Seattle Transit Blog endorsements are primarily a function of a candidate’s transit and land use policies, and on those merits Mayor Mike McGinn is simply unassailable.
He has pushed for greater investment on all transit fronts. He initiated a badly needed update to the Transit Master Plan, sought to fund it through a $80 vehicle license fee, and used the TMP to open up the possibility of a Sound Transit 3 package in 2016 rather than 2020 or 2024. He has leveraged Seattle’s voracious appetite for transit to accelerate the entire region.
He has routinely produced the most aggressively pro-density proposals every time the subject arises. A city that enacted the Mayor’s proposals in full would create a better life for transit riders; more people, jobs, and activities well-served by transit; better public health and safer streets; greater housing supply and a more politically powerful Seattle; and a more environmentally sustainable future.
Of course, the Seattle City Council has not fully enacted the Mayor’s transit and land use proposals, often delaying and watering them down while not stating clear policy objections. Although critics suggest this means the Mayor is ineffective, this is a dynamic common to most Council-Mayor relationships. Moreover, we fail to see how electing a Mayor with a weaker pro-transit and pro-density reputation will increase the political potency of the positions we share.
Regarding those mayoral alternatives: Peter Steinbrueck, in addition to flirting with anti-rail rhetoric, displays strong anti-density instincts, consistently favoring replacement of a big building with a small building, and a small building with empty space. Councilmember Bruce Harrell has a poor density-and-transit voting record on the Council and continues to emphasize cheap and easy car access as a policy objective. We are hopeful that Senator Ed Murray would make a good mayor, but Olympia politics is so far to the right of Seattle that is difficult to discern where he stands on the real fault lines in City politics. He has not yet embraced the aggressively pro-transit and pro-density positions that would move us to abandon an incumbent with whom we agree almost totally.
Mayor McGinn’s first election victory was widely viewed as a fluke. He deserves an unambiguous mandate from the people of this City and a second term as Mayor.
The STB Editorial Board currently consists of Martin H. Duke, Bruce Nourish, and Sherwin Lee.
Stop the presses. McGinn’s cronies endorse McGinn.
I do not think that word means what you think it means.
Ha. +1.
He’s the only possible choice from a transit perspective. It’s really sad that in a city like Seattle that prides itself on progressive politics, we only have one strongly pro-transit candidate for mayor among a field of this size.
totally.
i wish there was a pro-transit alternative to mcginn. i personally cant stand the guy and would rather just not vote than vote for him. i guess ill have to go with ed murray.
McGinn is preferable, Murray is tolerable, and the rest must be defeated.
I dunno, Murray really rubs me the wrong way. He seems to display no interest or awareness in Seattle/urban (as opposed to regional) issues. His campaign website doesn’t even have an “Issues” page!
He’s not my last choice, but he’s definitely not my first or second choice, either.
Out of curiosity, who’s your second? Murray worries the hell out of me too, but a great big question mark seems better than the non-McGinn alternatives.
I don’t think I have a second choice. Every time I turn around, each of the other candidates gives me a new reason to dislike them.
I’m pushing hard for McGinn. If he loses in the primary, then first I’ll cry for a while, and then I’ll consider my options.
I agree with McGinn, but it does seem that you wouldn’t want someone based solely on their positions, but also on their effectiveness fighting for those positions. The VLF didn’t pass, as I recall.
It’s a bit funny that the STB Board is a “guest contributor”.
Yeah, but I’d rather have the possibility of a ham sandwich rather than the certainty of a turd sandwich.
That’s the sad part about this election. There’s a large percentage of the city population, whose support will be needed to make real transit improvements, that now auto-hates McGinn and won’t take anything he does seriously, ever. Any transit improvement he suggests, for these people, is a new front in the “war on cars” and a sop to hated bicycle hippies. Yet no one else actually seems committed to transit. The worst disappointment is Ed Murray, who could bridge this divide — if only he’d start talking up city projects rather than the suburban, “regional” ones he became familiar with while in the Senate.
Yeah, his rhetoric sounds like he’s running for Mayor of Puget Sound (Governor) not Seattle.
Better an ineffective leader whose values are right than an effective leader whose values are wrong. Otherwise, the other guy’s effectiveness is what we’d have to fear. If he goes slashing programs and instituting wrong policies, it could be a significant step backwards and take a long time to recover. Especially when the default (do-nothing) position is somewhat backwards and we’re in an uphill battle.
