With ballots being received around the state over the next few days, it’s time to recap our endorsements. Please share this with your friends and family who are concerned about transit and land use.
Initiative 1033: No
King County Executive: Dow Constantine
Seattle City Mayor: Mike McGinn
Seattle City Council Position No. 2: Richard Conlin
Seattle City Council Position No. 4: Sally Bagshaw
Seattle City Council Position No. 6: Jessie Israel
Seattle City Council Position No. 8: Mike O’Brien
Bellevue City Council Position No. 2: Vicki Orrico
Bellevue City Council Position No. 4: Patsy Bonincontri
Bellevue City Council Position No. 6: Michael Marchand
Bellevue City Council Position No. 7: Mike Creighton
City of Burien Proposition 1: Yes
The Seattle Transit Blog editorial board is Martin H. Duke, Ben Schiendelman, and John Jensen.
No Port recommendations?
Good idea!
That’s a hard one. Personally, of course, I’m voting for Vekich and Holland (and R-71!), but it’s difficult to differentiate the candidates on the basis of transit, which is where we limit our endorsements.
I don’t think Albro would be all that bad, he seems to be a genuine transportation nerd. I’m probably voting for Vekich but somewhat reluctantly. Holland should be a fairly clear choice, though I don’t think he’s said much on transportation.
Personally, I’m voting Holland and haven’t yet decided on the other race.
How come no housing levy support? Aren’t land use and transit tied together? As in, shouldn’t low-income folks be able to live near good transit and jobs in the City? Come on STB…
I think if we expand the scope of our endorsements too wide when they will be a little bit less meaningful.
There’s only one candidate on the ballot. You could recommend someone for a write-in, but that’s a futile effort.
How come no King County Council recommendations?
I don’t think there are any truely competitive races. Reagan Dunn has an opponent but she is crazy and doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in Hades of winning.
All the races are unopposed except Dunn’s. I actually like Dunn when you take his district into account, but we decided not to endorse in this race.
This may not reflect the views of the STB Editorial Board but here’s my take:
Position 3: Rob Holland
This one is pretty clear cut. David Doud has run a really dirty race, and has ties to anti-transit political donors like Kemper Freeman and John Stanton.
Position 4: I don’t know
Tom Albro actually seems to have a clue about how the Port relates to regional transportation, land use, and environmental issues. His company also runs the Seattle Monorail. When I had a chance to talk to him he came across as very much a transportation nerd and was really excited about the Airport Link station. Unfortunately he shares a campaign manager, donors, and many endorsements with David Doud.
Max Vekich is a former longshoreman, state legislator, and current ILWU officer. He has many good endorsements like Dow Constantine, David Hiller, Mike O’Brien and the Sierra Club Cascade Chapter. Unfortunately he comes across as rather clueless on most issues not directly related to the operation of the Port’s marine division or labor relations.
The Port’s marine division could use a lot of help. I believe he’d work on getting cruise ship waste handled by our waste management, rather than dumped offshore as it is today, and require them to use city electrical hookups rather than just providing an option.
As former 4-term state legislator who helped pass the original Growth Management Act, Max Vekich understands quite a bit about industrial lands, transit, and planning. That’s why he has such a wide range of endorsers, from Denis Hayes (Bullit Foundation) to Dave Gering (Manufacturing Industrial Council).
You can learn more about Vekich and Albro through their different approaches to the tunnel. As you know, the Port is being told to commit $300 million to the tunnel project, without getting any assurances that freight and passengers will be moved more efficiently to train yards, cruise ship terminals, and warehouses.
Albro says he’s “fully on board” with the deep bore tunnel.
Vekich says “I am not going to commit $300 million of taxpayer dollars without having a hearing, without having briefings.”
Seattle Times: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2010142029_portpositionfour27.html
Oh crap:
The Times recommends Susan Hutchison for King County executive
I was hoping they’d have the sense to endorse Constantine instead.
The (relatively) new Transit Riders Union should have questionnaires from all the King Co. Executive, Seattle Mayor, and Seattle City Council candidates by Monday.
Be sure to check out our website — http://www.transitriders.org — for a real sense of what these candidates know about our issues, and what their actual policy details (or lack thereof) sound like.
Nice list generally but I can’t bring myself to vote for McGinn. His campaign appears to be built around cheap shots and truth stretching. While he comes across as thoughtful in person, his antics tell a much different story. He’d be bad for the city, abd a completely ineffective advocate for transit.
Unfortunately Mallahan is likely to be worse for transit no matter what you might think of McGinn. He’s mentioned “congestion reduction” which tends to be code finding more space on the road for cars. I doubt he’ll support taking away general purpose lane capacity for either bicycles or transit. Mallahan also wants to reduce parking costs in downtown Seattle to attract visitors from the exurbs/suburbs. Again this likely means he isn’t going to support reducing parking minimums and may do something goofy like putting city funds into new downtown parking structures.
Filling out my ballot today and just want to point out that I-1033 is in a spot that’s really easy to miss. It’s “hiding” below the instructions on how to vote where it could easily have been put in the column with all the other State wide initiatives. Don’t know if the layout is the same on ballots outside of King County but I’d let co-works, friends, etc. which might not be as politically active that they need to not miss this vote.