2010?) Grant Somethingorother had that as his main campaign plank.

Obviously the SLOG editors (if they exist) are outright incompetent to let this article go without at least acknowledging The Strangers critical role in creating this reality. And Groover, shame on you, this would have taken 10 minutes of research - you have a fucking degree in journalism. Burn that shit.

More candidates, cheaper campaigns, stale incumbents heading for the private sector, What's not to like about districts?

Now that we're in the age of internet, why do people always need money to run for office? Put your name on a ballot, put up blogspot or wordpress page, show your positions in writing, prove that you're literate on a page, and get a youtube channel that shows you in action. If you are able, post some noteworthy endorsements, your resume, etc.

None of this costs money, if you have time.

I'm perfectly willing to vote for people who aren't backed by the big money. Voters need to learn to research, make their decision, and move on. If the others want to spin their wheels for months upon months in campaigning, it has little effect on me, even an adverse impression. Especially when you see these careerists go into election after election, fully unchallenged ... sometimes no one even running ...

I look forward to reading and hearing fresh voices in local campaigns, i.e. where it supposedly all starts. If you're effective enough, maybe we can then send you on to Washington D.C. to really shake things up.

P.S. And don't forget the other social media channels - get on twitter and ... Facebook (I guess).

Fetish, you might want to practice what you preach. Grant Cogswelll ran in 2001 and Diatricts was not the ballot or the horizon.

@18 that's why I'm a rando commentor and not a journalist. Wow, 2001, time really flies. But District Elections were on the radar the….

The Republicans have consolidated their lock on the House by consolidating minorities into a few small districts. Great job, Seattle!