You won’t see School Board races unless you are in one of the two districts up for re-election this year, as members are narrowed to two in the primary by voters only residing in the district they will represent.

So even if you have a School Board position on your ballot, you’ll see only one.

In the general, ALL Seattle voters will be able to choose between the top two for both seats.

I’m pretty sure I remember this very blog discussing the lack of demand for gas last summer as being one of the reasons why Metro’s revenue was sliding (due to the never-ending comedy of funding public transit via means that shrivel up if public transit is actually successful).

http://noisetank.com/hugeasscity/2009/07/29/a-criminally-unfair-one-sided-amateur-blog-style-qa-with-or-without-david-miller/

And Dan Bertolet has a some lessons to teach you people who think the tunnel is a done deal:

http://noisetank.com/hugeasscity/2009/07/03/the-deep-bore-tunnel-is-a-done-deal-just-like-the-monorail-was/

I have to agree in the position 4 race, Plants is probably the best bet. Both Bagshaw and Bloom have aspects to their policy views and political support that I find troubling.
With position 6, even though Nick doesn’t have a great track record on some things regarding land use and transit, I like him and respect him. Jessie is a great candidate and much better on some issues. I really wish she’d run for one of the other council positions. Still I’m voting for her in the primary while reserving the right to change my mind in the general.

As for the position 8 race I must say Mike O’Brien is one of my top two but I am a little upset at the way David Miller has been demonized. Having spoke with him at length on several occasions he’s quite the wonk when it comes to things like parks, open space, and land use. At first glance he may come off as a bit of a NIMBY but when you talk to him for a while he’s usually got a good point. The city promised various neighborhoods amenities like sidewalks or parks in exchange for accepting more density. To some extent you could argue these and other improvements are needed in order to prepare a neighborhood for density. However in many cases the density has come but the amenities haven’t. Another issue are the seas of poorly designed and constructed townhouses. If anything they create opposition to density among their neighbors. David has a number of ideas for revising the relevant codes and zoning so we get a better built environment. As you can guess I’m voting for David Miller in the primary. I’ll see who makes it into the top two before I’ll make a decision about the general.

Land use stuff played a really big role for the City Council level. When we do County Exec and Mayor, the formula will shift a bit. Viewed in that prism I the rationale becomes a bit clearer.

Pro-transit/pro-rail: We’re pro-transit obviously, but our perception of the region’s situation is that the number one priority should be completing the buildout of ST2 and laying the groundwork for ST3. That doesn’t mean we don’t want more bus service, etc., but you’ll be hard pressed to find a candidate opposed to that.

Our positions on the monorail vary (and Ben’s most vocal), but I’m not sure it’s relevant to the current situation.

Our editorial slant is for the streetcar network and for light rail expansion. Secondary to that, land use is an important consideration for us. We don’t want to have a council that re-argues the merits of streetcars, rail, and density at each meeting. We want a council who shares our values, or one that isn’t expressly opposed to them (see Bloom) — how is that a shocker?

Our values is that, in general and where appropriate, fixed-guideway rail is a better transit mode than bus. We can narrow “general” and “appropriate” significantly when we recognize that these are races for the region’s biggest city.

Don’t vote for Dorsol or one of his opponents but against David Bloom?

Should you maybe consider asking a question or two of the candidates?

And vote for Richard Conlin? Seriously? He’s one of the folks responsible for killing the monorail by processing it to death, and a quick review of some of his endorsements will go to show that. On the other hand, he is extremely pro-light rail.

Then again, you’ve done a similar thing in endorsing Jessie Israel, haven’t you? She’s a fine candidate, but this sounds more like simply voting against Nick. You mention he’s been good on pedestrian and bicycle programs, but it seems like you’re really just pissed off that he was ever opposed to anything about Link. He’s been pretty clear that the problem isn’t streetcars as a technology, but streetcars as tools of development rather than transit options — a view I share with him.

Can’t disagree with your call on Mike O’Brien — but it helps that he helped lead the fight for ST2, doesn’t it?

I suppose that forces you to endorse Mike McGinn for Mayor, then — for all the same reasons, doesn’t it? Or is it going to be hard to not support Greg Nickels who — no matter how you feel about his leadership of the city — has clearly shouldered much of the burden in seeing Link finally open and running.

I’ll stress as always that I like Link and light rail, but as usual I worry that this is less of a pro-transit blog, and more of a pro-rail blog.

I don’t see a primarily road tunnel as being all that useful for transit. The alignment isn’t a particularly good one for bus or rail use either. I doubt WSDOT do much to make it easy to convert. At some point it is cheaper and easier to just build the purpose-built tunnel you should have built in the first place rather than try to convert and old one built for another purpose.

I have no idea where WSDOT thinks all those transit riders are coming from. If the tunnel is built I really doubt Metro will run many bus routes through it.