Comments

1
Most refreshing thing I've read about local politics in a while. I won't cancel my subscription after all.
2
I have to think that their endorsement of Jon Grant might have something to do with the fact that he’s a white guy. Can’t have more uppity brown women on the council, ya know!
3
THANK YOU! Someone on the SECB board is listening to community members, finally.
4
Tim Keck and Dan Savage going for the somewhat more centrist option? What is this? Hillary 2.0?

At least they didn’t pull the Bernie/Hillary dual non-endorsement gag they pulled during the 2016 primaries.
5
So glad the grownups seized back the keyboard. Counting the days until Eli the Babysitter returns from sleepaway civics camp.
6
I wanted to like Jon Grant, but the longer he's around, the more I realize dude's got something wrong with him. And anyway, why ever vote for yet another white guy if you don't really have to? Mosqueda is qualified and then some.
7
It is stupid to have endorsements when the bosses get to subvert democracy and broadcast support for their guy (or girl, this time) Savagely stupid.
8
This is obviously correct, and very well-stated, and I never doubted for a second this is where Savage was all along (I'm a touch surprised by Mudede, I'd sort of assumed he was positioned to give both Moon and Grant the decisive vote for endorsement.) I'm cautiously optimistic Groover and Brownstone can find their way to this kind of practical, skeptical leftism, not so enamored with empty slogans and posturing, and more focused on actual political skills that used to guide this paper much more than it does today.
9
I heard them both in a public forum a week ago, and Teresa was the clear choice, by far. For all the reasons written above. She would get my vote (if I hadn't moved to Edmonds).
10
I also appreciate this dissenting endorsement. We’re adults — we can handle thinking through both sides of a nuanced issue.

@7 ”subvert democracy”

To which democracy are you referring? The SECB? Do you know what a democracy is?
11
I applaud Keck and Savage for this new style of providing SECB Endorsements and Dissents. It is honest and helpfully informative.
12
Either way, I'll be relieved when we no longer have to see those terrifying campaign flyer photos of Jon Grant forced to smile like Wednesday Addams. Chilling.
14
I like how people are praising Keck and Savage for reasoned thinking but conveniently leaving Mudede. Leave the Leftist out because it doesn't fit their your personal narrative that they're all crazy and incapable of being rational.
15
@13 LMAO. Politics is social engineering. Always. Governing doesn't have to be.
16
Government's attempts at "social engineering" is as stupid as "activist judge". As if building a road wasn't every bit as much social engineering as funding transit or school breakfasts vs. truancy enforcement.
17
Actually only about 18,000 of Seattle's 53,490 acres are zoned single-family, so the Urbanist' s propaganda that it's "the majority" or even over 60% is seriously wrong. Because mid-rise multifamily zoning has 8 to 10 times the capacity of single-family uses, there is already plenty of capacity for all the growth that's planned. In fact, someone calculated thhat we could accommodate all that growth if we just upzoned all of Aurora from Denny to N. 145th to 7-story pedestrian-friendly neighborhood commercial.

So the HALA is not motivated by accommodating growth, but by adding more height where developers want it. The Grand Bargain presents this added height as a trade for affordability, but now it appears that the developers will decline to include any of the workforce housing renting for around $1,000 to individuals making up to about $20/hr. Instead, developers plan to pay a (very low) fee in lieu of inclusion. The city says these funds will go for low-income housing, leveraged 3:1. That's 75% mostly our tax money, including federal tax credits, the State Housing Trust Fund, HUD Sec. 8 and veteran's vouchers and the (overcommitted) Seattle Housing Levy. It will take another four+ years for these grants to be awarded, the funds assembled, and construction to occur. Land costs are a huge issue, so nonprofits will look for cheaper land.

The HALA is anti-family. The developers are refusing to build any 3-bedroom rental units, so renting older single-family homes are the only option for larger, immigrant extended families. Over 20% of single-family homes are rented, so upzoning puts a target on their backs and limits affordability when they are displaced by $700,000 townhouses. Other than Habitat-type sweat equity, there is no such thing in Seattle as an "affordable home purchase. Unfortunately, the Condo Liability Act has killed off middle-class condo construction. It should be rebalance, and should be in the city's 2018 Legislative Agenda

Preservation loans for older naturally affordable buildings is another solution Jon advocates. Urbanists are silent on family housing and preservation programs.

