Just in time for filling out your ballots, the online stream of the city council and mayoral debate at Lincoln High School is now live online:
The council debate went well but was missing O’Brien and Sawant, which hurt with the ability to do candidate comparisons. I’ll be voting for Conlin and Shen because they bothered to show up and acquitted themselves well, while O’Brien thought a fundraiser was more important and Sawant ditched us at the last second to go to a union endorsement meeting. Petty I know, but I’m pointlessly vindictive like that.
This debate also highlighted that I really, really want district elections to pass, so that 1 of the 9 council candidates is there to represent Wallingford. Currently, no council candidate can be bothered to understand and represent our neighborhood interests, no council candidate makes sure we get a fair shake in terms of city spending, and all the candidates need boatloads of developer dollars to afford a city-wide campaign.
Here’s a summary of council positions taken during the debate. Each answer is explained by the candidate if you look at the online stream:
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Priorities are often more important than policy positions. If you are elected, what are your first and second priorities for action?
Bagshaw
Bellomio
Conlin
Shen
Top Priority
Public safety
Government accountability
Transit
Public safety
Second priority
Transportation
Community power
Affordable housing
Education
-
Seattle Districts now divides the city into 7 equally populated areas and elects 7 of 9 city council positions in those regions. Do you support Seattle Districts Now?
Bagshaw
Bellomio
Conlin
Shen
Audience
No
Yes
No
Yes
Tie
-
Seattle Proposition 1 will cap Seattle City Council spending on elections by adding in public matching funds up to $140,000 in the primary and $245,000 overall, except when an opponent spends more. Do you support Seattle Proposition 1?
Bagshaw
Bellomio
Conlin
Shen
Audience
No
No
Yes
No
No 2:1
-
CVS is planning to put a large drugstore in the existing buildings at 45th and Meridian. This project is deeply unpopular in Wallingford, as we already have three pharmacies in the neighborhood, and national mega-chains such as CVS do not fit well within our existing urban village. Community members fear that CVS will leverage the parking lot on site and offer low, low prices to put our local pharmacies out of business. Would you support blocking the development of this space for CVS, such as imposing new limits on the size of national retail chains in urban villages?
Bagshaw
Bellomio
Conlin
Shen
Audience
Yes
Yes
Yes
Maybe
Unanimous Yes
-
Tolling is being planned for the deep bore tunnel but it is not clear if it will come to I-5 or if carpools will receive a break. Some people say tolling should be extended to I-5 to minimize traffic diversion and better manage capacity, while others say users of I-5 should not have to pay since that road is not being rebuilt. When the tunnel is complete, should I-5 be tolled in addition to the tunnel?
Bagshaw
Bellomio
Conlin
Shen
Audience
Yes
No
Maybe
Yes
No
-
The aggressive panhandling measure proposed by City Councilmember Tim Burgess was to bar certain intimidating behaviors, such as blocking a person or using intimidating words or gestures while asking for something. Punishment would be a $50 fine or community service. McGinn vetoed the change and the council did not have the votes to override the veto. If there’s a new mayor, would you resubmit the law to the new mayor?
Bagshaw
Bellomio
Conlin
Shen
Audience
No
No
Maybe
Yes
Tie
-
A common question we all wrestle with is how to help the down and out. If you see someone asking for money or food, do you give them anything?
Bagshaw
Bellomio
Conlin
Shen
Audience
Yes
Yes
Maybe
No
Tie
-
Escalating rental prices are forcing many people to move out of their preferred neighborhoods. Do you support additional rent controls to help people who want to stay in their existing housing?
Bagshaw
Bellomio
Conlin
Shen
Audience
No
Maybe
No
No
Strong No
-
We are due for a major earthquake. Amidst the push to deal with problems of today, preparedness for the event can be pushed to the background. While new construction has tough standards to adhere to, existing buildings and infrastructure often fall well short of these standards. Do you believe a new ballot measure is needed to help pay for the retrofit or replacement of existing infrastructure, public buildings, or businesses?
Bagshaw
Bellomio
Conlin
Shen
Audience
Maybe
Maybe
Yes
Yes
Strong Yes
-
Many neighborhood plans are 20 years old, having been put together by departed residents, including Wallingford’s neighborhood plan. Neighborhood plans need to be updated through a process that includes new residents, so they can contribute to planning their neighborhoods. Will you commit to funding the update of all neighborhood plans with neighborhood participation so that no plans are more than 10 years old, and will you commit to visiting our district council, the Lake Union District Council, at least once per year?
Bagshaw
Bellomio
Conlin
Shen
Audience
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Strong Yes
The mayoral debate did not go as well. A key problem is that on issues very little separate the candidates, so an issue-based debate is tough to have. We were hoping to keep the format more open so the candidates could mix it up a bit, but they have been debating so much that they didn’t engage much with each other. Another problem is that communications got mixed up somewhere and the candidates did not have a current debate script to prepare with. Finally, audience participation helps liven things up, and since we didn’t have yes / no votes we didn’t have that.
