You know what? Fuck this shit. Fuck this shit right in this shit's shitty fucking fuckhole. There's a revolution going on out there—a fucking revolution—and we've been stuck at our fucking desks cranking out fucking endorsements for fucking school-board races.

And this is an off-year election. Time we could've spent down at Westlake has instead been wasted on bullshit meetings with school-board candidates, reading the fine print on a Tim Eyman initiative, and wondering what the fuck to do about the incumbent protection racket that is our city council.

But in between covering the protests in Westlake Park, we made time to crank out our endorsements because, you know, this shit is important, too. And since filling out a ballot takes a lot less time than writing endorsements, don't tell us you're too busy protesting or whatever to vote. Don't you dare. Honest to ass-eating God, anyone who's stupid enough to tell a member of the SECB that he doesn't have the time to vote is going to get kicked right in the twat.

There are good reasons to vote this year, too. A filthy-rich Bellevue asshole—one of those 1 percent motherfuckers—and a few giant corporations have bankrolled two retrograde initiatives that appear on this ballot. You should be anxious to vote 'em down because they're bad ideas and to spite the 1 percent motherfuckers who think our democracy is for sale. And if we all vote against county council member Jane Hague, the King County Council will have a supermajority of Democrats for the first time in a long time. And if you vote you can replace Jean "Checked Out Since 2007" Godden with Bobby Forch, a bona fide progressive, and strike a blow against lifetime city council seats by voting against a couple of lousy incumbents.

Yeah, shit is fucked up and bullshit. But shit will be a little less fucked up if you vote.

The Stranger Election Control Board is Christopher Frizzelle, Goldy, Dominic Holden, Tim Keck, Cienna Madrid, Eli Sanders, Dan Savage, and Bruce Lee. The SECB does not endorse in uncontested races or races we forgot.

Initiative Measure 1125

Vote No

This is a Tim Eyman initiative. That's all you need to know, right? But for voters who want to do their homework—or want us to do it for 'em—here's the download: This Eyman initiative was funded by Bellevue Square owner Kemper "World's Biggest Asshole" Freeman, who earlier this year put up $1.1 million to run this thing (which is about 90 percent of all the money behind I-1125).

What does Freeman want? What he's always wanted: to destroy light rail.

On its face, I-1125 is supposedly about restricting tolls. It would take tolling authority away from an independent state body and put it in the hands of the legislature, require tolls to charge a flat rate at all times, and require that any toll revenue be spent on the same roadway it was collected from. But Freeman doesn't give a fuck about tolling. That's just pseudo-populist, recession-era bullshit. The point is to blow up plans to extend light rail over Interstate 90 to Bellevue—which voters approved in 2008—by preventing lanes on the I-90 bridge from being converted into light-rail lanes. Basically, Eyman wants to trick voters into fucking our region's transit plan at the request of a local millionaire developer.

This is not what democracy looks like. (Well, it's not what democracy is supposed to look like. But it's definitely what democracy looks like when dirty hippies don't vote.)

I-1125 would also screw drivers: That part about putting tolling in the hands of state legislators, which no other state in the country does, would scare investors away from Washington's toll-backed bonds. That, in turn, could screw financing for the new 520 bridge and the new Columbia River crossing, which are to be partly financed by toll-backed bonds, as well as a little tunnel in Seattle that you may have heard about.

So whether you're a car-loving, freeway-humping driver or a tree-squeezing, transit-riding hippie, you're going to want to vote no.

Initiative Measure 1163

Vote Yes

Old people smell bad. They're cranky, demanding, and difficult to care for. Sometimes, they even pee and poop themselves. (There's a reason we ask A. Birch Steen—and pretty soon Dan Savage—to file his column via e-mail.) Yet we want our cranky, poopy elderly to receive quality health care, because, as much as we love them, we don't want to have to change their poopy diapers ourselves.

That's why voters approved an initiative in 2008 that imposed basic training, certification, and criminal background checks on home health care workers who assist disabled seniors. Voters approved that initiative by a landslide 73–27 margin. But the state was broke and couldn't come up with the $9 million for the newly required extra training that year. Recognizing the emerging fiscal crisis, the initiative's union sponsors worked with the legislature to temporarily suspend their own initiative... only to see the legislature permanently suspend the measure last year.

To recap: The backers of a successful initiative worked with our state lawmakers in good faith, but our state lawmakers turned around and fucked them, seniors, and home health care workers. Well, now it's time for voters to roll our state lawmakers over and fuck 'em right back. Vote yes.