You neglected to say that Jon Grant served on the HALA and knows these issues backward and forward, which is how he knows the Grand Bargain is so inadequate he couldn't vote for it. Perhaps you should have listened to him more.
18
Conservatives think life is fair.

That's why they get so frustrated with activists, social engineers, progressives, 'SJWs', do-gooders, whatever you call it. They don't think it's possible for anything to ever be unfair. If nothing unfair ever happens, why try to change anything? An ugly bald guy in a Rolls with a hot young wife? Conservatives see virtue and hard work! The rich and powerful deserve to have it so good! Because life is fair! Just ask any six year old.

Newsflash, babies: Life. Is. Not. Fair. Hence activism. Hence social engineering. If you want life to be even a little bit fair, for even a little while, a lot of very smart people [what the babies call 'liberal elites'] have to work their asses off.
19
“any politicians around here that don't include "activist" on their resume”

No sh*t. Might as well be honest and say they couldn’t get a real job.
20
@18. No shit Sherlock. No one has ever posited that life is fair. Just that there are no unfair barriers left for society to tear down.

People are not equal and it's you leftists that are obsessed with making the outcome for everyone fair when it can't, and shouldn't ever be.

Intelligent people have the ultimate advantage. Family upbringing, values, and industriousness are other advantages. Wealth is another. So is skin color. no one can control where they start from and how many advantages or disadvantages they face, but the rules are the same for everyone and that's as close to fairness as you can get. Engineering an outcome isn't fucking fairness because all thing being equal, all people aren't equal.
21
@20 I guess that explains why Asian households are the highest earners in the USA.
23
@20 When socialists talked about "equality" (or as they now prefer "equity") what they mean is everyone is "equally poor". Like Venezuela, where you now have to share toilet paper. Equally.
24
@23 People with a left leaning skew tend to have a more empathetic approach to issues like crime and poverty than conservatives. I feel like empathy is a good place to start any conversation, but it's not a very useful tool for actually accomplishing things or helping people out of dire circumstances. You don't teach people self sufficiency, independence, and success with empathy. You teach it with delayed gratification, perserverence, and planning goals and making sound decisions. Hard lessons...None of which require empathy. And if you object to that assessment ask yourself honestly, would you prepare your own children for the world with only empathy, or the latter? All the liberal elites that dipshit #18 thinks are hardworking have come up with recently to socially engineer society is to try and apply higher concentrations of reconstituted socialism. Which is an utter failure of an idea when you factor in a pragmatic recognition of what human beings (rich, poor, black, white) are actually about as a species.

Some socialism is a good thing, keeps people from starving in the streets, dying from lack of medical care. A safety net to keep struggling people from total annihilation. But if you take humanity back to its tribal roots (which we aren't that far removed from) life and society are a meritocracy. You contribute something, or you get left behind because you're a burden and a liability. The war of ideologies on the subjects of race, poverty, and opportunity boil down to people's innate personality characteristics summed as..."people need to contribute and make their own way" vs "no one should be left behind, everyone should have enough to live". Neither idea contains a complete picture of humanity and neither fits perfectly as a panacea into this or any other society.

Personally, I think this country is great. I see immigrants coming here firsthand and starting businesses in my profession, working their asses off, and killing it. That's what the dream is. If someone can come here, barely know the language, start with nothing, and succeed...what is your excuse if you were born here, regardless of your starting station in life?
28
On the Board that rolled out Obamacare in Washington State is a reason for me NOT to vote for her. They were and are - a disaster. I cannot begin to describe the damage they inflicted on us - and even more recently as a result of these crappy, corrupt exchanges - the Health Authority - and the rest. We have someone here practically killed - because of this disgraceful situation.

And to diminish Grant because he's a "white man" is bullshit - and the cheapest shot in this piece given his record. He's much better on health care - as a solid single payer candidate who is committed to not taking compromising funds - and from like the insurance industry - which I'm sure she's tied up in - given what it says about her involvement with the crap that was, indeed, "rolling out Obamacare."

We are still living the nightmare of this experience. With no one to turn to because there's no transparency or accountability in the system. No thinking responsible human beings "home." The exchange should be shut - including the corrupt, disgraceful, disgusting "Health Care Authority."
29
By the way, the Seattle Times is not a reason *not* to vote for someone. They endorsed Bernie Sanders and John Kasich during the primaries. Their editorial on that, to me, showed a lot of independent thinking and down-to-earth common sense.

