1. Mayoral candidate Mike McGinn has been hitching his campaign to his anti-tunnel stance, which makes sense: McGinn, the longtime Sierra Club leader, is trying to out-Green Mayor Greg Nickels, and he’s using Nickels’ love affair with the tunnel to prove Nickels is wedded to car culture. McGinn’s alternative? A surface/transit option.
Well, here’s some bad news for McGinn. Check out this invite to an upcoming Nickels fundraiser. One of the hosts? Leading surface/transit advocate (and a tunnel critic) Cary Moon.
Moon, the head of the Peoples’ Waterfront Coalition, became a bona fide local hero to Seattle environmentalists in 2007 when she proved you could fight the Man, leading the “No and Hell No” campaign against the rebuild and tunnel options.
Sorry Mike, looks like she’s joined the Man.
(It’s also worth noting, that another person listed as a host on the Green-themed Nickels invite is urban Green Greg Smith, the developer who had been considering running against Nickels.)
2. Governor Chris Gregoire and Senate Majority Leader Sen. Lisa Brown (D-3, Spokane) are scheduled to speak at this week’s WEA convention in Spokane. Should be a tense scene.
Over the snarling objections of the WEA (the teachers union), the state legislature passed—and Gregoire says she will sign—an education reform bill that comes with no money for teachers.
3. One group that’s happy with the Democrats, though, is the BIAW, the arch-conservative building industry lobbying group. According to their latest newsletter, 70 percent of bills they opposed this session—including the homebuyers’ bill of rights, retro reform (a measure to prevent workers’ comp money from being spent for political purposes), and a universal health care bill—didn’t pass.
4. Yesterday, we reported the latest fundraising numbers in the King County Executive’s race. Well, the City Council and mayoral candidates also filed their latest numbers. The candidates who came out of the month with the most money in the bank are: Incumbent Richard Conlin ($59,000) in the race for his seat; Sally Bagshaw ($29,000) in the race for Jan Drago’s open seat (although, David Bloom is right on her heels with $28,000; Martin Kaplan with $26,000 in the race for incumbent Nick Licata’s seat (Licata has $25,000); Mike O’Brien ($28,000) in the crowded race for Richard McIver’s open seat; and in the Mayor’s race, newbie challenger Joe Mallahan (a T-Mobile executive) is neck and neck with Nickels at around $205,000. (Former Sonic James Donaldson continues to sputter in his race for mayor. He raised an underwhelming $6,000 this month, and has minus $4,000 on hand.)