Initiative Measure 1183

Vote No

If voters pass the measure, according to retail giant Costco (which poured $11.2 million into this campaign), state revenues will skyrocket from additional liquor taxes, liquor prices will drop, liquor consumption will not rise, and unicorns that shit crushed ice and piss 7 and 7 will drop by your next house party.

I-1183 would close 166 state-run liquor stores and allow 1,400 grocery stores to start selling liquor next June. But liquor wouldn't be any cheaper under I-1183. In the best-case scenario, according to state estimates, liquor prices would stay the same. Worst case, the average price for liquor increases 20 percent.

And unlike I-1183's predecessor, Costco's failed liquor initiative I-1100 (which the SECB backed last year), this initiative transfers the state's liquor monopoly to a handful of large retail chains. Under I-1183, only stores with 10,000 square feet would be eligible to sell hard alcohol—that's stores like Costco, Safeway, QFC, and Trader Joe's. Your small local grocer won't be selling liquor if this thing passes. On top of that, I-1183 imposes a 10 percent tax on liquor distributors but creates a giant loophole that allows grocery chains—the big corporations who are bankrolling this thing—to bypass distributors and buy liquor tax-free. Once again: This is not what democracy blah blah fuckin' blah.

Vote no.

Senate Joint Resolution 8205

Vote to Approve

This fixes—gasp!—an inconsistency in our state constitution related to voter residency requirementzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. (If you must know: The state house and senate are unanimous in wanting to clarify that you can, indeed, vote in a presidential election after you've resided in the state 30 dayszzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Just approve this thing.)

Senate Joint Resolution 8206

Vote to Reject

This constitutional amendment is meant to pump up our state's rainy day fund, but it proposes to do this by taking money from necessary state services in hard times. And this joint resolution fails to tackle the fundamental revenue problems in Washington: our over-reliance on a regressive sales tax and our lack of a sensible income tax AND WE CAN'T BELIEVE WE'RE CHAINED TO OUR DESKS WRITING ABOUT THIS SHIT DURING A FUCKING REVOLUTION AND SAVAGE HASN'T SENT US ANY FUCKING DONUTS! ASSHOLE!

King County Council District No. 6

Richard E. Mitchell

If we could clone Richard Mitchell and run him for every seat on the King County Council, we would. Though considering his competition—Republican train wreck Jane Hague—even half a Mitchell would do. Where Hague dithered on Metro's $20 car-tab fee, Mitchell was unhesitating in his support. Where Hague generally sides with her fellow Republicans on transportation, revenue, and the environment, Mitchell would not only align himself with the Democrats on the council, he'd lead them.

With degrees in architecture, urban planning, and law, Mitchell is better prepared to address the county's problems than Hague, the degree-inflating, drunk-driving, cop-trashing 17-year incumbent from Bellevue Square. And while some might count Mitchell's stint as Governor Chris Gregoire's general counsel against him, he doesn't hesitate to criticize the governor's opinions, even her legal ones, on issues like marriage equality and medical marijuana (he supports both). Mitchell is his own man, if unfortunately only one of them. Vote for Mitchell.

King County Council District No. 8

Joe McDermott

Oops, Joe McDermott was so boring that we almost forgot to endorse Joe McDermott. Vote for Joe McDermott!

Director of King County Elections

Sherril Huff

Sherril Huff is not crazy, has been running the county's elections department since 2005, and does a good job. Her opponent, perennial candidate Mark Greene, says that he's discovered a secret conspiracy to make him lose elections, and that the FBI is investigating. Join the conspiracy: Vote Huff.

Port of Seattle Commissioner No. 2

Gael Tarleton

In her first term as port commissioner, Gael Tarleton removed 100 diesel trucks from South Seattle streets; revised agreements with the cruise-ship industry to prohibit ships from dumping waste into Elliott Bay; championed a grant to expand bike and pedestrian paths into Sodo, South Park, and Georgetown; passed an initiative that aims to reduce port-produced emissions by 2015; and had a steamy sex session with Ashton Kutcher in a hot tub in Vegas. (Anyone still reading this thing?) Meanwhile, challenger Richard Pope is a perennial wart on the ass of democracy who switches political parties nearly as often as he loses campaigns. Lance that ass wart for the 14th time: Vote Tarleton.

