19 Replies to "Election 2015: It's officially Lisa Herbold vs. Shannon Braddock in November, as final primary vote totals are certified"

• Neighbor August 18, 2015 (9:24 pm)

  So West Seattle has 2 candidates that are okay with the expanded “Urban Village” around the Junction (one in the name of affordability, the other in a nod to the chamber of commerce developers funding her campaign) that would essentially allow developers to build 6-floor apartments directly next to single family homes. And neither of these candidates themselves would be affected by the urban village upzone they support imposing on on others. Meanwhile, an accident on I-5 at the Seneca exit today caused a backup all the way to the Junction that lasted for hours, and these candidates support finding a way to cram another 120,000 residents into the city of Seattle. Hopefully these seasoned politicos will actually answer questions about their positions before the elections rather than suggesting they need more time to think and study the issues. One of them is going to be our representative – hopefully they will each take a public position on the issues facing Seattle and West Seattle so that we know what we’ll get when/if we vote for them.

• CanDo August 19, 2015 (6:26 am)

  Yes… exactly what “Neighbor” said.

• Jon Wright August 19, 2015 (8:16 am)

  Neighbor, Where do you suggest the people moving to Seattle go?

• Scott August 19, 2015 (8:25 am)

  @Jon Wright – It is not about where they are going to live, but more about the infrastructure to handle all these people. You cant just cram everyone in and hope that things get better. Transit and parking options should first be addressed before developing like this happens.

• Neighbor August 19, 2015 (8:44 am)

  Jon – the 120,000 people could be accommodated into developments in the zones already designated as high density for the last 35 years. More importantly, maybe this area can’t handle another 120,000 residents – we already lack transportation options, water, and infrastructure to accommodate those already here. These candidates are to represent current residents in District 1 – and current residents face transportation issues, new water conservation recommendations, and constrained infrastructure. Future hypothetical residents and increased density are not going to be solved by more bike lanes, road diets, and magical thinking, and the candidates should answer to us current voters on the pressing issues facing West Seattle.

• Ivan August 19, 2015 (8:57 am)

  @Neighbor, Lisa Herbold has made her positions pretty clear already regarding your concerns, and you can expect her to keep doing it. When elected, she will demand that the developers pay more toward the costs of infrastructure to the community surrounding their projects. She will also insist that a certain number of units be made more affordable.
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  Her opponent’s campaign, as you point out, is funded by developers, landlords, low-wage diehards in the business community, and the downtown chamber of commerce. So you can draw your own conclusions about what her positions are likely to be.

• Neighbor August 19, 2015 (10:40 am)

  Ivan – thank you, yes, Lisa has been mostly clear, but she still supports Move Seattle which voters will impose almost entirely on property owners… for more bile lanes, to fund basic road maintenance and fix roads that construction trucks ruined (35th between Alaska and Avalon according to SDOT), and some road diets. What is not clear and has not been answered is whether she will support an expanded Urban Village around the Junctions (beyond what was set years ago) that will change single family home designations for some residents and open up opportunities for developers to buy up homes and build multi-story dwellings. The man/Mayor may have abandoned HALA last month but will most certainly put it back on the table during his tenure and I want to know which candidate is going to support the destruction of some neighborhoods in the name of affordability and density.
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  I’m looking for a yes/no response – Yes = expand/support the expansion of urban villages and upzone additional single family zones; No = keep the urban villages as they exist without expanding them?

• DW August 19, 2015 (2:49 pm)

  I lean toward Braddock at this point. She’s more of a “volunteer” whereas I see Herbold as more of an “activist” in the mold of Licata, Sawant and O’Brien. And to be quite frank, I think we need fewer activists on the council.

  If the members were less concerned with “kayaktivism” and other pet causes than running the city well, we might see some changes with traffic, transit, public safety, etc.

  Yes, the city has growing pains, but frankly I think the Braddock’s of the world have a more grown up and realistic attitude toward what is happening as opposed to the “activists” of the world who, from what I can tell, are constantly tilting at windmills and would rather “fight the good fight” and lose than make any sort of reasonable compromise.

  Of course, that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.

• Ivan August 20, 2015 (8:05 am)

  @DW, you are entitled to your own definitions of “activist” and “volunteer,” but I hope the voters will agree that Lisa Herbold’s 17 years as Nick Licata’s top aide, during which she has accumulated more experience, more policy knowledge, and more hands-on understanding of how the city works than all the other candidates in this race had combined, and how that will apply to District 1, makes her by far the more qualified candidate in this race.

• WSperson August 20, 2015 (10:41 am)

  17 years of experience implementing the status quo ain’t nothing to woo West Seattle voters over, especially in the context of impassable traffic and the City’s transportation decisions. Even when the City gets impact money from developers, based on the recent past they are more likely to waste it on rainbow crosswalks or road diets than actually improving the capacity of the system or maintaining the infrastructure. I won’t vote for anyone that had anything to do with “road diets”; the deliberate reduction in capacity of our transportation system is a travesty and it should never have been funded through the misleading “bridging the gap” farce.

• Neighbor August 20, 2015 (12:55 pm)

  Ivan – does your lack of response regarding expanding the urban villages and allowing developers to build massive multi-unit buildings adjacent to some of our homes which we purchased in single family neighborhoods mean Ms. Herbold is in fact in favor of destroying a few neighborhoods in the name of affordability/density?

• Ivan August 20, 2015 (2:39 pm)

  I doubt at this point that any answer by either candidate would satisfy you.

