West Seattle, Washington
02 Wednesday
According to a MoveOn.org e-mail just forwarded to us by a reader (thank you!), the group is trying to organize rallies tonight to protest the presidential veto of children’s health-insurance expansion and to ask Congress to override it; one of those rallies is supposed to be in The Junction tonight @ 6 pm. 8:10 PM UPDATE: We drove by around 6:05; there were two small clusters of people on corners of Cali/Alaska, with a couple signs. A lot like the regular Sunday anti-war protests, though not quite that size.
Five weeks from today, it’s General Election Day (and one of the last times you’ll see signs like the one below, taken on Primary Election Day at our polling place). You can prepare by reading about the candidates and the ballot measures online — and by going to any of the candidate forums coming up around the area. Here are a few: At 6:30 tonight at the Georgetown Ballroom, all 9 city council candidates are scheduled to appear. Next week (6:30 pm October 11), the school-board candidates will appear at a forum at school district HQ. Then on October 18, the Alki Community Council will host a Q/A forum with the candidates for West Seattle’s open school-board seat (District 6) as well as the candidates for the open City Council Position 3 seat. TUESDAY EVENING ADDITION: Just heard about the Sustainable West Seattle RTID Forum on October 16.
The November 6th election is exactly six weeks away. 2007 is not as glamorous an election year as next one will be, with marquee offices like President and Governor on the ballot in ’08, but this one’s a bit of a sleeper, featuring ballot issues that could affect our community for years to come.
Found in the document billed as “highlights” of the budget Hizzoner presented to the City Council yesterday: $1 million “challenge grant” to help the community buy the Fauntleroy School building (page 8); $4 million for a new “outage-management system” (last page) so City Light can do a better job of telling us what’s going on when we’re powerless like those dark days last December.
Also speaking of schools – the primary election results have just been certified, and the Final Two for West Seattle’s school board seat are now official: Steve Sundquist (photo left) got 53.4% of the primary vote (5,624 votes), while Maria Ramirez (photo right) got 23.4% (2,467 votes). Although school board members represent certain districts, in the general election the entire city votes on all seats, so Sundquist and Ramirez (as well as the candidates in the other districts) will have to campaign citywide. Election Day: November 6th.
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State Senator Erik Poulsen, who represents the 34th District, just announced he’s quitting to become a public-utility lobbyist. He was re-elected last fall to a second term in the Senate, after two terms in the state House.
King County has posted its latest ballot count, and in Seattle School Board District 6, nothing has changed from last night – looks like it will be Steve Sundquist (left) vs. Maria Ramirez (right) for the West/South Seattle school board seat that Irene Stewart is giving up. After today’s count, Sundquist has 51.8% of the vote, Ramirez has 24.1%, with Dan Dempsey at 17%. The unofficial Seattle Public Schools Blog notes that more people voted in our district than in the other district with a primary battle, North Seattle District 2, and also notes that while the primary votes were by district, the entire city votes for all school board races in the fall, so Sundquist and Ramirez (along with other school board candidates) will have to campaign citywide. One other WS note from the election: King County Councilmember Dow Constantine lopsidedly (91%-9%) beat his eclectic fellow Democrat primary challenger Goodspaceguy Nelson, and now goes on to a general-election race against Republican John Potter (who doesn’t seem to have a campaign website).ÂÂ
These links will take you to the newest available results:
Seattle School Board
Seattle City Council #1 & #3 (bottom of page)
Seattle City Council #9
Seattle Port Commission
King County races (D)
King County races (R)
King County ballot measures
1:30 AM UPDATE: In the most noteworthy West Seattle-specific race of the night, 97% of the precincts are counted in Seattle School Board District 6, and so far Steve Sundquist and Maria Ramirez are leading the field, with 51.6% and 24.2% of the vote, respectively. Top 2 move on to November. Dan Dempsey is in third, with 17.1%.
FREEWAY FRIGHT ’07, FOURTH-TO-LAST WEEKDAY: The I-5 work crews have reached a milestone. (Maybe we’re just punchy; we childishly giggled at the text clump toward the end of that WSDOT page’s full web address: Crewsfinishjoints …) Now they’ve just got some more paving to do — weather permitting. Only two lanes open till they’re done. To check the live cams before your commute, go here.