Port of Seattle Commissioner No. 5

Dean Willard

Port of Seattle commissioner Bill Bryant talks the talk on environmental issues, but he's voted against a motion to speed up the port's cleanup of truck emissions and for a motion that watered down the emissions standards. He says his priority is jobs that pay fairly, yet he opposed pay increases for blue-collar workers even while sponsoring a 9 percent pay hike to $400,000 a year for port CEO Tay Yoshitani. Even scarier are his long-term goals: Bryant would inevitably use this year's reelection as a stepping-stone for his ambitions to run for governor as a Republican. (Bryant has given $3,000 to George W. Bush and $5,000 to the state GOP).

Not on our endorsement.

Challenger Dean Willard, on the other hand, has demonstrated his environmental and labor values through years of Democratic Party activism. An IT security consultant and former T-Mobile VP, he promises to leverage port resources to "create the most jobs, with the least environmental damage." That sounds about right. And part-time port commissioners don't need to be experts, just conscientious watchdogs. Along with Holland, Creighton, and swing vote Tarleton, Willard would finally assure a reformist majority on the commission. Vote Willard.

Seattle City Council Position No. 1

Bobby Forch

Jean Godden ran for office in 2003 on a platform about how "mature" she was and how the council needed the "maturity" of someone really, really old like her. That was eight years ago, so now she's even more "mature." But age, as all those professors we slept with in college were always reminding us, is just a number. In Godden's case, it's a really big number. But we don't have an issue with an 80-year-old seeking a third term on the city council. The odds seem remote that she'll drop dead on the dais, accidentally overdose on Metamucil, or plow her car into a nail salon.

No, our concern with Godden isn't that she's 80, but that she votes like it's '80. She cast the lone vote against creating a phone-book registry (which allows you to opt out of getting piles of paper on your doorstep you don't need); was virtually silent on the issue of police accountability when the SPD was indiscriminately shooting, punching, and kicking brown people (sometimes to death); and she fiercely advocates for roads while doing her best to sabotage transit. She voted to freeze funding for the transit master plan. She also introduced a proposal that would've dedicated 75 percent of the car-tab fee measure's revenues on this year's ballot to roadwork, even though it was originally proposed to be spent mostly on transit and bicycle improvements (Godden was unsuccessful).

Bobby Forch may be less "mature" than Godden, but he'd make a better council member. The Municipal League rated Forch "very good" this year, while Godden was rated merely "good." Forch supports light rail, rapid streetcars, and density around light-rail stations. He's also got plans to shape up the police department, including requiring the police chief to be reconfirmed by the council every few years. He started working for the city 20 years ago on his hands and knees digging holes for parking meters, and worked his way up to project manager. He's a solid, smart progressive, and we think it's time to put an actual city employee on the city council. Vote Forch.

Seattle City Council Position No. 3

Brad Meacham

Brad Meacham, a former journalist and T-Mobile manager, would bring another progressive vote to the council. Meacham, who's earned the Sierra Club's endorsement, is a bus- and light-rail-loving transportation nerd who would push the council to complete the city's Transit Master Plan (which they've delayed doing) and start planning for light rail in the city's busiest corridors. He criticized the council for delivering a $60 car-tab fee to voters (instead of $80) to fund transit, road, bike, and pedestrian improvements.

It's not that we strongly disagree with the positions of the incumbent he's running against, Bruce Harrell. Under Harrell's tenure, City Light created a $100 million stabilization account to prevent rate spikes. Harrell ultimately voted for employee paid sick leave (after much waffling) and for the $60 car-tab fee (after much waffling). Our problem with Harrell—in addition to the waffling—is that outside of an election year, he's completely AWOL. Neither he nor his staff returns phone calls or e-mails about council business, and when they do, it's a week later. "I have very little patience for speeches and process," Harrell says. Uh, then what the fuck are you doing on the city council, Bruce?

Vote Meacham.

Seattle City Council Position No. 5

Dale "Totally Out of Touch" Pusey

Incumbent Tom Rasmussen is going to win this race. That's not in question. Dale Pusey is not going to win this race. Which is a good thing, because Pusey isn't qualified to sit on the city council. But we're voting for him anyway and think you should too.

Here's why: Five city council members are up for reelection this year and only two drew real challengers. Rasmussen has been a weak and ineffectual member of the council, and should've drawn a serious challenger but didn't. Why not? Money. Rasmussen has raised $308,705, including healthy doses from downtown business interests, and that scared off all challengers. Now he's cruising to a reelection that should have been one of two things: difficult or impossible.