I’d rather have a real-life Pete Carroll than a cardboard cut out of Vince Lombardi if you get my meaning; someone whose plan is 90% good but gets it done is better than someone whose plan is 100% good but gets only 25% done.
The problem is that the 90% good here is really 20% good. Murray seriously sucks on what will cause emissions to increase.
Sorry STB and I know this is a transportation outlet, but McGinn lacks anything substantial on so many other important city-wide initiatives that outweigh transit and land use; thus he fails to stay. Good luck.
What are some of the other issues, other than the schools? Traffic, transit and land use seem to be the top issues in the election. For example, In Ed Murray’s literature that he hands out, transportation is the 1st thing talked about, followed right by land use.
Don’t talk about a lack of substance without providing a single example of why another candidate would be better.
The Mayor has some rather gushing labor support, too. And it’s of the jobs-with-justice variety, not the jobs-for-jobs-sake variety.
If you work for a living, Mayor McGinn has your back.
ej, as the others piling on have said, with his work preserving all social service funding during the recession, his work on sick leave, broadband, and bringing more jobs to the city – what more do you want?
Mike McGinn placed in the primary and won the general election. Why does that count as a fluke? It’s not like some accidental misfortune befell any other candidate.
Observation about relations between mayor and city council in Seattle are probably accurate, but don’t speak very well for the citizens who elect these people. What can we do to remedy this?
Can anyone give me a reason not to elect the council by district?
Mark Dublin
Proportional representation (via ranked choice voting) would give a majority of the seats on the city council to a majority of the voters. That’s a beautiful thing to have. You’d get to rank your favorite candidates (as many as you care to rank) regardless of what part of town they live in and have a voice for your interests on the council. Campaigning would also be cheaper and less laden with mud. Incumbency re-election would not be the sort of entitlement it has become under single-winner districts.
Districting lets the redistricting commission determine the balance of power on the council. Do you have any reason to believe that a council elected under the proposed maps would be more welcoming of densification and more ambitiously pro-transit?
+1000 for proportional representation in any form.
+1000 for proportional representation in any form.
I think the “fluke” comment is about the fact that he placed in the primary at all.
Most pundits saw the race as between Nickels and “not Nickels”, and most people thought that Mallahan was more likely to attract the “not Nickels” vote. Then, during the primary, Nickels would have the incumbent advantage and cruise to victory.
Instead, Nickels placed 3rd, setting up an unlikely contest between two challengers.
Another way to say it is that Nickels was probably a “good enough” mayor for a larger portion of the city than McGinn. If we had used a ranked-choice or approval system, rather than a primary and runoff, Nickels probably would have won. But in reality, many of Nickels’s supporters didn’t vote for him, because they thought he didn’t need their vote; instead, they voted for their 2nd choice candidate, to ensure that their 3rd choice candidate didn’t make it to the runoff.
Of course, I personally don’t really care how or why McGinn won before. I voted for McGinn in both elections, and plan to do so again. :)
Some of us wouldn’t vote for Nickels not only because of his mishandling of the snowstorm in 2008, but his backstabbing of the monorail initiative that would have helped West Seattle and Ballard get much needed, if pricey, rail.
Aleks is right. Many people thought Nickels was OK and voted for their second favorite, assuming that Nickels would get the other position. But too many people did that, and others voted against Nickels because he wasn’t perfect in the Snowpocolypse or managing the police or was too pro Paul Allen and the downtown developers. So Nickels ended up third and Seattlites shot themselves in the foot. Although I have to say, McGinn has been good, not necessarily worse than Nickels just different, and in some ways better.
I wrote that particular phrase, and called it “a fluke” because the perceived strength of Nickels scared off the “serious” mayoral contenders. Nickels turned out to be weaker than the conventional wisdom thought, and we were left with a fairly weak field. McGinn’s opponent was Joe Mallahan, basically a Charlie Staadecker-like figure. Staadecker is getting essentially no traction in a race stacked with experienced politicians like Murray, Harrell, and Steinbrueck.
Yes, exactly. But the handling of the snowstorm, Monorail and Highway 99 tunnel were enough to get plenty of people upset enough to chose an alternative (however flawed).
This really is a least-of-all-evils situation, isn’t it?
Nah. McGinn is awesome. We’re lucky to have him. But I do wish we had at least one other strong transit candidate, just to push transit issues into the spotlight during debates.