PRIMARY ELECTION ’07, 7 AM-8 PM FOR IN-PERSON VOTERS: On the ballot you will see City Council races, Port Commission races, the School Board District 6 race, a smattering of county contests, and 2 park levies. All the info you could possibly want, even video voters’ guides, can be found from the list of links here. (We’ll have links to results here tonight.)
HELP FIGHT, AND PREVENT, CRIME, 7 PM TONIGHT: Everyone’s invited to tonight’s meeting of the West Seattle Community Safety Partnership, 7-8:30 pm @ the SW Precinct. Main topic: Protecting your home from burglary. You’ll also hear updates on recent area crime, and neighborhood reports.
If you don’t vote by mail, don’t forget to visit your polling place tomorrow, on our state’s earliest Primary Election Day ever. Two noncontroversial (as far as we can tell) county ballot measures (park-related levies) will be decided. Otherwise, ballot highlights include City Council and County Council races, and most notably for West Seattle, the open Seattle School Board seat for District 6 (incumbent Irene Stewart chose not to re-run). We covered the forum at Pathfinder K-8 two weeks ago including all 4 of the active District 6 hopefuls; there wasn’t enough time at the forum for organizers to ask all the questions submitted by the audience, so they later sent the candidates the full list and invited them to reply. One of the candidates, Dan Dempsey, just sent us a detailed document with his responses to those questions; we uploaded it to our site so you can read for yourself (click here to download it as a Word doc). We haven’t received, and can’t find online, any other candidates’ responses to those same questions, but if you want to check out the District 6 candidates’ websites, besides Dempsey’s site (hotlinked to his name above), Maria Ramirez‘s site is here; Steve Sundquist‘s site is here; Edwin Fruit is siteless. ELECTION DAY VOTING HOURS: 7 am-8 pm tomorrow.
(left to right starting with the pink jacket, are Seattle City Council members Jan Drago, Richard McIver, Sally Clark, meeting at High Point Community Center tonight as the Economic Development and Neighborhoods Committee)
We went to tonight’s meeting to make sure we didn’t miss anything earthshattering. A few dozen other people showed up to see what happened with the latest proposals to crack down on nightclub noise and violence; the new noise rules advanced unanimously, the “nightlife premises licensing” proposal got a 2-1 vote (McIver against). The latter proposal has been watered down a bit (potentially affecting far fewer businesses around the city) and didn’t draw much passionate opposition; the only emotional public testimony came from two women who say they got beat up at a Belltown club the other night and couldn’t get the club to care, so they’re for tougher rules, as is Jackie Ramels of the Alki Community Council, who spoke early in the meeting to voice her support. Toward the end of 2 1/2 long hours, the council members heard excellent short presentations by leaders of the High Point redevelopment project, the West Seattle Food Bank, Neighborhood House, and Safe Futures — lots of specifics there for future updates here.
Could be — if some of the more vocal proponents/opponents in the city’s ongoing nightlife-regulation debate show up for the City Council’s Economic Development & Neighborhoods Committee meeting in WS — since the next potential step in all this is on the agenda. 6-8 pm this Thursday, High Point Community Center.
-From the latest Land Use Information Bulletin: More townhouses coming to Cali, this time north of the Junction, on and behind the site of a little two-business storefront (alterations and salon), a five-unit development proposed for 4045 Cali.
-Seattle City Council members are coming to West Seattle next week. The Economic Development and Neighborhoods Committee plans to meet @ High Point Community Center next Thursday (August 16th), 6-8 pm (agenda here). Councilmembers on this committee are Sally Clark, Jan Drago, Richard McIver, and Peter Steinbrueck.
-Also on the road, West Seattle 13-year-old Jeremy Scharff-Kim, a student at Pathfinder K-8. This Times article tells the tale of his trip to Hawaii in a quest for Pokemon glory. You can follow his progress here. Good luck!
-Congrats to WS “caffeine jazz” group Vente Caffeinato on its first CD. Get it here.
Interesting quote from West Seattle’s Most Famous Politician in what The Big Blog says is an Esquire Magazine feature about “stylish” mayors (not available online so far as we can tell). We must admit, a decade and a half in WS but we have yet to find ourselves grocery-shopping at the same place and time as Hizzoner. (Did rub produce-browsing elbows with ex-police chief Norm Stamper once.) 9:47 PM UPDATE: Citizen Rain points us to examples of the mayor’s style in his online photo gallery, which is more up to date than many other parts of the city website – it actually has pix from his KIRO Radio guest appearance today. (And yet we couldn’t get timely, detailed city website updates during Windstorm ’06 …)
9 am to noon today, 710 AM on your radio (streaming online too), Hizzoner will become the latest guest host to fill in for KIRO Radio’s vacationing Dave Ross. We would suggest calling in with questions, but looking at his all-star guest list, we suspect he won’t have time.