Tom Rasmussen has failed at his one real job: chairing the council's transportation committee. Rasmussen's committee oversees the most critical decisions facing our city: how to replace our decrepit freeways, how to fund multi-billion-dollar transportation projects, and how to finally—at long fucking last—expand light rail into a real mass-transit network. Instead of leading on these issues, Rasmussen has done real and lasting harm. He pushed to begin construction on the 520 bridge before Seattle's side had been designed (leaving out accommodations for light rail). The $4.65 billion project still lacks $2 billion in funding—Seattle's side of the project has no funding—but Rasmussen and his council colleagues signed off on it. Rasmussen was AWOL when the state worked out the deal for a wider bridge that delivers 50 percent more vehicles to Seattle but lacks resources to accommodate those vehicles once they get here. He was the city's lead man on the deep-bore tunnel replacement for the Alaskan Way Viaduct. (Love or hate the tunnel, you can't applaud a man who pushed the project for years and then, when asked pointed questions several months after he was presented with a draft impact study, said, "I have only read the first page.") At the same time he was green-lighting freeway projects, Rasmussen was slamming the brakes on transit projects. He led the charge in 2010 to freeze funding on the city's Transit Master Plan—not once, but twice—for a total of six months. Why? He was concerned the Seattle Department of Transportation's planning favored light rail. (Imagine that! A transit plan that favors transit!)

Rasmussen isn't all bad. He joined the council in placing a car-tab measure on the ballot that will fund transportation projects, stood up to help defeat Tim Burgess's misguided plan to penalize panhandlers, and voted in favor of paid sick leave. But he so thoroughly bungled his main responsibilities that he should have faced a tough reelection fight that forced him to answer for his lousy record on transportation.

But we're not giving our endorsement to the total joke in this race—that would be Dale Pusey, just in case you're confused—just because we're ticked that Tom didn't face a real challenger. We want to drive down Tom's percentage of the vote for a good reason—a reason we unpack in our endorsement in the Clark/Ferguson race, which you'll find below.

Seattle City Council Position No. 7

Tim Burgess

Tim Burgess says he's not the most conservative member of the city council. But he is the most conservative member of the city council—and we're endorsing him whether he likes it or not.

Sure, Burgess sponsored an odious anti-pan­handling bill last year. The Seattle Human Rights Commission said Burgess had misrepresented facts, created a trap to arrest poor people, and failed the city's human rights standards. Burgess pushed it anyway, because he's a conservative nut. The mayor vetoed it. So why are we endorsing the bastard?

Because he's not a sniveling, do-nothing pushover like Sally Clark and Tom Rasmussen. Burgess is a smart, capable politician with a brain, a spine, and—most importantly—a liberal streak that we hope to see more of. As a former cop, Burgess led his public safety committee to issue an 11-point recommendation to the troubled police department (pissing off the teabagging police union). He backed paid sick leave without hesitation, he supported the phone book registry, and he came out for a funding package to improve transit. Asked about his support for a controversial proposal to allow 65-foot buildings near the Roosevelt light-rail station, Burgess answered with an unequivocal "yes."

Burgess's opponent, David Schraer, is a joke. His sole reason for running is name recognition so he can "get exposure" and run—for real!—in 2013. Schraer's politics are to the right of Burgess's on some issues, and on others Schraer is fuzzy or totally in the dark. Schraer got exposure, all right: He's exposed himself as an uninformed, entitled dolt.

Vote for Burgess.

Seattle City Council Position No. 9

Dian "Totally Unqualified" Ferguson

Same story as Rasmussen: Clark's weak enough that she should've drawn a real challenger, but she was able to raise enough money—$235,230—to scare off all legit challengers.

Clark was appointed to the council in 2006 and has spent the last five years in a state of constant indecision. Name the issue, and she can't tell you where she stands—but somehow she winds up voting with the council's conservative/moderate majority every single time. Asked this summer if she could cite a single example of her taking a progressive position and casting a progressive vote and losing—you know, taking a stand for something she believes in, even if it meant being in the minority—Clark answered that she'd voted against a tax to fund bicycle and pedestrian improvements. In other words, her one bold stand was conservative. Asked if she thinks her critics are wrong to assail her epic wishy-washiness, Clark actually responded: "It's up to you make that decision." (Asked at another time what she believed in, Clark told us, "I believe in neighborhood livability factors." Um, who the fuck doesn't believe in neighborhoods? And living?)

