We love voting. Haven’t missed an even remotely noteworthy election in my (cough, mumble) years of voting. But it’s unfortunate that, when we vote, we don’t get to explain WHY we vote. So since we have the luxury of this here blog – on the offhand chance any decisionmakers might stumble onto it, we’re going to take some pixels to explain why we plan to break with the 34th District Dems’ recommendations on three local issues. (And if anyone cares to explain why you think we’re wrong, wrong, wrong, the comment section is all yours. We vote in person, so it’s not too late to win us back.)
Seattle Referendum 1 — YES, for a simple reason. We are against commercial sexual exploitation (and the commercialization of graphic violence, for that matter, not that this measure has anything to do with that). Go ahead, call us “conservative”; on this point and a few others, we are.
Seattle Proposition 1 — NO. The projects are fine; our current taxes should be going toward them. We are not big fans of the Washington Policy Center, but they said it best:
Placing street maintenance on a special levy continues a trend in public budgeting, in which low priority services are funded through the regular budget while high priority services are neglected until the need is urgent. Placing core functions on special levies makes voters feel they must either agree to pay higher taxes or do without a vital public service.
Most people see maintaining public streets and bridges as a core function of government. Passage of the November measure would continue the trend of enacting special levies to pay for routine public work. Should the measure fail, elected leaders would likely be induced to re-examine priorities within the existing budget to determine whether street and bridge repairs could be addressed at current taxation levels.
King County Proposition 2 — NO. We don’t want more buses. We want mass transit, off the roads, like other major cities (Portland, San Francisco, etc.). We wanted the monorail and were perfectly happy paying gobs of greenery for that. We’ll be happy with Sound Transit light rail if it gets a little closer to West Seattle before we leave the planet. Tell us again why we ripped up the streetcar system? Oh, and tell us why Prop 2 doesn’t seem to include any money for the Water Taxi? We might change our mind if it did.
Wherever you stand, get out there Tuesday and take your stand. (If you vote by mail and haven’t sent it off yet, don’t forget – they’re pretty rigid about the postmark thing.)
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