Bloom: Aligned with lefty Licata. Bagshaw: Aligned with conservative Burgess. Conlin: Aligned with himself.
Before the candidates for city council headed up to North Seattle for the much-talked-about 46th District Democrats’ endorsement meeting on Thursday night, they sharpened their chops downtown, where the City Neighborhood Council held a two-hour forum in the Bertha Knight Landes Room on the first floor of City Hall Thursday afternoon.
The CNC was formed by the city in the 1980s, its members elected from each of Seattle’s 13 neighborhood districts. Historically, the group has stood up against density in single-family neighborhoods, opposed limits on parking, and promoted investments (like sidewalks, street repairs, and park improvements) in neighborhood business districts. For years, the group was headed by Chris Leman, a good-government gadfly and prolific filer of public disclosure requests who was recently arrested for allegedly assaulting a city employee. Since last year, however, the CNC has been run by Kathy Nyland, a cheerful, energetic Georgetown activist whose whirlwind personality has been a welcome contrast to Leman’s long-winded, pedantic style.
Although the forum concentrated on neighborhood issues (graffiti, districts, and parking meters all made appearances), the forum was anything but a parochial whinefest. In an interesting departure from typical campaign forum formats (two-minute intro, predictable yes/nos, “top priority” questions, etc.), the CNC moderators kept things moving with one-minute answers punctuated by “lightning rounds” in which candidates had only a few seconds to scrawl one-or two-word answers in a sketchbook. Surprisingly (or not), the candidates actually said more about themselves in 15 seconds of scribbling than they usually do in a prepared two-minute speech.
It was revealing to see which candidates were aligned on the conservative side of Seattle litmus issues—like parking, taxes, and the environment. Coming from the right side of the spectrum: Sally Bagshaw (running for Position 4, Jan Drago’s old seat), Robert Rosencrantz and Jordan Royer (both running for Position 8, Richard McIver’s old seat). Rosencrantz said he would let neighborhoods decide whether they want parking meters instead of free parking, and allow them to keep some of the revenue; he also proposed making downtown business owners pay for cost overruns on the $4 billion tunnel that’s supposed to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct. Bagshaw made repeated references to “cutting the fat” at City Hall and said she was most aligned with conservative City Council member Tim Burgess; and Royer cited his business experience and said his focus would be on public safety. All three, along with Jessie Israel, running against incumbent Nick Licata for Position 6, said they opposed a fee on disposable grocery bags—an interesting position for Israel, given her environmental-community support.
Another thing that became clear …
is that the bad economy has made megaprojects increasingly unpopular, and not just among the usual suspects. Rosencrantz, David Miller (Pos. 8), O’Brien (Pos. 8), David Bloom (Pos. 4), and David Ginsberg (Pos. 2) all voiced their opposition to a long list of huge proposed capital projects, like fixing the Mercer Mess ($200 million), building a new jail ($110 million) and digging a tunnel to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct ($4 billion). Meanwhile, several other candidates expressed skepticism about the just-passed parks levy—a major shift from the days when candidates never met a tax increase they didn’t like.
Speaking of those days, at least two candidates—David Bloom and Sally Bagshaw—seem to be permanently stuck in 1997. Bloom’s proposals—passing a living wage ordinance, building 5,000 units of affordable housing above and beyond this year’s proposed housing levy, and redirecting transportation money to sidewalks and bridges—are appealing, but also undeniably retro, a bit like the neighborhood vs. downtown movement of the late 1990s. Coveniently, Bloom’s opponent, Bagshaw comes across, at least superficially, as a downtown-establishment candidate with major backing from business interests. Whether people still care about big-biz campaign contributions, and whether the new economy will resurrect old ideas, remains unclear. Regardless, it might be a good idea for Bloom to stake out positions on more contemporary debates like density, growth, and transportation—and for Bagshaw to take some loud progressive stands so liberals don’t dismiss her as just another Jan Drago (who, back in the day, championed the downtown Nordstrom garage to the dismay of the neighborhood movement.)
I’ve heard a lot of talk about Rosencrantz as a frontrunner in the race for Position 8, but that’s mostly from people who haven’t seen him speak. Rosencrantz—who’s spent thousands on speech lessons from local consultant Michael Shadow—needs to dial down his Toastmasters schtick about 20 notches if he wants anyone to hear him. For example, when CNC moderator Lane Ross asked Rosencrantz what he would do to implement the bike and pedestrian master plans and the parks levy, he leaped to his feet and blurted: “What will I do? Five things. Tilt power back to the neighborhoods. Strengthen our financial base. Don’t spend money on non-value added amenities. Central business district businesses should pay for the tunnel. And, grow the economy.” Rosencrantz’s staccato response sounded overrehearsed, robotic, and false–and irrelevant to the question he was supposedly answering.
Finally, long-shot candidate David Ginsberg would be smart to play up his opposition to the tunnel—one of only a handful of issues where he seems to disagree with incumbent Richard Conlin. What makes Ginsberg’s opposition to the tunnel even more interesting is that he lives in West Seattle—where support for maintaining the viaduct’s capacity is practically an article of faith.
