In yesterday’s guest post from Council candidate Brad Meacham, he asserted that his opponent, incumbent Councilmember Bruce Harrell, had attended only three transportation committee meetings since his term began in 2008.
I’ve now seen evidence that convinces me that this assertion is incorrect. There are at least 6 cases of him attending, and possibly many more. Due to a deficiency in my fact-checking process, I did not catch the error in time for publication. I regret the error.
Note to Bruce and Brad: Save the mudslinging for the hit pieces the last three days before the end of the election.
Some of us would like you to answer questions on your policy positions.
Brad: How would you vote on civility ordinance proposals?
Bruce: Do you support the various transit and land-use proposals Brad has brought up? In particular, will you vote to allow a lot more housing around light rail stations?
Harrell has not engaged in any mudslinging. However, making false assertions about an opponent can certainly be viewed as mudslinging though.
Dude. The point is that Bruce went to a handful of these meetings, and has positions on transit issues that show he’s ill-informed. 3 vs 6 is splitting hairs when the total is an order of magnitude higher.
My friend, the point is that Brad should be talking about his policy disagreements with Bruce, not wasting his breath on accusatory stuff, like Bruce not regularly attending each and every committee meeting for committees on which he does not serve. How many of those meetings has Brad attended?
Have you heard anyone say they decided to support Brad because they through Bruce should be attending committee meetings on which he doesn’t serve? Drop that schtick. Get back on message.
Martin,
Thanks for being a stand up guy and accepting responsibility for your error!
Regarding charges of mudslinging, I’m happy to have the correct number of Bruce’s appearances at the transportation committee. Thank you, Martin, for the correction. This means that Bruce appeared at at least 6 of the 65 meetings between 1/1/08 and 4/26/11, not 3. Maybe he even peeked in at another one or two meetings, bringing his attendance to just above 10%.
Regarding my positions, please take a look at my site: http://www.electbradmeacham.com. I love this blog because it’s a place for informed discussion of transit policy ideas. I look forward to much more constructive conversation ahead.
Do you think you may owe voters an explanation of how you came to decide to run with those mistaken numbers? Or is that a level of forthrightness you want us to know we shouldn’t expect if we should happen to elect you?
When I first fact-checked the piece, I asked Mr. Meacham his source for the info. He said he’d viewed the video of all 65 meetings and counted Mr. Harrell’s appearances. An email to Harrell’s campaign wasn’t returned in time to correct the post.
Having now had to look at some of the videos, I have to say that there’s no simple way to quickly determine who attended each meeting without watching all 130 hours or so of video. It’s not a claim I might have chosen to make, but I believe it to be an honest mistake.
Thanks for that, Martin. Whether Meacham’s mistake rises to the level of an “honest” one I’m not sure. Though I suppose if his best judgment was that some hasty video skimming was all the effort he needed to put in to generate a “fact” to paste on his opponent, that’s an honest reflection of the kind of rigorous thinking he’ll use on the job, for sure.
Gus, claiming people are dishonest is a pretty serious attack. 3 vs 6 out of 65 is a pretty small difference – the point here is that Bruce doesn’t take it seriously.
Sorry if I was questioning Meacham’s actions a little too rigorously, Ben. Maybe I should have just let it go. But I didn’t like how he left it to Martin to apologize to STB readers for him.
Sure, maybe it wasn’t dishonest. But it was…something.
Ben, I don’t know that it’s “just 6”. It’s at least 6. It could be 65, for all I know.
Gus, I have an aggressive corrections policy and went ahead and did it without really waiting for Mr. Meacham or giving him a chance to do otherwise.
I know full well Harrell’s record on transit in Seattle, and his attendance at transportation committee meetings changes nothing. I for one am looking forward to having a true leader and champion of pro-transit policies on the council. On this count the choice between Harrell and Brad is quite clear.
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I appreciate the fact check, but since the error was the author’s, and was published under his name, I don’t believe an apology is necessary.
Well, I don’t like to think I’m in the business of misinforming my readers, which is why I fact check guest pieces. If I’d been a little more patient I probably would have caught the mistake.
Martin, I don’t think it’s your responsibility to fact check guest posters. However, I respect the integrity of STB all the more because of it. Thanks for posting this.
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