If you’re having trouble figuring out which of the ten candidates you want to support in the city council elections this fall, you have two opportunities this week to meet the candidates, ask questions, and hear them speak about the issues that affect all of us.
Your first option is to head over to the Cascade Bicycle Club auditorium, 7787 62nd Ave NE, on Thursday, May 30th from 5:30-7:30 p.m..
MASS (Move All Seattle Sustainably) Coalition is hosting a forum in which candidates for City Council District 4 will speak about transportation, housing, and sustainability.
Your second opportunity to meet the District 4 candidates is a bit closer to home. Welcoming Wallingford is hosting a District 4 candidate meetup on Saturday, June 1, from 4 to 6 p.m. at Lower Woodland Park (Shelter #2).
Welcoming Wallingford invited all of the candidates, and have received confirmation that the following candidates will be attending: Beth Mountsier, Cathy Tuttle, Emily Myers, Ethan Hunter, Heidi Stuber, Joshua Newman, Sasha Anderson, and Shaun Scott. Democracy vouchers will be accepted at the event.
Get your questions ready, and get informed!
District 4 Candidate Meetup details:
MASS Coalition forum
When: Thursday, May 30, 5:30-7:30 p.m.
Where: Cascade Bicycle Club auditorium
Map: 7787 62nd Ave NE (in Magnuson Park)
Welcoming Wallingford meetup
When: Saturday, June 1, 4-6pm
Where: Shelter #2 at Lower Woodland Park, 1000 N 50th St.
Map: https://goo.gl/maps/xUsk7PeWd5q9oSjZ7
So Alex Pedersen will be a no-show at the Welcoming Wallingford event? Color me shocked.
That’s funny, I dont seem to recall Shaun Scott and Emily Myers showing up for the last D4 forum on March 30th.
No one should’ve shown up to that forum since it was 7 weeks before the candidate filing deadline.
Oh I didn’t realize you’re the grand poohbah of forum rules. I guess candidates all across the city were unaware of that. Is there some sort of RCW about that?
Safe Seattle, er, Speak Out Seattle can do what they want. It just reflects poorly on their organization that they wouldn’t wait until all candidates have filed before hosting a forum.
Well all the forums were very well attended and well run, so I guess people disagree with you on that. Besides, it’s better to have more forums to give us more of a chance to get to know the different candidates, especially forums on what is arguably our most pressing issue around here, namely crime and homelessness.
What’s the base of crime being a pressing issue? Crime rate has been pretty stable, and this is surely nothing like before the 90s. Crime rate is half what it was.
Really TJ, why do you even bother trotting out such nonsense? Fine, I’ll oblige. Here’s an article from today:
https://q13fox.com/2019/06/03/despite-extra-officers-patrolling-seattle-during-may-the-city-had-19-shootings/?&fbclid=IwAR3C_1no7djxHIdh7k79N2qtW6BXGaYXS2zp4hNI-RcrMtU1uxkOyiViGqM
And if you click on the hyperlink in it:
https://q13fox.com/2019/05/28/mayor-orders-extra-police-patrols-and-resources-in-more-seattle-neighborhoods/
“Crime is up and particularly types of crimes are up in certain neighborhoods that’s why we are doing the seven neighborhoods,” Durkan said.
In neither article are there signs why crime is a critical issue. It’s a fact that crime rate has been stable for a while, and crime rate has been much lower than in the past. There are always going to be people complaining about crime, just like how there are always going to be people complaining about illegal immigration. That doesn’t mean the topics are then critical. What Durkan said in the link is just that crime pattern shifted therefore police resource allocation shifted. Isn’t that just normal operation that always happen for everything?
TJ, crime and homelessness will be THE defining issue this election. Why do you suppose that is?
It’s the same reason why some people think illegal immigration is the defining issue for presidential elections. Sentiments aren’t always matching reality.
Fine, if you wont take it from me, perhaps today’s article from the ST will help? And btw, the co-authors aren’t exactly known to be the “tough on crime” types.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/god-help-whoever-wins-seattle-elections-could-hinge-on-voter-angst-over-street-homelessness/#comments
And isn’t that article effectively showcasing what I just said? People operate on sentiments instead of facts typically.
“A popular and successful tactic of politicians is to fan fears that crime is rising.”
Well then our local leaders need to study up on that tactic. Because all of them, from the mayor on down, have been actively denying the fact the that crime is rising.
And no one is scapegoating anyone. You think the people who live by the infamous troll camp were blowing smoke out of their backside about what they experienced on a daily basis?
Because the fact is crime rate is not rising, and most Seattle political leaders are liberals instead of conservative crime and punishment types. So they don’t lie about crimes.