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This isn’t a fashion show; it’s a City Council race. Calling issues like low-income housing and a wage that can support a family “retro” is silly. They are unfortunately quite relevant to 2009 and will be for the next few years, at least. Housing and jobs are being lost; high-income units are standing empty. 1997? Not exactly. Bread-and-butter issues don’t go out of style.
I realize this is Seattle, but can we get real about whether Tim Burgess is “conservative”? I know, it’s relative. But come on.
Erica-
Thank you for the kind words and for acknowledging the changes that are happening with the CNC.
When organizing this forum, we knew time would be an issue. And we knew that having 14 (of the 16) candidates in attendance, one-minute answers would seem too long and drawn out so we had to punch things up.
It worked!
As someone who has been to a handful (times 10) of these forums, I learned more from the CNC quick fire answers than I had at the previous gatherings. The answers were informative, but more importantly, we saw personality.
Seattle Channel taped the event and should be online in days. It is worth a watch, and does provide a few laughs. CNC and laughs….who knew!
Thank you again, Erica and GREAT to see you at PubliCola.
-kathy
@2: you’re totally right, and I thought the qualifier was implied: conservative by Seattle standards, and thus a raging liberal ‘most anywhere else.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Weird comment from an obsessed troll.
@ 5
Dear Editor:
While your sensibilities might be delicate, we don’t need your protection.
“Undeniably retro”? I guess that makes healthcare an undeniably retro issue because it has been around at least since Bismarck and the 19th century. That Obama, stuck in the past. Come on Erica.
GREAT!!
So, the newest of the ‘new’ media is telling us peee-ons, surely after checking with other ‘new’ media people, and checking with other old media people, and tchecking with the parasite consultant class trying to spin the news
- the ‘new’ media is telling us who the frontrunners are!
WHAT THE FUCK is NEW about you, or NEW about this annointing the frontrunner crap?
maybe 1 of the most important reasons the old media is dying is that people are sick of being told / spun what to think by a bunch of self absorbed insider elitist fucks?
I welcome all voices, I hope you’re gonna be more htan the latest Joni Balter type telling me what the pathetic cantell-murray-gregroire-locke-sims crowd is afraid of, the horrible stuff benefitting us bottom 90 percenters, the stuff which doesn’t happen in a state obsessed with the fascist defined middle.
robert murphy
pco-36-1392
@9
publicola’s putative ambitions are not served by having the Mayor’s spokesman on it’s team either. But if publicolsa’s ambitions are more cynical, as I suspect they are, than serving the needs of Seattle’s Mayor by providing his spokesman a voice at this blog is being nicely done.
@8 Signing with your precinct number? Undeniably retro.
@12
yeah – we definitely need new ideas … not that retro stuff like …
let the pigs at the front of the line — the pigs who make the rules, rules such as which pigs are at the front of the line, and how little can be left before the front of the line pigs allow the little to go down the line –
let the pigs at the front of the line have MORE MORE MORE cuz then … we’ll get employed keeping their 400 foot yachts serviced?
looks like the ‘reporting’ here is just going to be a pass-along of the same ol shit insider gossip – who likes whose haircut, therefore who is cool and who isn’t cool … ever notice that high school student government elections have about 10 or 15% of the cool kids decide who is cool?
so the frontrunner is determined by how many times I’m called ‘frontrunner’ by a clique of elitists at KING KIRO KOMO The Weekly The Seattle Time The PI and Now …. PUBLICOLA … pretending to afflict the comfortable so they can tell each other they’re
yawn
journalists?
oh yeah – I put my name on cuz I would HATE for anyone to think that I wouldn’t tell them to their face that they’re full of shit. how retro.
can I be a frontrunner?
rmm.
The reporting in this piece is hard to disentangle from your editorializing.
What makes giving neighborhood businesses a say on their area’s parking policies “conservative” or “liberal”? I mean, other than the fact that you have an anti-car agenda that you think is “liberal”?
And what is with saying issues of economic justice are “retro”, while your own pet issues (none of which seem to address the politics of affordability) are “contemporary”?
And then your style over substance reporting, commenting on people’s personalities over their politics– be it Chris Leman or Rosencrantz.
Not saying you shouldn’t criticize candidates. But this reporting is inflected with some unarticulated contempt for certain positions, and I think all people you report on– left and right, however you define those terms– deserve more respectful treatment of their ideas.
One criterion for being called “frontrunner” is not calling everybody else “pigs” and “fascist”. I feel sorry for the poor Democrats in the 36th all of a sudden.
Erica-
Thank you for the kind words and for acknowledging the changes that are happening with the CNC.
When organizing this forum, we knew time would be an issue. And we knew that having 14 (of the 16) candidates in attendance, one-minute answers would seem too long and drawn out so we had to punch things up.
It worked!
As someone who has been to a handful (times 10) of these forums, I learned more from the CNC quick fire answers than I had at the previous gatherings. The answers were informative, but more importantly, we saw personality.
Seattle Channel taped the event and should be online in days. It is worth a watch, and does provide a few laughs. CNC and laughs….who knew!
Thank you again, Erica and GREAT to see you at PubliCola.
-kathy