It was about 15 minutes before the end of tonight’s school-board candidates forum on the lawn at Pathfinder K-8 when our internet-attuned ears really perked up.
First, Dan Dempsey (photo left), one of 4 contenders for the West Seattle-centered District 6 seat that Irene Stewart is giving up, declared he has multiple blogs on his campaign website, but isn’t getting much feedback yet. (Reviewing his site, it appears he’s put up more discussion boards than blogs, but nice gesture anyway!)
Then, answering the same audience question about ways the board could improve communication with the public, District 1 candidate Peter Maier (photo right) offered his observation that the official Seattle Public Schools website just isn’t particularly easy to use — tough to access documents, etc.
Understatement of the night, from our quarters (and not just us; a fair amount of those in attendance laughed knowingly). But as she rose next to answer the same communication question, District 2 incumbent Darlene Flynn (photo left) was clearly not amused, retorting sharply, “That website didn’t even HAVE documents on it four years ago.”
Not surprisingly, given the rocky year the school board has had, Flynn and the other incumbent in attendance, Sally Soriano (photo right), spent a lot of their time defending and detailing what they believe to be their key first-term accomplishments. But that was really a small part of a fascinating evening that probably helped clarify a lot of August 21 (and beyond) decisions … much more after the click:Read More
Political signs are multiplying along every busy stretch of road in WS (and elsewhere in the city). This is because the primary election, earliest ever, is less than 3 weeks away. The hottest Seattle races are for School Board (including the WS district, whose rep, Irene Stewart, is not re-running) and City Council; we are now just a few days away from your chance to see/hear the School Board candidates in person, at an outdoor forum, Pathfinder K-8 School lawn (Genesee Hill), Monday night, bring a picnic dinner, enjoy free ice-cream treats courtesy of the Pathfinder PTSA –picnicking and mingling with the candidates starts @ 5:30, speeches @ 6:30. One PS on the August 21st election: Two King County ballot measures will be decided, both tax levies — Proposition 1 for regional/rural parks, Proposition 2 for parks, trails, and Woodland Park Zoo.
He’s dropping by the weekly “Drinking Liberally” get-together (not in WS) tonight, according to HA.
If only more political events were set up this way: Two weeks from tonight, as the Aug. 21 primary election approaches, at least 10 Seattle School Board candidates (including 2 incumbents) will be at Pathfinder K-8 for an ice-cream social and moderated forum the evening of Aug. 6 — no, not in the cafeteria, but on the school’s front lawn, atop lovely Genesee Hill. Picnic dinners encouraged. Free ice-cream bars served. So far, forum organizer Eric Baer of the Pathfinder PTSA (co-sponsoring with counterpart PTSAs from 3 other WS elementaries: Alki, Arbor Heights, Sanislo) tells us the confirmed attendees include 4 of the 5 candidates in the WS-centered District 6 race, as well as candidates from the 3 other districts to be decided this year. Don’t just wade frantically through your voters’ pamphlet at the last minute; hear and see candidates in person. Aug. 6; see you there.
If you’re at Lincoln Park tonight, you might run into the 34th District Democrats, enjoying their annual picnic (6 pm, Shelter 3). You might see a few candidates too, since the primary election is so early this year (six weeks from tomorrow). In the interest of equal time, we tried to find out when the local Republicans are picnicking; closest thing we could find is the local GOP women having a bash at Salty’s tomorrow.
Just noticed this P-I article that mentions two WS Democratic (yes, we know that’s kind of redundant) politicians — State Senator Erik Poulsen and King County Councilmember Dow Constantine — are reportedly thinking about running for State Commissioner of Public Lands. Dow C has a re-election run to get through first, later this year; Erik P just got re-elected last year and holds his current office till 2010.
Like the way King County government runs? Maybe not, you say? You’re in luck. Its every-10-years charter review is under way, and you can put in your 2 cents tonight, 6:30 pm, The Hall @ Fauntleroy.
Following in the pixelsteps of Dan Dempsey and Edwin Fruit, two more candidates for our open school board seat are taking their “guest blogger” turns at Educating Mom today: Maria Ramirez and Steve Sundquist.
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