Mosqueda, to me, seems more like a corporate-inclined Dem who's pretending to be progressive. The Board for OC glinches what I suspected - and proves the opposite of what this dissenting editorial claims - that she "can get the job done" (like Hillary, another corporate, bought Dem?). Based on what they "rolled out" and what we're still living in hell with - believe me, she DOESN'T.
30
"I think this country is great. I see immigrants coming here firsthand and starting businesses in my profession, working their asses off, and killing it. That's what the dream is. If someone can come here, barely know the language, start with nothing, and succeed...what is your excuse if you were born here, regardless of your starting station in life?"

Explain that to the whiners. Immigrant myself and I love this country. Work hard and you can succeed.
31
I was on your side--read #11--but now you've gone too far. If you're going to repost your SECB dissent article for Mosqueda, fairness suggests you contiguously repost the SECB endorsement of Grant. Sheesh!
32
@17: That was an excellent post. I doubt the dissenters will read it, but they should.

Anyway, I learned a whole bunch reading this dissent:

- Savage, Keck, or Mudede must have the Seattle Times editorial room bugged, since they've been able to determine that the paper is "afraid" of Teresa Mosqueda, rather than simply believing the homelessness policies she supports are, "...flawed and wasteful, lacking accountability for vendors that don’t perform." That criticism seems to genuinely fit their moderate-to-conservative viewpoint, but I guess I don't have the room bugged.

- Savage, Keck, and Mudede have learned nothing from the 2016 election, and still believe the phrase "gets shit done" has a positive connotation outside of wealthy professionals.

- The one example of Mosqueda standing up to organized labor was her support of a tax that predominately effected poor people.

- Being part of the Obamacare roll-out is somehow a positive.

- Somehow, it's not worth mentioning that Mosqueda hired Jon Grant to work on/write that sick leave initiative.

- Dan Savage no longer believes dissent pieces are hypocritical and counterproductive.

33
Mosqueda is definitely more qualified and deserving of the post. But it will be Grant who wins. Simply because the low information idiot Seattle voters will pick the faux progressive Socialist due to it being a wonderful opportunity to virtue signal.
34
Bottom line: a strong progressive political case can be made for both of these candidates. In other words, this is a perfect opportunity to practice affirmative action the way it was intended -- as a tiebreaker: Vote for the qualified woman of color over the qualified white guy. It's especially important in the current political climate, with a president who is unusually (even for America) anti-woman and anti-POC. The Latina/Latino community needs this.
35
I was wondering why Grant got so many endorsements. Although I guess "activist" is enough qualifications for city council (and possibly mayor). Jon Grant has been trying to get elected to something-- anything-- for awhile. He has such a thin resume and just seems like a rich kid socialist to me.
36
the fact you are signed onto this Dan reinforces my support for Jon Grant #GoGrant
37
Wait a minute. I just realized: Dan Savage is the dude in charge of this paper, right? Doesn't he get to make the final call as to whom the paper endorses? Why is this a "dissent" rather than the official choice?
38
Identity politics, e.g. vote for me because I am of a gender, or a race, is so tired and lame. The fact that Dan Savage signed onto this increases my support of Grant. Dan has been horrible with endorsement, from last year's chickenshit "dual" endorsement of Bernie & Hillary , If the paper wanted more qualified women of color, they shouldn't have endorsed Moon for Mayor in the primary, I have seen Grant & Oliver work together and am convinced they would be able to do amazing things for the longtime residents of this city.
39
We all know Dan Savage is both right wing and clueless on everything but sex. Mosqueda was clearly put up to protect the established order from the threat of having Grant and Sawant on the council. I like how having anything to do with the Obamacare website is an accomplishment. She's backed by a lot of the same "progressive" groups that endorsed Tim Burgess and gave him glowing praise.
41
Grant or Mosqueda, choose one. This practice of endorsement dissents (Dan for Brady, not Pramila, the Oliver v. Moon split in the primary)...speak with one voice. Have a vigorous debate and make an endorsement. The dissents don't make you look principled, they make you look indecisive and unable to accept an outcome you don't like. Choose and speak..with one voice.
42
Entirely weird and unethical that Dan Savage has to have his "dissent" endorsement front-paged while the paper's central endorsement for Jon Grant is stuffed into the closets.