Anyhow, lessons for next time. One thing we got out of them was top priorities, beginning at 88:50 in the debate:
|
Murray |
McGinn |
|
|
Top Priority |
Public safety / police reform |
Complete police reform / community policing |
|
Second Priority |
School graduation rates |
Affordability |
|
Third Priority |
Transportation planning without mode wars |
Environmental issues and social justice |
Much thanks for everyone that helped to put this debate on- the Wallingford Chamber of Commerce and the Fremont Chamber of Commerce in particular. Did you see the debate? Thoughts on the format or issues?
I was disappointed in the turnout. Was there any notion that so few people would show up? If so, could a smaller venue have been secured? The “debate” would’ve benefited from a more intimate setting.
Thanks for doing this! I couldn’t make it to the debate but watched the video. 2 thoughts:
1) I agree with you regarding bothering to show up vs. ditching us, but having read Shen’s Seattle Times op-ed, I can’t in any good conscience support him.
http://seattletimes.com/html/opinion/2019821568_albertshenopedxml.html
Shen comes across as anti-transit, divisive, clueless and stuck in a time warp.
2) I’m pretty divided on Seattle Districts Now. On the one hand, having some closer to our local interests is hugely appealing. On the other hand, the key is the map, and I hate the map that’s been drawn and that we’d be stuck with till 2020 (if I understand correctly).
http://www.seattledistrictsnow.org/maps.html
I don’t like the fact that it divides dense urban villages like Fremont, Wallingford, Ballard, LQA and apportioned to areas with very different interests and needs. I’m especially concerned that this has been drawn by one expert, without any public involvement.
Disclaimer: I live here, but I’m not a US citizen and can’t vote.
The map can change in the future. The key is to get district representation (districts, now!), the particulars can change–at least after the next census, if not before.
Presumably drawn without public involvement because it isn’t law yet–there wasn’t a mechanism for public hearings on a proposed initiative.
Interesting that the incumbents do not favor districts, but the challengers do…
@fruitbat, I agree the map can be changed, but the next census is in 2020, and I think 7+ years with possibly gerrymandered boundaries is not particularly palatable.
As for public involvement, there are perfectly good mechanisms for public feedback on an initiative – Facebook, Twitter, email, or neighbourhood blogs like this one. Yes, it’s possible that there are good reasons they weren’t used to draw the map, but I cast a jaundiced eye at reactionaries like Aurora Merchants Association head Garneau, and at any cause they support. Yes, I’m petty like that 🙂
It would have been perfectly possible to authorize districts and then appoint a nonpartisan commission to draw them, instead of sticking the districts into the initiative. The idea that we had to have districts so these are the districts and we will live with them until 2023 (trust me, you’re not going to have the census material in time to get them for the 2021 election) is ridiculous.
You can’t implement public feedback on a filed initiative–it has to be filed as it would appear on the ballot. The proposers sought input, but who is looking on Facebook for a group formulating an initiative that may or may not be filed or appear on a ballot?
Proposers of Charter 19 have said that they indeed talked to people about an initiative for district representation, and people wanted to see a map before they voted–a big factor in teh failure of the districting initiative about ten years ago. A bit of a Catch 22. Not being heavily funded (not a lot of donors for developing initiatives, unless you’re Tim Eyman), they did what they could to get a reasonable, balanced map. There will always be someone unhappy with a district map.
I’m not overjoyed to find myself in the corner of a big district that goes all the way to View Ridge, but overall the boundaries follow obvious geographic features and don’t look at all like gerrymandering. I don’t think there’s a way to divide Seattle neighborhoods into 7 districts and not have some odd bedfellows.
I was skeptical about this idea the last time it came up, but this time, I wish it were all 9 members. It has become much more obvious to me that the at-large system does not work. The council does not represent city residents, and they rarely face serious election challenges.
The current boundaries were drawn up by an impartial UW professor as a response to the complaint that the last time this came up on the ballot the district idea was too vague and needed defined boundaries. The 2 general council positions were also kept in order to address the complaint that nobody would be looking out for the city as a whole.
Imperfections aside, the key issue is that for 1 council member your vote will be 7 times as important, meaning that one council member will pay 7 times as much attention to you and your interests. Who do you go to now with an issue?
I’ve had pretty good experiences contacting various council members on various issues and frankly see the district proposal as a solution in search of a problem.
I’m not voting for Conlin. He was the ONLY City Council member to vote against the bill requiring businesses of a certain size to provide a minimal level of paid sick leave for their employees. My wife earned sick leave for the first time in her life.
Conlin was also point man for the deep-bore tunnel, about which everything bad that was predicted still seems likely to happen (high tolls needed to pay for it would drive traffic into downtown and cause snarl-ups). I dread the two years that the Battery Street tunnel will be closed.
And Sawant is for a humane living wage – the current minimum is a poverty wage in Seattle, and there are plenty of adults with college degrees and/or kids to support working for less than $15/hour these days.