It’s candidate forum time! Move All Seattle Sustainably (MASS) is hosting events for City Council districts 2, 3, 4, 6 and 7. Tom at Seattle Bike Blog has the dates along with a good summary of what’s at stake:
In some ways, this is harder than passing grand measures because it requires getting dirty and working through the finer details of compromise and change that our city needs if we are going to continue shifting more and more trips to biking, walking and transit. Neighborhood streets need to change. The amount of housing, especially near frequent transit service, needs to grow. Economic, racial and disability barriers need to be torn down. None of this work will be easy, and we will need a Council that is ready to hold the mayor accountable for completing this work.
See also Patrick Taylor, The Urbanist:
The vision involves welcoming new people throughout our city (even in single-family zones) while building more affordable housing so those who are here are not pushed out. In this reality, climate change is real and demands action to re-envision our city and prioritize pedestrians, people biking, transit, and our Vision Zero goal of zero traffic deaths by 2030.
There are a whopping 57 candidates for council this year, according to Erica C. Barnett, who’ll be helping to host the MASS forums along. You can find Facebook links to the forums on the Seattle Neighborhood Greenways Facebook page.
We’ll be doing endorsements again this year. As always, let us know in the comments if there are candidates we should be keeping an eye on or specific criteria to consider.
Update: here’s a list with dates and locations, via TCC< since some have asked.
District 6 Candidate Forum
Tuesday, May 21, 5:30-7:30pm
Phinney Neighborhood Association, 6532 Phinney Ave N.
District 3 Candidate Forum
Thursday, May 23, 7:00-8:30pm
Washington State Labor Council, 321 16th Ave S.
District 2 Candidate Forum
Tuesday, May 28, 6:00-7:30pm
New Holly Gathering Hall, 7054 32nd Ave S.
District 7 Candidate Forum
Wednesday, May 29, 6:00-8:00pm
SEIU 775 Auditorium, 215 Columbia St.
District 4 Candidate Forum
Thursday, May 30, 5:30-7:30pm
Cascade Bicycle Club, 7787 62nd Ave NE.
Are these in-person forums or just online questions? The closest thing District 3 has to a location is “Washington State Labor Council” with no address. Nor does it say whether you have to sign up somehow or whether it’s at capacity.
321 16th Ave S, Seattle, WA 98144
Why Is district 1 not included?
Neither district 1 nor district 5 is included. I’m guessing that the lack of candidates and the likelihood of the incumbent easily getting into the general election (if not winning reelection) caused MASS to focus on more competitive races.
I don’t mind MASS skipping D1. We don’t need to hear from Councilmember Herbold to know where she stands. The other two candidates are even more antagonistic toward urbanism.
D5 has six candidates, so I hope something can be pulled together for that district. Juarez proclaims herself a climate hawk, but that and being the councilmember least interested in bike lanes don’t go together.
I wish we could transplant some D4 candidates to D1. There is a lot of strongly-stated support for protected bike lanes among D4 candidates.
Remember that we’re still stuck with an antiquated one-choice and only-two-go-forward voting system. The ideal is to have two urbanists advance in some of these races, so we can have a debate over details rather than a cultural debate, or worse, a mudfight.
I really don’t think you can call anyone who voted for MHA antagonistic towards urbanism. If any of the real NIMBY candidates win, they will probably make undoing MHA and upzones their number one priority.
She traded her vote to reduce the heights in the upzones. That’s not support for MHA. That’s being smart enough to know when the other side has the votes, and the political realism to know when you can reduce the scale of the other side’s victory.
Oh yes, so antiquated. Passed by initiative in 2004 and upheld by the SCOTUS in 2008. Give me a break.
Yes, I’d like to see a D5 transit debate. It’s desperately needed.
I am not happy with Juarez being the Sound Transit Rep for the Seattle Council. So much so, it’s one reason I’m in the tank for her opponent Ann Davison Sattler who is pro-density and pro-neighborhood. She’ll try to out-Lorena Lorena on the issue of public comment.
I’ll stop there.
I genuinely don’t know whether you’re personally a huge fan of single-choice/top-two primaries or if you’re just using this opportunity to be a pedant.
Brent,
Who is the she?
Joe
That is a good point on D2. Although Herbold hardly qualifies as an urbanist by any measure, she’s also not overtly anti-urbanist. Tavel and Kolding on the other hand are are both clearly and strongly anti-urbanist. I have never agreed with Herbold on much, but I will probably hold my nose and vote for her in order to keep Tavel and Kolding off the city council.
In D5, I really am enthusiastic about Ann Davison Sattler. I’ve met with her, donated and will continue to support a pro-density, pro-security, pro-civility candidate for Seattle City Council. My dream candidate, really.
In D7, the only candidate to have articulated a transportation policy is Naveed Jamali. It’s good. You can find it here:
http://naveedforseattle.com/JamaliTransportation.pdf
Ann Davison Sattler – D5. Ann is the real deal, she’ll take the fight to homelessness, proudly publicly pro-density within half a mile of light rail, and assured me she WILL help Councilmember Gonzalez and me fight for civility and against a certain troll with every tool available. Also has said she wants more buses on the road for Seattle.
That’s the way I see it. Change my mind…
I don’t live in D5 (neither do you, as I understand), so I did a quick google search for Sattler. Looked through her campaign website, an interview on mynorthwest, and a couple misc articles. Found a lot of platitudes, but is there any there there? Where are these ‘proudly pro-density’ beliefs articulated?
Sattler is very enthusiastically pro-density within a half mile of transit centers. Not just light rail stations. Also pushes housing solutions 2:45 into https://youtu.be/WPRA-XX99sw .
If Sattler or any other Seattle Councilmember threatened to nuke all single family zoning for instance, she’d lose all support. This is a compromise we should cheer.
I went to District 6 tonight. It’s really hard to differentiate between 10 candidates, but I think at least half were reasonably urbanist. The most amazing moment was that almost all supported duplex and triplex throughout the city with no hesitation.
Even Wills?
If I recall, it was everyone except Kate Martin.
Of course, I’d be willing to bet a good number of those who indicated support were just pandering and don’t actually believe that. Wills being one of them.
You all may want to think about moving to ranked choice voting in the future. You could vote for the candidate you really like first, and a fallback candidate second. It really represents people’s interests much more fairly.