West Seattle, Washington
02 Wednesday
First Dan Dempsey; now Edwin Fruit, another of the 5 candidates for the WS-centered open school board seat in the Aug. 21 primary, takes his “guest blogger” turn at Educating Mom.
With our state’s earliest primary election ever (Aug. 21) just 10 weeks away, it’s not too soon to start figuring out who merits your vote. To that end, the 34th District Democrats welcome all to their candidate forum tonight, 7:15 pm at The Hall @ Fauntleroy (including nonpartisan offices such as school board). Here’s the list of who they’re expecting.
Educating Mom has offered space to all school-board candidates to post “guest blog entries” making their pitches for the job. One of the first, just up today, is Dan Dempsey, WSHS teacher who’s one of the five people in the Aug. 21 primary for the school-board job that Irene Stewart is leaving.
The deadline to file for this year’s elections has just passed; here are a few WS-related notes from the final list. No time to rustle up info-links on the new additions at the moment so if anyone can vouch for them, please leave a comment, and we’ll follow up with more info later.
–West Seattle’s King County Councilmember, Dow Constantine, has indeed filed to re-run in District 8, and along with Democrat challenger “Goodspaceguy” Nelson, has a Republican opponent, John Potter.
–Seattle City Councilmember Tom Rasmussen, who lives in WS but will be voted on by the entire city (like all the other council positions), is the only council candidate to draw no opposition, so — re-election congratulations already (pending write-ins, we suppose).
–West Seattle’s open seat on the Seattle School Board (Irene Stewart is leaving) has a crowded field of contenders: Two more candidates, Zeinab Ahmed and Edwin Fruit, filed today, joining Steve Sundquist, Dan Dempsey, and Maria Ramirez.
One more day left to file to run for something this fall. For WS residents, options include any of five Seattle City Council jobs, King County Prosecutor, King County Assessor, King County Councilmember for District 8, two Port of Seattle Commission jobs, and Seattle School Board member for District 6. Regarding the two district-specific jobs:
–So far Dow Constantine hasn’t officially filed for his County Council job (but apparently intends to); the always-interesting “Goodspaceguy” Nelson has filed to oppose DC in the Democratic primary; nobody’s filed to be a (brave) Republican in this race.
–Three candidates are now in the running for the WS-centered School Board seat that incumbent Irene Stewart is leaving — Steve Sundquist and Dan Dempsey, as previously mentioned, plus Maria Ramirez, who filed today.
One more WS-specific note; Seattle City Council seats are all citywide, but incumbent Tom Rasmussen does live here in WS; he has filed to run for re-election and so far is unopposed.
-Funny, we were just talking about Fauntleroy Place: A city council committee agenda that just landed in our inbox mentions a “possible vote” next Monday morning regarding the “alley vacation” that is a key part of the FP project.
-Another council committee has a briefing at 2 pm today regarding the latest version of the citywide skatepark plan. Two (updated from first version of this post; thanks to the reader who corrected us) proposed WS skateparks are currently on the list: Roxhill and Delridge.
-The city kicked off a push for low-flow showerheads today. If you haven’t tried ’em, you might be surprised. We converted to one during a remodel a few years back and it’s really not that dramatic a change.
Last weekend, we mentioned the jump-started campaign of Steve Sundquist for the WS-district Seattle School Board seat that Irene Stewart is relinquishing. The online campaign-filings list (which will be updated all week till the filing deadline Friday afternoon) now shows Sundquist has a challenger, Dan Dempsey. Can’t find an official campaign site for him but this appears to be a site he maintains. Meantime, the other WS-centered political position we’ll be voting for this year is King County Council District 8; incumbent Dow Constantine appears not to have filed papers as of this evening but had a campaign kickoff lunch today, so it’s a good bet he’ll be back on the ballot.
Just saw channel 7 in The Junction outside West 5 to present coverage of tonight’s City Council nightlife-ordinance hearing; the story’s not on their website as of this writing, but you can read about what happened (minus the WS angle) at the P-I site. Also at Slog, where Skylark gets a shoutout.