• Neighbor August 20, 2015 (3:17 pm)

  Ivan – so you’re saying Ms. Herbold won’t answer the tough questions, regardless of her position or that of her opponent, lest she be held accountable to her constituents when the time comes? Good to know, in that case many of us will be very vocal and expect to be represented, or at least heard and given consideration, but if Ms. Herbold’s spokesperson can’t actually answer the tough questions that says a lot about her views. I wonder if she would care more if it were her home next to a house that is currently rented out and whose owner is just waiting to sell to the first developer he can, who will probably destroy all the middle class equity built up in the neighborhood, the views, the sunlight, the gardens, the kid-friendly streets, etc. with an apartment building monstrosity.
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  I have to say, though, at least you tried. Clearly Ms. Braddock is a seasoned politician who knows better than to even try to represent her potential constituents, which is shameful.

• Ivan August 20, 2015 (6:38 pm)

  #1. I’m not her “spokesperson,” just a volunteer supporter.
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  #2. I don’t put words in people’s mouths, especially when those people know more about the subject than I do. Talk to the candidate herself. Surely you’ll have plenty of opportunity to do so before the election.
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  #3. Please don’t prejudge Lisa or any candidate, just because you have made up your own mind what answers you want to hear. Candidates run to represent everybody, not just you and not just me.
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  #4. One thing I CAN tell you for sure, though. Based on what you have said and how you have worded it, the same developers who you are accusing of destroying the single family neighborhoods (I happen to agree with your assessment of the situation) are the same people who are opposing Lisa’s election, and pumping tens of thousands of dollars of independent expenditures into TV ads in this campaign. They are also the same people who are making cash contributions to Lisa’s opponent. I hope that is helpful information.

• Neighbor August 20, 2015 (8:11 pm)

  Ivan – I tend to favor Lisa over Braddock because Braddock hasn’t answered many questions herself. She tends to respond to questions with non-answers, except where she supports developer welfare in the form of more MFTE subsidies and lower impact fees. But I do expect answers from Lisa. I really want to know why she feels it’s okay to destroy some of our neighborhoods in the name of affordability when there is already over-capacity for the developer-provided growth estimates of 120,000 residents, and why she supports destroying neighborhoods where many hard-working families reside and are building futures and equity in homeownership that she may support taking away. I do question how affordability has come to mean anyone who has worked hard is now called out as (a) NIMBY, (b) racist, (c) status-quo oriented, (4) anti-change, etc. when in reality many of us just do the best we can with the information and resources we have, and now candidates want to take away what we have worked for and hand it over to developers as if developers are going to build affordable housing just because that’s what these zoning changes say are to occur. At some point I suspect candidates will realize there will never be enough zoning changes on the periphery, and the changes will eventually reach the doors of the candidates through up-zoning, and only then will they realize they have opened the door to the complete destruction of single family neighborhoods in Seattle (except for the wealthy neighborhoods who built in covenants to prevent such changes). The Mayor has already said he is going to try again with upzoning, and it seems only reasonable to question the motives, economics, and ability to mitigate the infrastructure corrosion and degradation associated with growth.
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  Candidates are out there to be judged, and I and others will judge them, especially when their do not take into account the destruction of neighborhoods like mine, and potentially force middle class families out of our neighborhoods in the name of “affordability,” potentially destroying what we’ve built through hard work, in what comes across as handouts and pandering to a cause pushed by the Mayor’s insider group of developers and urbanists, rather than pragmatic, holistic policies that take into account the demands on infrastructure, transportation, etc.

• Jon Wright August 21, 2015 (9:43 am)

  Neighbor, your comment “These candidates are to represent current residents in District 1” comes across to me as “I’ve got mine, to heck with new people. I want my nice single-family home neighborhood in the middle of a rapidly-growing urban environment left exactly as it has always been.” I guess when the notion of social justice, doing the right thing for others, and the greater good comes in conflict with parochial self interest, the latter is always going to win.
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  The problem is the only places where there are not challenges with affordability, transportation, density, etc., are places where nobody wants to be and so they are dying! I bet the people in Detroit would love to have our problems.

• Jon Wright August 21, 2015 (9:48 am)

  WSperson, respectfully recommend you research how our local roads have been performing post “road diet.” Pretty much the same throughput but much safer.

• Neighbor August 21, 2015 (11:31 am)

  Jon – presumptuous to assume you know anything about what I do for the greater good, but regardless, I think you are wrong – candidates are to represent constituents in a representative democracy. If the candidates just represent hypotheticals and support magical thinking policies, the voters (current constituents not potential future people whom developers have convinced us may move here at some point in the future if the conditions are favorable in the area) are to vote them out of office. Therefore, it is in their interest to represent us. What I’m learning from commenters like you and a few others is that you want Seattle to be San Francisco, urine smell and all, and us hard working middle class folks are not welcome here anymore because the policies you support advance the interests of the rich and the poor at the expense of middle class citizens.

• Jon Wright August 21, 2015 (2:11 pm)

  Neighbor, I just find all the NIMBYism and resistance to change that goes on around here very discouraging. That was what I was trying to say; not so much ascribing any particular position to you.
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  You are right, candidates represent their constituents in the here and now. If the constituents are forward thinking, we are more likely to get forwarding-thinking elected officials. If the majority of voters is more focused on preserving the status quo, then that is who are likely to end up with in office.
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  My point is that I believe Seattle is going to grow whether we want it to or not. Rather than expending energy fighting it, I think we might as well accept that reality and figure out how we can make Seattle work best for everyone, not just those of us in single-family neighborhoods.
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  For the record, I consider my family middle class, too.

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