Initiative 713
Vote YES

In the 1800s, trapping was an important part of survival. Fairly ingenious traps were devised, mostly for pelts and killing off livestock predators, and trappers killed to survive, not for sport. Well, times have changed, and no one traps to survive. Trapping is an unnecessarily cruel way to hunt, as it visits a slow and extremely painful death upon an animal. One look at the bloody ditch dug by an animal caught in a trap as it circles around and around in an effort to free itself would convince any reasonable person that traps should be made illegal.

Initiative 722
Vote NO

Initiative 695 was declared unconstitutional because it dealt with two issues at once (car tab fees and voting on tax hikes), while state law limits state initiatives to one issue at a time. But has Tim Eyman learned anything from this? Apparently not. Eyman's new bright idea is I-722, which would limit property tax increases among local municipalities to two percent a year and repeal a host of local taxes that were passed in the aftermath of I-695. If it passes, I-722 will likely be deemed unconstitutional, but the very same scaredy-cat lawmakers who enacted I-695's provisions will likely enact I-722's provisions. So the real reason to vote against I-722 isn't its legal flaws, but the fact that the initiative would compound the damage already done by I-695.

Initiative 728
Vote YES

Vote for I-728, which would use lottery and property tax surpluses to hire teachers and build classrooms. Unfortunately, in 1993 we passed I-601, which uses dumb-ass spending limits (based on population growth and inflation) to screw up our state's ability to fund things like education. But we have the cash to boost education funding this year--there's nearly $600 million in the Emergency Reserve Fund that we can tap into without taking money from needed services.

Initiative 729
Vote NO

Clearly, public schools in Washington aren't living up to their own standards. This year, for instance, only a quarter of the state's fourth graders passed the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL). However, I-729--which would allow at least 80 publicly funded charter schools to open in the next four years--is not likely to fix those test scores. Instead, the initiative would suck money from public schools, eliminate established union support for teachers who want to work at charter schools, and wipe out important measures meant to protect students there (like, oh, the no-spanking rule).

The initiative promises to strengthen public education. Its proposed method of beefing up student achievement? Operating "independently of any school district board." But that strategy has been proven ineffective in other states where charter schools already exist. One depressing example comes from Texas, where charter school students' median score on the state test was 39 percent last year, compared to public school students' median score of 80 percent, according to The Dallas Morning News. Unless you're pro-spanking and in favor of dumber kids, vote against I-729.

Initiative 732
Vote YES

While demands on teachers are increasing, wages aren't. Teachers didn't get raises in four of the last eight years. The average teacher salary in Washington is the worst in the West, and teachers in our state can be paid as low as $26,000 annually. Moreover, our teacher shortage shows that the job isn't rewarding enough to do for nothing. (To meet the national average, the state would need to hire 8,000 teachers, and Seattle's got 90 vacancies.) Vote yes to spend $412 million from our state budget over the next two years on cost-of-living raises for K-12 teachers, community-college teachers, counselors, and librarians.

Initiative 745
Vote NO

Even the mathematically inclined government accountants in the state's Office of Financial Management don't know exactly what the hell I-745 would do to our already weakened public-transit system. They only know that meeting the initiative's mandate--dedicating 90 percent of transportation spending to roads--would require stealing up to $2 billion in transportation spending from buses and other "non-road" functions.

If I-745 passes, it will cost the state general fund $42 million a year, according to the state Department of Revenue. Building roads would become the state's top transportation priority. We'd spend between $4 billion and $6 billion on roads and highways, leaving between $1 billion and $3 billion to cover public transit, and possibly ferries and state highway patrols.

 

King County Proposition
King County Proposition 1
Vote NO

King County Proposition 1 is supposed to repair the damage I-695 did to the county's bus service. And considering that I-695 killed a third of Metro's system, damage control is definitely called for. But raising the county's sales tax is not the way to do it: Sales taxes are regressive, taking a bigger chunk from the poor and working class. It would make more sense to tax something car-related, like gas or parking. If Ron Sims had any balls, he'd propose an auto-related tax that would take a bite out of all those car owners who reaped I-695 windfalls. But Sims, gelded in 1994, underwent a backbone-removal operation in 1998 (financed by a Sound Transit grant), making it difficult for the King County executive to sit upright, let alone take a difficult stand on this or any other issue.

City of Seattle
Proposition 1
Vote NO

Who can possibly be opposed to parks? Who can say no to more green space? We can. Seattleites don't need to raise $198.2 million for the expansion of our existing park system (pretty darned good, last time we checked). Seattle's Proposition 1 proponents include a stacked citizen advisory committee, Paul Schell, and City Council Member and ex-'60s radical Nick Licata, who appears to be pandering to the upper middle class with this feel-good proposal.

Seattle's politicians have it backward: Basic city services (like parks and roads) should come from the general fund; vanity projects (like new city halls and concert halls) should be put to a vote. But this galling proposition asks Seattle voters to raise their property taxes to the tune of $138 million to buy and develop new park land; meanwhile, the city is planning to spend $72 million on a new city hall--without a vote! While the Stranger Election Death Squad is not opposed to parks, old or new, we are sick of the city asking voters to fund basic services with property tax hikes, which deplete the supply of affordable housing. It's time to draw the line. Vote no.

Proposition 2
(Initiative 53)
Vote YES

In November of 1997, Seattle voters approved I-41, the Monorail Initiative, which instructed the city to build an X-shaped, 40-mile, single-tracked, rubber-tired rapid-transit system serving Seattle's neighborhoods. The system Seattle voters approved would be Seattle's first rapid mass transit, like New York's subway or Chicago's elevated train. But in the summer of 2000, after three years of stalling, the Seattle City Council voted to overturn I-41, and kill the monorail. But a funny thing happened on the way to thwarting the will of the people. Peter Sherwin, Grant Cogswell, and other transit activists formed a new organization, Rise Above It All, and filed a new monorail initiative, I-53. Rise Above It All managed to gather the 30,000 signatures in less than two months. When you vote yes on I-53 (now known as Proposition 2), you won't be voting to build a new monorail system regardless of the costs, as critics maintain. Instead, if Proposition 2 passes, it would simply give the Elevated Transportation Company--which voters created in 1997--enough money ($6 million) to do a full study and draft a proposal for an expanded monorail system. Once routes, funding sources, and technology questions are all answered, this new proposal would be automatically submitted to voters to accept or reject.

Proposition 2 is a monorail initiative that even monorail skeptics can support, as it will give us the answers we need to make an informed decision about a monorail system. Vote yes on Proposition 2, and re-elect the monorail.