Nope. McGinn is the most awesome mayor ever of any city I’ve lived in.
In addition to being the most pro-transit and pro-densification mayor I’ve lived under, he has stood up for social justice, vetoing Councilmember Burgess’s attack on homeless beggars, making sure there would continue to be free transit for penniless folks trying to navigate the downtown welfare industrial complex, and working with the US Department of Justice when some of the police got out of hand (earning him the eternal enmity of the Police Guild, a red badge of courage in my book). Some will decry his lack of grandstanding during all that, but so what? He is the police chief’s boss. It would be unprofessional for him to publicly grandstand against one of his employees.
His lack of listening skills was on full display when he ignored the doubting Thomases and put a much larger Children and Families Levy on the ballot, with it passing easily. Thank you for following your gut instincts, Mayor! (BTW, this required collaboration with the city council. I would suggest that there was a lot more collaboration than opposition going on between the council and the mayor on a huge number of boring, unnewsworthy issues.)
But for those saying he has no listening skills, his positions have evolved. Before being elected, he talked of potentially having the city take over the school district. That went over like a lead balloon, I suspect. Now, his approach is to *help* the financially-challenged school district.
But what has Mike actually done directly to help kids? Oh, yeah, those pedestrian safety projects, for which he had to go up against intensely auto-centric neighborhood groups that didn’t give a flying flip about the ability of folks (young or old) to safely cross the street. The bike lanes were the icing on the cake. The cake was having fewer kids run over by selfish law-breaking speeders. Shame on those who said we should kow-tow to the lawbreaking speeders.
Mike McGinn has been the Family Values Mayor, in the best and most inclusive use of the phrase.
Imagine what he could accomplish with a second term and a mandate.
Brent – would you be willing to make some phone calls for the campaign? We could use someone as passionate as you! You can just call me, even – 206-683-7810.
I really just dont understand all this hatred of McGinn. What did he do to piss everyone off? The city seems to be doing great under his watch, especially when you compare us to other cities in the country. His failure to get some of his policies and ideas throught the city council could be a sign of his failure to work well with them, but there is no guarentee that another candidate would do better.
He opposed the deep-bore freeway tunnel, and kept his promise of having a public vote on it.
The powers that be will never forgive him. They can’t tolerate even one anti-freeway politician in elected office.
Part of it is opposing the deep-bore tunnel, and part of it is a belief that he doesn’t listen to the council or negotiate with the council. What that really means is that he doesn’t rubber-stamp the council’s positions, and that’s intolerable to some people because the council’s positions are obviously right. After McGinn became mayor and promised not to obstruct the DBT, he spoke up about the incomplete and overly optimistic assumptions in the DBT’s budget, and to the pro-DBT side that was tantamount to obstructing and breaking his promise. Oh, and he wants to declare war on cars and take away your car and make you pay for parking, and force you to live in a 30-story apodment building. Those are all the accusations against him I’ve heard.
Among the SFH neighborhood preservationists who will be Steinbrueck’s base, Mike Orr’s comments are right on target.
But there’s also another group which has historically been cool to McGinn, which is the downtown establishment and longtime politicos. The DBT thing was only a minor part of that. The bigger part is distrust of his background and experience, and a feeling that he wasn’t really a “serious” guy. That sentiment was never completely fair. But he didn’t make it better by taking such an abrasively confrontational tone with the council early on.
The good news is that lately that’s been turning around a bit. I was very pleasantly surprised when McGinn pulled off the dual endorsement (with Murray) from the Downtown Seattle Association. Chatter among downtown folks about him is still not 100% friendly, but he’s in a much better position with them than he was two years ago. People have gotten used to having him around, and he’s also grown a bit in office. If he has a shot, it will be because the downtown interests don’t go full bore against him.
I don’t think anyone amongst this crowd is pissed off at the mayor. Likewise for the folks who read The Stranger. The people who are pissed off are a small minority who somehow believe that the mayor (and people like him) are responsible for the increase in traffic, the difficulty with parking, and the fact that the neighborhood just isn’t as pretty as it used to be (to their eyes). Never mind the fact that these are contradictory statements (if you require parking you are more likely to have people drive which means more traffic; parking requires concrete, which is ugly, etc.). Generally speaking, these folks aren’t really interested in trade-offs, or the subtleties of public policy. Very few will even acknowledge that restrictions on development causes sprawl or hurts the poor (who rent).