If you care about universal, single payer health care - don't vote for Mosqueda! She's tied into the corrupt 'health care' exchanges and 'health care authorities' which are throwing vulnerable people with PECs OFF, and ILLEGALLY. It's cronyism and corruption at its finest from Seattle to Olympia.

Of course, Dan Savage has no problems with this issue in his own personal life. He's coasting along fine in his collusion with the insurance and pharmaceuticals - like anyone in bed with the establishment wing of the Democratic Party.

For the same reason - don't vote for Jenny Durkham who is another future Gregoire, Murray and Cantwell - taking tons of money from the insurance and pharmaceuticals - and blocking single payer at the local, state and federal levels.

Think about the future careers of these candidates you are sending in. Where are they going with the power YOU, as a voter, GIVE THEM?

Think about health care and its future, people. How much longer must we keep fighting these battles. Voting for people like Mosqueda or Durkan - "just because" they're women or members of minority groups is BS. It doesn't mean they're representing the interests of those groups.

Wish I could say Grant or Moon were solid bets, but I can't. I just know the other two AREN'T - and our odds (ITO of a candidate truly representing "The People") are BETTER with those two because they aren't as tied to establishment interests, meaning and including, DIRTY MONEY.
43
You advantage taking mother-fuckers. How dare you post this A THIRD TIME!???
45
Uh, no thanks.
47
a "track record" without a discernible agenda is worthless
48
@20:

That's the typical ideological mistake conservatives make: assuming liberals are attempting to equalize outcomes, when in fact what we're trying to do is equalize opportunities to achieve outcomes, which is a very different paradigm. We're not saying, "give everyone the same salary, regardless of other factors - e.g. education, training, socio-economic status, etc." We're saying, "give everyone the same starting opportunities, THEN it's up to them to produce results."
49
"when in fact what we're trying to do is equalize opportunities to achieve outcomes, which is a very different paradigm"

You can't equalize shitty parents mate. You could drop 100 Korean immigrant children into the shittiest school in Seattle and most would still get to college. Equal opportunity is there already. It's why Asian households are the highest earners in the US.
50
Oh, no @49 isn't racist. It's just an innocent comment about how some unnamed ethnic group(s) make bad parents and it can't be changed.
51
" It's just an innocent comment about how some unnamed ethnic group"

Are you talking about the hill billies in Greenwood? That's the ethnic group that's the bane of my life.
52
I do like how I said "the shittiest school in Seattle" and you thought "black people".

What's the matter with you?
54
Why can’t you cowards just admit you think life is fair? It’s precisely right.

You see a wealthy white man and a poor person of color. You don’t question this: he must deserve it. You instinctively reject any suggestion that systemic injustice put him there. What instinct? You instinctive belief that life is fair.

You believe if you get paid twice as much, it is because you are twice as good. That is identical with saying you think life is fair.

The truth hurts, babies. You have an infantile worldview. Like a naive child, you assume all is right with the world. Admit it. After you admit it, you’re ready to wise up.

Life is NOT fair, babies.
55
"You see a wealthy white man and a poor person of color."

"Asian-Americans Lead All Others in Household Income

A century ago, most Asian Americans were low-skilled, low-wage laborers crowded into ethnic enclaves and targets of official discrimination. Today, they are the highest-income, best-educated and fastest-growing racial group in the United States. And they are the most likely of any major racial or ethnic group in America to live in mixed neighborhoods and to marry across racial lines."

Source: Pew Research
57
@56 Are you arguing with the Pew Research data or just living in a fact-free world?
58
Not directed at any one comment here. But I consider myself a pragmatist. I grew up in the US to white, somewhat educated, somewhat middle class parents. I acknowledge white privilege and I acknowledge systemic injustices. But I am also a capitalist and grew up in a capitalist society. I am thankful there are people in this country who will stay in economic slavery, either through their own actions/inactions or from the decisions of people they elect or don't elect into political office. Capitalism, and my success, depends on people willing to sell their labor for less than it is worth and then turn around and use the low wages they are paid to prop up this country's GDP and thus the stock price of the companies I own shares in. I will be worried about my livelihood or well-being when all the so called socialists/progressives/liberals figure this out and start using the collective power they have to shut down this economy. I'm not holding my breath. Rather than real, concrete action that requires sacrifice I simply read/hear grandiose visions of socialist or progressive utopias. Politicians don't make change, people do. Lots of people. Like in the millions. I'd say most people in this country don't give a sh*t about other people unless it impacts them directly, like in the wallet.

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