HEY SEATTLE — YOUR political pot needs stirring! We are sick of the same old menu: school board baloney, Port pork, and City Council downtown gravy. Despite recent assertions by Seattle's chattering classes, fundamental change has not occurred in any of our political institutions. What has the Seattle City Council done since being joined by serious reformers Nick Licata and Peter Steinbrueck? Mostly outvoted them 7-2. Sure, there have been a couple of things at the margins, but the City Council has made its fiscal priorities clear in recent months by saddling us with a $224 million new City Hall and justice center and asking us to dump $38 million into an opera house upgrade. The school board, still reeling from the tragic leadership loss of John Stanford, appointed his successor without even bothering to do a nationwide search. Recently the same board asked us to swallow the fiction that abandoning busing will not segregate Seattle schools because good schools will integrate our neighborhoods! And over at the Port, they remain confident no one is paying attention as the third-runway cost overruns skyrocket to $186 million and reasonable mitigation for their neighbors is ignored.
Sorry, gang, we are paying attention. Fortunately voters can take matters into their own hands: This year, credible candidates who will really deliver on promises of reform are running. And where they're not, we're taking our chances with rookies who will at least spice up our civic stew.
A word to the wise: we only endorse in contested races. In races where two will advance, we only pick one because you can only vote for one (no weeny double endorsements like some Brand X media outlets who want to have it both ways). If you need our help when there's only one candidate to vote for, you're better off doing something else.
Seattle City Council
(The top two vote-getters in each race advance to November's general election where they face off for a four-year term.)
Seattle City Council, Position 1
We need another (Pine) street-fightin' man on this council. Nordstrom and the Mariners can take ol' Daniel Norton in the back room and work him over with rubber truncheons, bags of campaign donations, and stacks of economic development studies, and he'll emerge battered and bruised but still defending the public's wallet against the corporate raiders. Norton will brook no nonsense about sanitizing the city from Darth Sidran. He has solid ideas about transportation, including a $10 bus pass for all Seattleites.
In addition to being right on the issues, Norton has a couple of skills that will serve him well as a legislator: First of all, he's no bullshitter, and secondly his ego is closer in size to a Wallingford bungalow than the Doomed Dome—anyone who has watched Licata's council success realizes the establishment wing of the city will give Norton points for his honesty and humility. Our one complaint is that he needs to stop patronizing his opponent Judy Nicastro and sniping at her renters' rights platform. In fact, we recommend he steal her platform. Call it co-opt housing.
Norton is the only candidate endorsed by both Licata and Steinbrueck, and we are pleased to add our support to theirs: Knock 'em out, Norton!
Seattle City Council, Position 3
Don't hate Peter Steinbrueck because he has no competition. After vaporizing a better-funded opponent in 1997 and completing a good if sometimes inconsistent first half-term, Steinbrueck deserves your vote. With colleague Nick Licata, Steinbrueck has been half of a one-two punch battling for the rights of all citizens. The pair have worked to protect renters, preserve the forests of the city-owned Cedar River watershed, and rein in Sidran. Although he's caught some flak for actually insisting on debating issues in public, he's proven a good antidote for the overdose of "Seattle Nice" that's paralyzed City Hall for years. He is more deserving of criticism for being overly cautious when it comes to pushing innovative housing solutions. With that caveat, expect more good things from a second Steinbrueck term.
Seattle City Council, Position 5
Curt Firestone, a 57-year-old rookie, can throw some serious heat in front of his hometown crowd of lefty activists. He shows off the fire(stone) in his belly by tossing out populist rhetoric about bringing the "sports/entertainment industry" to heel, delivering social justice, and turning back Sidran's campaign of "discrimination" against poor people. Charging around the room, slapping hands, and pounding his fists, he delivers a loud message more reminiscent of Eugene V. Debs than recent Seattle politicians. It's refreshing, especially in opposition to incumbent Margaret Pageler, one of the City Council's law-and-order toughies who truly believes in the wisdom of the city's highly questionable multimillion-dollar investment in downtown development.
Firestone, active in Seattle politics for 13 years, has worked quietly in the political trenches, first trying to change the national Democrats' romance with centrism and big money, then helping build the local Green Party and the Seattle Progressive Coalition, whose goal is to elect more reformers to the City Council. His reflection on that process has always been nuanced and thoughtful as well as passionate.
Get Firestone in a quiet room with Pageler, however, and he sounds like what he is—a rookie candidate struggling to debate a very bright eight-year incumbent. We trust Firestone will grow in the job. His history and values earn him our vote.