At the same time, there are plenty of people who feel like the mayor stumbled out of the gate. This is understandable. He really didn’t have much experience, and apparently, isn’t that great at making friends. Keep in mind, while we might argue all night about how this councilmember is great or that councilmember is horrible, the differences on most issues are minute. So, the fact that so many people dislike him (including Tim Burgess, who dropped out, but said he wanted someone, anyone, to replace McGinn) suggests that there is more than policy differences involved. In other words, he might be very good on the issues, and a decent mayor, but still really hard to get along with. This makes for a less than ideal choice, but that’s how life works. I think there was a Rolling Stones song …
Aw come on………..McGinn is a saint and his critics are just big, bad meanies. Seriously?! McGinn has messed up any number of occasions……….first and foremost his terrible handling of the police. He has pretty much rubberstamped every tax and water bill increase all during the recession. In fact, I think he has never seen a tax increase he doesn’t like and doesn’t have a clue what budgetary restraint is.
The article below skims the surface of why so many people are unhappy with McGinn:
http://seattletimes.com/html/opinion/2020902261_jonathanmartincolumnseattlemayorxml.html
I hope someone does a more substantive one as we get closer to the election.
Hell no. McGinn is about as good as you could ask for.
It’s you guyzz city, but it seems like the choices are:
1) An ineffectual pie-in-the-sky Mayor who proposes things that the populace want, but can’t get them done because of the Powers That Be.
2) Some guy who is just going to go along with the Powers That Be.
Either way the result is the same.
http://wtfhasmcginndone.com/
“Brought KEXP and the Chihuly Garden to Seattle Center.” Um. KEXP, sure, but the Chihuly thing is nothing to brag about. (And I support the guy. I’m just mad about what Seattle Center has become.)
I’m not a fan of the chihuly thing either, but he brought enough other good stuff to the Center that I’m happy to accept the trade.
@litlnemo Have you been to the Chihuly garden yet? I wasn’t expecting much but was impressed. He did a lot in a small footprint. And there’s a constant flow of tourists. Tourists are a very large part of our economy, and worth spending some effort to attract.
@Aleks
“Convened the Leadership Alliance Against Coal to fight coal export proposals in the Northwest.”
See…this is what I mean…everything on this list reads like some recent college graduate’s resume that trying to add real work and projects where there is nothing but clubs and vanity extracurriculars. “Accelerated progress in…”, “Established Committee to…” and so on.
I really don’t blame McGinn in any sense at all, because this seems to be how things are all around Washington State. You can argue. You can make ultimate sense. You can propose alternatives. You can provide optimal examples, forward direction or any manner of “good things to do”. You can even go to the trouble of getting yourself elected, and yet the same people and principals roll merrily along with deaf ears.
At best, the Mayor of Seattle plays the role of J.P. Patches for adults. An giant clown spectacle of someone roaming around, pointing his finger in the air and proclaiming…build me a unicycle based transit network.
Yes…….minister.
Bad things happen slower in the first case, or they don’t happen at all because he can keep them at bay. In the second case, bad things happen fast-forward, sometimes more than you initially expected.
+1
Has anyone noticed the lack of talent running in the city council races? Conlin, Bagshaw and Licata have virtually zero opposition. Only Albert Shen, challenging Mike O’Brien, has any hope of being viable in the general election. It’s too bad Kate Martin didn’t aim for a council seat. She’s being swamped by the big boys in the Mayor’s race, but she’s smart and I think she’d be good on the council.
I don’t understand why Shen would run against O’Brien, the most loved councilmember in my lifetime.
Because he’s new and it’s a lot harder to oust a long standing incumbent?
Yeah, but he’s pretty unassailable. Whoever told him O’Brien would be easy was stupid.
I agree. The two folks I like the most are Conlin and O’Brien.
The weak opposition to city council members is another reason for district elections. As for Mike being most loved, his politics are great–his effectiveness, not so much. What has he accomplished?
So you’re saying we need more votes to go with him. I’m with that. :)
That’s about the most compelling point I’ve heard in favor of districts. So let’s have another proposal in a couple of years, without the horribly gerrymandered map, and with protections against such a map. That will change it from a power struggle between SFH interests and everyone else into an actual debate over districts.