Even though Clark chairs the council's committee on urban planning, she still refuses to endorse a plan for the Roosevelt light-rail redevelopment project, where increasing density is ideal. "If you ask what I will recommend to the committee, I don't know," Clark told us. This issue has been in front of Clark for two and a half years. Instead, Clark has spent her time on the council doing whatever the rest of the council does and taking whatever legislation the mayor gives her and shepherding it to a vote. She's doing the work of an intern, but we're paying her $100,000 a year to do it.

Dian Ferguson—the dolt we're endorsing—is unqualified and her positions suck. Two examples: She opposes legalizing pot and opposes the car-tab funding package to pay for transportation improvements. A former public-access television executive, Ferguson launched her campaign in Tukwila and explains that she's a local by saying she "probably" has four houses. Probably? Ferguson sucks. And while Clark doesn't suck anywhere near as hard, Clark sucks hard enough that she should've faced a real challenger.

So why are we endorsing Clark's unreal challenger? Here's why:

Someone gets elected to city council—or, as in Clark's case, appointed—and so long as they play it safe and do the bidding of downtown business interests, they'll be rewarded with shitloads of money. That money scares off potential challengers; raising the money needed to take on a well-funded incumbent in a citywide election is just too daunting a task. And then—because the sitting city council member didn't have a real opponent in the general election—the incumbent racks up a huge percentage of the vote total in the general election. Those huge percentages make incumbents appear even more invincible, which also serves to scare off potential challengers. After all, not only does the incumbent have hundreds of thousands of dollars on hand, he or she won 70 or 80 percent of the vote last time out. Challengers look at the money an incumbent has on hand and the vote totals from their last election, which are huge because no one challenged them, and give up before the race starts. So mediocrities like Rasmussen and Clark limp from election to election and, thanks to their nonexistent and/or ridiculous challengers, they're never forced to account for their records.

This, unfortunately, is what our democracy looks like right now. Clark and Rasmussen are going to get reelected and, should they decide to run again (and why wouldn't they?), they're likely to get reelected once again. We can't jump in a time machine and find and fund real challengers for Clark and Rasmussen in this race. But we can deny them our votes and shave a few percentage points off the poisonously large vote totals they're sure to rack up.

Which is the reason—and the only reason—we're for Ferguson. So vote Ferguson.

Proposition No. 1, Families and Education Levy

Vote Yes, Obviously

Only assholes oppose this seven-year levy. It allows the city government to assist our chronically underfunded school district with $232 million for school health clinics and early-learning and enhanced-learning programs that benefit struggling and low-income students. The only group that officially opposes this levy is the Seattle Republican Association. So vote yes.

Seattle Transportation Benefit District, Proposition No. 1

Vote Yes

First, let's jettison this argument that Proposition 1, which raises car-tab fees in Seattle by $60, unfairly targets car owners. Billions of tax dollars collected from car owners and non-car-owners are spent on road projects that primarily benefit... car owners.

Yeah, yeah: Car owners have seen their car-tab fees go up already this year by $20 to fund Metro, and another $20 to fund local transportation projects, so adding another $60 this year would mean car owners are paying $100 more than a year ago. Boo-fucking-hoo. Bus riders have seen Metro fares go up 80 percent over the last three years—for a regular rider, that could mean a $500 yearly increase in fare costs—so drivers have actually had it pretty good during the Great Recession. Hell, we're even building those whiners a $4.2 billion tunnel through downtown Seattle.

Plus, it's not like car drivers don't get anything for their $60. The number of roads repaired each year would double, and tons more potholes would be fixed.

What else does Prop. 1 do? With the estimated $204 million it'll raise over 10 years, Prop. 1 will fund hundreds of small projects that improve transit (consolidating some bus stops, coordinating traffic lights, building curb bulbs, etc.). King County Metro predicts that buses through 10 of the primary travel corridors would move up to 20 percent faster and deliver "immediate reliability improvements." Some 80 blocks of new sidewalks will be built. Forty new miles of bike lanes and sharrows will be laid down. And hot, STI–free bisexual chicks will be made available to all straight couples in Seattle seeking a third for a three-way, and you'll be able to have your three-way under Mike McGinn's desk in City Hall. (Just making sure you're still paying attention.) Vote yes.