As the Times points out this morning, election season is about to begin. You’ve probably already noticed 
that one candidate has gotten a jump on things by blanketing West Seattle with yard signs (photo at right) even before officially filing to run. Steve Sundquist is the first declared candidate for the WS (District 6) school board seat that Irene Stewart is giving up. We don’t know much about him yet (here’s his site if you want to peruse for yourself), but we’ll miss Stewart, who we thought was doing a decent job in a difficult (to say the least) situation. As for when we’ll start voting – the primary is now earlier than ever – August 21.
The City Council just officially approved its $8 million plan (which will apparently take a year to draw up, so guess the viaduct’s not going anywhere any time soon) to try to figure out how we would all get around without a viaduct or a tunnel. Press release text after the click:Read More
The Herald‘s Letters to the Editor section yields another tale of interaction gone awry.
Tough month for Mayor Nickels. First he lost his father — now he has to deal with reports that his son has been indicted for alleged casino cheating. FRIDAY EARLY AM UPDATE: Citizen Rain (new local blog aggregator) has a link to Jake Nickels’ MySpace. (The cached version seems more interesting.)
Amusing high-tech tidbit about our County Councilmember Dow C on Slog.
With so many blossoming businesses in West Seattle — West 5, Skylark, etc. — concerned about the so-called “nightlife premises legislation” that’s been making its way through the City Council, we thought you might want to know the next hearing has just been set (June 4).
Crosscut says West Seattle’s rep on the Seattle School Board, Irene Stewart, has decided not to run for re-election. UPDATE: Since our original mention, we have been forwarded the press release she sent out. Click ahead if you would like to see it:
Read More
Tonight the state House passed the domestic-partnership bill, with a fair amount of WS legislator involvement — Sen. Erik Poulsen co-sponsored the Senate version, Rep. Joe McDermott co-sponsored the House version (and invoked Alki Point during debate).
-Thanks to the reader who tipped us that Bakery Nouveau is featured on the cover of Seattle Magazine’s new “best restaurants” issue. Yum.
-A new exhibit at MOHAI will feature 19th-century paintings from a daughter of the Denny party’s namesake.
-Also from the P-I, Ted Van Dyk has a good post-viaduct-vote rant. Reminds us of the interesting sight we saw while traveling up Cali after the Charlestown meeting last night — an apartment window plastered with not only a YES ELEVATED sign, but also RECALL NICKELS and even mock Times front pages with the apartment-dweller’s fantasy future headline NICKELS DEFEATED. (Perhaps a Steinbrueck relative lives there!)
Busy dance card tomorrow night for West Seattle’s King County Councilmember Dow Constantine. He’s the guest of honor at a fundraising “roast” at West 5, kicking off his next campaign. But his staff tells us he’s hoping first to drop in and “touch base” with the gathering crowd at the Charlestown Cafe meeting, which they regret was scheduled long after the West 5 shindig was nailed down. (Afterparty, anyone?)
Tracking back a link that brought someone to our site this morning … we discovered that if you Google the phrase:
MOST FAMOUS POLITICIAN
the first thing that comes up is Hizzoner’s home page. Completely and totally our fault. (Although you can argue whether it’s good or bad to be known by that phrase.)
For what it’s worth … WS only got one shout-out in the text of the State o’ the City speech (read it and watch it here), just delivered by West Seattle’s Most Famous Politician. Even in the section that mentions tons o’construction in various neighborhoods … no mention.
Reminder — Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis talks transportation at the Fauntleroy Community Association’s community meeting at The Hall tonight. (He’s filling in for Hizzoner, who is in DC this morning to talk to Congress about global warming.)
One month after our last post on the controversy over the city’s proposed crackdown on “nightlife” businesses — the so-called “nightlife premises legislation” — opponents and supporters are about to get their day before a City Council committee. Opponents, including West Seattle restaurateurs whom you would never consider to be “nightclub” operators, contend this law will hurt their businesses and your/our right to patronize them — so they’re pleading for backup at the meeting (9:30 am Thursday, City Hall downtown) to make sure they’re not outnumbered by community groups (reportedly mostly from other parts of the city) who have rallied in support of the law. If you can’t be there in person, here’s how to contact council members to let them know what you think. If you want to read the whole ordinance for yourself, here it is.
Two months after Wind-tastrophe ’06, a new city report is out (here’s the city press release, with a link to the full report). Best quote is on page 11: “Seattle City Light should develop a more robust emergency power restoration plan for storms.” No comment.
| Comments Off on Another WS school-board candidate makes his pitch