What other protections against bad maps do you want in the next initiative? They’ve already “outlawed gerrymandering”. ;) I actually don’t know how the districting commissing could be designed any better, unless the commissioners were themselves elected, but not from districts.
The best protection against bad maps is to not have maps at all. Run all the candidates in one citywide pool. Voters get to rank all the candidates instead of being forced to pick just one. A candidate who accrues over 10% of the vote wins a seat. We end up with the majority of voters filling a majority of the seats, but every constituency — whether it be geographic, ethnic, ideological, whatever — that can muster over 10% of the vote for a candidate, gets a seat at the table. Allowing those with whom we disagree to get their fair share of seats at the table is not only a more mature representative democracy, but it also yields better policy by having points brought up that didn’t occur to those already on the favorable side of a piece of legislation.
Proportional representation is also a great way to make sure we don’t end up with a male-dominated city council. I remember the debate in Austin when I lived there. At one forum, some woman asked, “So, how do get more women elected if this (districting) passes?” Someone else responded “We’ll all just move to the same part of town.” That districting proposal, which came from the city council, narrowly lost.
I agree. This council at large is terrible. They act like they are beholden to no one.
I’d say Kshama Sawant actually has a decent shot.
I like her, but I like Conlin more. I would like him to improve some of his policies to more match hers, and I suspect that’s likely to happen.
What has Sawant done in office? Has she been full-blazing red socialist, or has she been pragmatic?
“Pragmatic” is not a word I would use to describe anything she’s ever said or done. I would not support her for the council.
I’m not running for council because it’s not just a policy or two problem we have. You McGinn worshippers should note that he spends $40M a year on police and fire overtime. How progressive is that? An extra $4M increase just last year while he’s crying about the budget. Disgusting double dipping and he rubberstamps it. Practically galvanizes it. Also good would have been an interview process from STB and not just a Mike endorsement. Just sayin’.
I’m not sure I’m exactly qualified to give political advice, but if you’re really Kate Martin… it’s pretty unprofessional to go on a blog and call commenters “McGinn worshippers”. If you actually want to be mayor, even of a random backwater town like Seattle, you need to show a higher level of decorum than that!
Whereas I’d welcome a council/legislature full of blog trolls. Seriously. An executive (or a legislator with executive ambitions) has to represent the city. A legislator can get down and dirty, can represent just some of the people, can represent merely a movement or a moment in time and do a great civic service while doing so.
I mean, if you’re running for mayor to bring publicity to issues like this in a way you couldn’t by running for council, more power to ya, that’s a super reasonable thing to do and a great use of the political process and press, but don’t actually expect endorsements if you’re doing that!
I don’t know the feasibility of our volunteer board being able to get together in one place at the same time, and do so at a time the candidates are available.
But, I have to say, it is painfully clear Kate’s message would be taken more seriously if she had some minions of her own to do the blogging for her. Despicable Me 2 comes out tomorrow. Will see.
The great thing about this mayor’s race is I get to vote against a Cathy Allen candidate and a Christian Sinderman candidate at the same time. Bwah, hah, hah!
I will support Ed Murray over McGinn if those are my choices in the general. I think that the mayor may be slightly more progressive on transit issues, but less effective due to weak staff and his style. Ed will be more effective in working with other governments.
But I will gladly support the mayor over Harrell or Steinbreuck who are terrible on density and transit.
I’m not sure why people think Murray’s a good collaborator. He’s terrible. McGinn organized most of the mayors in the state for local options.
I agree. Look at what has happened in the state and it is pretty easy to conclude that much of the mess we are in is because Murray can’t keep his people (Democrats) in line.
I feel like McGinn blew his credibility on transit advocacy with me by supporting putting the First Hill Streetcars on Broadway in mixed traffic while giving the bicyclists their own street. He advocates taking more traffic lanes that have buses operating in them all over the city and giving them over to bicyclists. I realize that bicycle safety is important, but lets me clear that with McGinn that bicycles trump transit operations.
Wait, I’m no huge fan of streetcars, but you are saying you don’t want the streetcar on Broadway? Huh? You want to put your streetcar on your most used, most pedestrian, most urban street. Pushing the bikers out to the other street is tough on them, not on the streetcar fans.
I think Al’s issue is that we sacrificed potential dedicated streetcar ROW along Broadway for the sake of dedicated bike ROW (which is also on Broadway, not on a parallel street). I’d agree with that criticism. I think a weakness of much urbanist planning is that it results in horribly slow surface transit, because the transit gets “calmed” and made to wait just like other traffic.