I just returned from tonight’s candidate forum on transportation, housing, and sustainability at the Cascade Bike Club. Alex Pedersen was the only no-show. Apparently he finds cyclists too scary.
Are you sure it’s not that he finds them too irritating?
There are some good candidates in the race, but I wish the field wasn’t so big. Frankly there is not a lot of differentiation between a lot of them. If you were to view them all on a Left/Right spectrum, Shaun Scott is probably the furthest Left, and “Absent Alex” Pedersen is definitely the furthest Right, with the other 8 occupying a space probably closer to Scott than Pedersen.
It’s revealing that Scott is the only person of color in the race. 10 candidates, 9 white, which probably reflects the increasing lack of diversity in our district.
Pretty much every candidate in attendance wants more sidewalks, bike lanes, public transit, and affordable housing, and thinks there is plenty of money in this town to pay for these things (Amazon was mentioned several times). The differentiation seems to be on how to access this money without asking voters to approve another property levy.
Pedersen’s name was mentioned a couple of times. Not favorably. It’s pretty obvious what his strategy is for the August primary election: sit on the sidelines and let these nine fight it out. Pedersen will probably grab the anti-HALA, anti-protected bike lane, anti-Sound Transit vote and make it through to the general election. The question is who is the best candidate of the other nine to beat him in November?
It’s funny that Pedersen can be “definitely the furthest Right.” Land use deregulation, Sound Transit 3 … those are Left? You kids and your Downtown Leftists. But whatever, I don’t think you’ll find him “sitting on the sidelines”. If you want to see him at a forum, you could try the 43rd Dems forum on the 8th in the HUB, or the NE Seattle District forum at Sand Point on the 10th.
I’d say advocating for affordable housing and public transit tend to be issues more common to the Left.
Sadly I can’t make either of the forums this weekend because I will be out of town. I did see Pedersen at the Speak Out Seattle forum, which barely touched on transportation issues.
I think Alex would be happy to advocate for affordable housing – you know that was his job for a decade or two? – and public transit, too.
While Wallingford is certainly whiter than many neighborhoods, what data are you basing your “increasing lack of diversity” comment on? I saw Gene Balk’s column last year that said Seattle was becoming more diverse so this would suggest Wallingford is an outlier.
Seattle is gaining a lot of rich and upper middle class Asian immigrants. How diverse it is depends on the perspective. University Way is like Chinatown now, but it’s actually less diverse since all you see are East Asians. Not even that many white people having lunch there anymore.
This post makes some pretty sweeping racial statements. You sure you want to post this? I walk down the Ave at least once a week and there are hundreds of white people, and people of every color. Your fixation on East Asian people is telling.
The comments are sweeping only if you want to consider it sweeping. It’s just about the general trend. UW international student count more than doubled in the past ten years, and two thirds of the international students are Chinese. This trend is accompanied by the huge increase in tuition for out of state students and the decrease in tuition for in state students. The school is effectively using Chinese money to help out poorer in state students. As a result of that, University Way sees a huge increase in businesses catering to Chinese. There used to be only two cheap Chinese American restaurants on the Ave, and now there are more than a dozen, with several pricey ones that are not in the price range of typical college students. There are about a dozen bubble tea places now also. You can count the pedestrians, and it’s obvious that East Asians dominates. The cheaper eats are also slowly fading away on the Ave.
It’s interesting that the opposite is happening in International District, where the dominance of East Asians is fading.
Why? Because Seattle is losing poorer people and gaining rich people. So you got richer Asians moving into richer areas replacing poorer white people, and richer white people moving into International district replacing poorer Asian people. The “diversity” number looks OK, but the true variety is reducing.
Redmond is “very diverse” if we just look at the percentage of white people, but in reality it’s half middle class and above white people and half middle class and above South Asians and not really a vibrant place with cultural varieties.
One thing I do routinely is to look up new restaurants around the neighborhoods and go try them out. That means a couple of years ago it was going to a new Ballard hipster restaurant every other week. Recently it means going to a new Asian restaurant every other week. If you do go to the Ave often, there are two places that just opened a couple of weeks ago that are great: Yi Fan fruit tea and Snowy Village shaved ice.
District 4 is more than Wallingford. It’s Eastlake, the U District, Wedgwood and Laurelhurst. Balk’s column stated that King County has grown more racially diverse in the past decade, but Seattle has pretty much stalled.
I imagine most racial diversity you’ll see in District 4 is around the University of Washington, but that’s mostly students and younger people, who don’t typically run for public office (apologies to Ethan Hunter!).
So, “no data. Just my hunch” then.
The funniest moment was when the candidates were asked how they got to the forum. “My mom drove me,” said Ethan Hunter, who is the only teenaged candidate.
There’s also a forum Saturday at 12:30 at the UW (the HUB)
https://www.facebook.com/events/558574471336599/