Position No. 1

Sharon Peaslee

School-board races are like a multiple-choice test in which all the answers are wrong. Four years ago we endorsed now-incumbent Peter Maier, hoping the nebbishy attorney could bring some smarts to a board that rode the political short bus.

We got the nebbishy part right.

Maier has been complicit in a string of inexcusable board missteps, including the contract extension and then firing of former superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson, and the most recent round of ill-advised school closures, executed just before a spike in attendance. Maier also deserves blame for ignoring early warnings about a $1.8 million contracting scandal.

So now it is time to give challenger Sharon Peaslee a chance to fuck up. Peaslee, who has a master’s in English education from NYU and runs a not-for-profit math tutoring company, would at least bring some expertise in the field of, you know, educating to a school board that has become dominated by business executives. Vote for Peaslee.

Seattle School Board Position No. 2

Kate Martin

The incumbent in this race, Sherry Carr, has an impressive-­sounding day job: management analyst at Boeing. But her management skills didn’t help prevent the embarrassing parade of recent scandals that caused everyone in Seattle to smack their heads in disbelief at our fucking incompetent school board. So the SECB has no qualms about picking Kate Martin, a consultant with a degree in landscape architecture, a mother of two recent Seattle Public Schools graduates, and a take-no-­prisoners number cruncher who is ready to do hand-to-hand bureaucratic combat. One of her main gripes is with the district’s new math teaching program, which she said failed both of her sons. “We’ve taken the numbers and we’ve de-emphasized them, and we’ve emphasized words,” complains Martin, who is endorsed by fellow math crusader Cliff Mass. “What’s happened is, the kids can’t do math when they come out the other end of it.”

Martin’s other agenda items: “Stop coddling management” (aka principals and district officials) and end the “test obsession” (aka the overreliance on standardized tests as the only measure of success). Amen. Vote Martin.

Seattle School District Position No. 3

Harium Martin-Morris

Maybe it’s the sexy leopard-print dress and the high-heeled boots that have won challenger Michelle Buetow the endorsement of nearly every civic and Democratic organization in town. Or maybe it’s Buetow’s thorough and thoughtful critique of the district’s ills. Regardless, if Buetow were up against any other incumbent she would’ve won our endorsement. But Harium Martin-­Morris is the one director up for reelection who shouldn’t get tossed out on his ass.

Martin-Morris has found himself on the right, if losing, side of a number of key issues. He voted against the sale of the MLK school building to First AME Church, against the controversial high-school math curriculum, and against the most recent round of school closures. He’s also the only incumbent who acknowledges the board’s missteps, and the only member of the school board with classroom teaching experience. Vote for Martin-Morris.

UPDATE on November 7: Remember how we told you to vote for Harium Martin-Morris? Holy fuck, were we ever stoned. Now we’ve put down the bong and are saying that you should vote for Michelle Buetow. Why? It turns out, as we reported on November 4, that Martin-Morris is trying to pass new rules that grant principals wide discretion to censor student newspapers for bullshit reasons. Specifically, Martin-Morris would prohibit everything from libel to content that promotes “widespread shouting or boisterous conduct.” In other words, student newspapers couldn’t report news that makes people, like upset or joyful. According to Martin-Morris, the district currently doesn’t have rules prohibiting students from libel and defamation—but he’s wrong. The district already has rules in place, rules that place less ambiguous restrictions on student speech. We don’t buy his argument that we need new rules that suppress student speech, particularly from someone who doesn’t even know what the existing rules are. When told that libel is already illegal in school newspapers, like, every other fucking newspaper in the country, Martin-Morris replied, “That may be true but…when you write it down, it’s real.” Clearly, Martin-Morris doesn’t think state and federal laws are “real” enough. We sincerely apologize for endorsing this frothing idiot. Vote Buetow.

Seattle School District Position No. 6

Marty McLaren

School-board president Steve Sundquist is a useless tool. He defends last year’s raise for superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson, who was shitcanned amid allegations of fraud and incompetence, by saying, “We believed that the superintendent was doing the job that the board asked her to do.”

Enter former teacher Marty McLaren, who believes Sundquist is guilty of pitting schools against each other as they scrap for resources (Cooper Elementary vs. Pathfinder), undermining teachers by hiring Teach for America college grads to compete for district jobs (earning him a vote of no confidence from the local teachers’ union), and otherwise “rubber-stamping a failing administration.”

Vote McLaren.

This article has been updated since its original publication to correct the year when Sherril Huff began running the elections department.