A 2-way cycle-track is only about the width of one streetcar. Even if there were no cycle track, that would only free enough space to give the streetcar dedicated right-of-way in one direction. To do it from the other direction too, you’d have to proceed to take out the sidewalk.
I think eventually we will give the streetcar dedicated right of way.
Something that’s quietly happening with SLU right now is a recommendation to give the streetcar there right of way, and to take it on 1st Ave as well. This stuff is all ratchet action – you do a little here and there, and you improve it later. :)
That’s right David. I think that the streetcar should have gotten the exclusive lane. I think streetcars are a reasonable mode in highly urbanized environments too, Ross. We subsidize transit, and the slower the service is, the greater the operations subsidy to everyone. I also would comment that I almost never see pedestrians south of Madison Street on Broadway, to Ross’ point. I do find it odd that the bicycle track didn’t end up on a much flatter 12th Avenue E.
Ben, my understanding is that with the bike ROW in place there is not enough room to give the streetcar dedicated ROW and also have one GP lane in each direction. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong. But if I’m right, that means that putting the bike ROW on Broadway (rather than creating a greenway on 10th or a cycle track on 12th) foreclosed the possibility of exclusive streetcar ROW in both directions.
(Of course, the stop locations of the FHSC guarantee that it will be slow as molasses even if the ROW is made dedicated, but that’s another story.)
Y’all, the main commercial street is Broadway, and that means there’s an acute need for cycling access on Broadway itself, not nearby residential streets. The street is being chewed up with rails, so they’re building a cycletrack. Throughgoing cyclists can go any old place, and those in a hurry likely will go elsewhere; this is for local access, and it’s worth it for that.
Pedestrian and cycle access to commercial streets is a basic necessity; fast transit is usually a few blocks away or underground. Transit run right down such a commercial street at-grade will always have speed limitations — look around Seattle or look around the world. People put up with the speed limitation to go some place they really want to go. If the transit stops in-lane it at least avoids cars piling up in front of it — see the improvement that just a couple in-lane stops have made for the 44 through Wallingford (especially westbound).
One could make a case that by building sidewalks everywhere, pedestrian capacity trumps transit operations. It would be a silly argument.
And I have to push the rewind button on bike lanes in general: Many of them were designed to slow down traffic to the speed limit, so pedestrians can safely cross the street. Only Mayor McGinn had the guts to stand up to those who insist on speeding through the middle of the college campuses on Nickerson. Would any other mayor have done the same?
Still, I remain firmly opposed to building more streetcars that don’t have their own ROW. Mayor McGinn is the only candidate likely to push for dedicating that ROW, as we’ve seen with the possible progress on the SLUS.
I would note to David S that Broadway is not really a commercial street at all south of Madison, and it’s only a side commercial street in the Pike/Pine corridor. It’s really only upper Broadway where the street is the primary commercial street of the neighborhood.
Is there seriously no one else who is pro-transit but doesn’t come off as an arrogant, obstructionist jerk and who can work with, rather than alienate, other people? No one? I’m not a fan of Murray, Steinbruck, or Harrell…sigh. What about that TMobile guy? Is he still around?
McGinn had 4 years and all he did is raise parking fees. Tunnel taking 7 years, 6-10 blocks of Mercer 7 years to redo, Light Rail to capitol hill and new station – 7 years. At McGinn’s rate we won’t have decent transportation even till 2050! Booooooooo
contrast that with Antonio Villaraigosa and all that he has accomplished in a much larger and way more dysfunctional and dystopian city and mcginn looks even worse.
An unambiguous mandate from the people of this City and a second term as Mayor? Not likely. So many of you are focused on a single issue………transit. There are so many other issues where McGinn has so stunk up the joint that I will actively work to see his defeat. Seattle can and should do so much better than McGinn.
Are you honestly surprised that a blog titled Seattle TRANSIT Blog focuses on transit first and foremost, or did you just not think it through?
But let’s set that aside, a few of these ‘many other issues’ if you don’t mind?
Peter Steinbrueck is a joke. He only got elected at all because of his dad and the Pike Market, and is a long winded bore. He’s narrow minded, and wants to keep Seattle as it was in 1950. What he doesn’t know about transit could fit in a warehouse.