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The first online-only news site in state history to get media credentials to cover the state capitol and Seattle city hall, PubliCola has been called a “must-read” by the Seattle Post Intelligencer and a hot “New Media Mover and Shaker” by Seattle Magazine—which also cited our own Erica C. Barnett as the city's No. 1 news nerd.

Campaign Fizz: Regurgitating Questions that Were Dismissed

2011 Election   October 6, 2011 at 12:56 pm Erica C. Barnett

Your one-stop shop for today’s local campaign news, gossip, and analysis.

• Regurgitating questions that were dismissed by an outside investigator earlier this year, Bellevue City Council candidate Patti Mann, running against pro-light-rail incumbent Claudia Balducci, questioned Balducci’s independence as a member of the Sound Transit board.

Here’s the supposed connection: As director of the King County Jail, Balducci works for county executive Dow Constantine. In a story by the Seattle Times’ Keith Ervin yesterday, Mann all but accused Balducci of doing Constantine’s bidding on the Sound Transit board, asking, “ is she merely a mouthpiece for the county executive?”

Balducci supported Sound Transit’s preferred light-rail route through South Bellevue; Mann, who is backed by Bellevue megadeveloper and light rail opponent Kemper Freeman, supports an alternative route that costs hundreds of millions more, crosses an endangered wetland, requires the construction of a new park-and-ride, and serves fewer people than any other south Bellevue alternative.

Mann has raised $29,000 to Balducci’s $66,000.

• In a major blow to Freeman, the Bellevue Chamber of Commerce endorsed a “No” vote on Tim Eyman’s anti-tolling, anti-light-rail Initiative 1125 yesterday—a weighty endorsement, given rail opponent Freeman’s outsize influence in that city. Additionally, the chamber endorsed a “Yes” vote on Initiative 1183, Costco’s liquor privatization initiative, which would allow stores larger than 10,000 square feet to sell hard liquor in addition to beer and wine.

• In a Q&A with HA Seattle, city council challenger Dian Ferguson, running against council incumbent Sally Clark, reiterated her opposition to the proposed $60 car-tab fee, calling it “an extremely regressive flat tax that will disproportionately hurt the poor and unemployed” while focusing too much on “nice ‘wish list’ projects” like transit and bike-safety projects “that pale in importance next to the over one billion dollars in backlogged road and bridge repairs.”

In reality, only about half the money from the car-tab fee would go to transit projects, and those projects include improvements, like upgrades to bus speed and reliability, that would help all roadway users, including drivers. Just 22 percent of the proceeds, meanwhile, would go to all biking and pedestrian projects combined.

• In stark contrast to Ferguson, Seattle Transit Blog argues vociferously that the proposed license fee doesn’t go far enough, arguing that a better approach would be for Seattle leaders to go head-to-head with transportation leaders in Olympia to get funding for large transit projects, not just maintenance projects and minor road improvements that nibble around the edges of Seattle’s massive transportation needs.

• On the heels of Republican King County Council incumbent Jane Hague’s endorsement by Democratic state Rep. Deb Eddy (D-48) Hague’s Democratic opponent, Mercer Island attorney Richard Mitchell, announced several environmental endorsements today, including the Washington Conservation Voters, Cascade Bicycle Club, and Earth Day founder Denis Hayes.


  • Grover

    “In reality, only about half the money from the car-tab fee would go to transit projects, and those projects include improvements, like upgrades to bus speed and reliability, that would help all roadway users, including drivers.”

    This is an amazingly stupid comment.  Which of the things which would supposedly speed up buses incrementally would help drivers?

    Bus-only lanes take lanes away from drivers, creating more congestion in the fewer traffic lanes that are left, and SLOWING drivers.

    Curb bulbs at bus stops force buses to stop right in the traffic lanes, preventing cars from passing the buses at bus stops, creating long lines of cars behind buses, forcing cars to stop and wait every time the bus ahead of them stops, thus SLOWING drivers.  Go see this for yourself on Dexter Ave. during rush hours.

    Giving buses signal priority at intersections screws up the timing of the traffic signals, allowing fewer vehicles to cross the intersection on cross streets, creating traffic jams and SLOWING drivers.

    Queue-jump lanes for buses allow buses to jump ahead of other traffic, which then gets stuck behind those buses, slowing down drivers.  It is the same thing as someone cutting in line at a ticket window – it speeds up the person who cuts in line, but slows down everyone behind the person who cuts in line.  You enjoy someone cutting in line in front of you?

    Almost all the projects in Prop 1 which might speed up buses marginally, would do so at the expense of all the other traffic on streets, including cars, vans, trucks, motorcycles and motor scooters, all of which would be taxed an additional $60 per year per vehicle for the privelege of being stuck behind buses at bus stops.

  • Grover

    About $18 million in Prop 1 would go to planning more streetcars. 

    Millions of dollars more would go to more road diets, and bike paths.

  • Johnny Wilburton

    As a
    Washington Court of Appeals judge wrote, “in a representative democracy, we
    elect our legislators precisely to carry out agendas and promote causes with
    full knowledge that their own personal predilections and preconceptions will
    affect their decisions.  As long as these predilections to not lead them
    to line their pockets or otherwise abuse their offices, we leave the wisdom of
    their choices to the voters.  If the voters do not like their
    representatives’ agendas or voting decisions, they are free to vote them out of
    office.”  Barry v. Johns, 82 Wn. App. 865 (1996). 

     

    Claudia
    Balducci’s role on the City Council does not pose a legal conflict of
    interest with her role as the King County Jails Director or Sound Transit
    Boardmember.  It is true she was appointed to the $160k/year jails job by
    her boss, light rail advocate Dow Constantine, after her pro-Sound Transit,
    anti-Bellevue vote.  It is true that she received the job despite the fact
    that she has no management experience, yet is now in charge of a department
    with 1,000 FTE’s.  It is true that Dow passed over two highly qualified
    applicants to give her the job.  However, none of this is a legal conflict
    of interest. 

     

    Similarly
    her attempts to give special favors to Wright Runstad, a big supporter of her
    campaign for Bellevue City Council, by seeking to move the King County Juvenile
    Detention Center to Wright Runstad’s PacMed building (which is now facing
    foreclosure), did not constitute a legal conflict of interest.  Had
    the deal actually gone through it might have, but the County killed it after
    the Seattle Times exposed the deal. 

     

    For the
    same reasons, her votes for a plan to raise Bellevue’s property taxes by 38% to
    provide a $250million road through Bel-Red that primarily supports Wright
    Runstad’s Spring District project also do not rise to a legal conflict
    of interest. 

     

    Claudia
    should not be fined or go to jail for her actions.  They are not
    illegal.  But clearly the voters of Bellevue need to be aware of her
    “agendas and voting decisions”, and one would hope the voters would exercise
    their right to vote her out of office.

  • Anonymous

    Actually Dian Ferguson is right on the money here.  Regressive tax in an already the worst regressive tax region of the country makes no sense and is an insult to those who are struggling financially.  Sustaining your life here without driving is impossible, unless you are an old money rich or in a subsidized housing with a permanent supplemental income.  The density around regional transit here is very low and there is not much planned to increase it.  So why should we raise a regressive tax in the worst economic crisis of this country now?  Yet, places that do not even have any plans for regional transit like South Lake Union, Belltown, Lower Queen Anne have a much higher residential density than neighborhoods on Sound Transit bus and rail lines.  If you made it here, you have good health insurance, you have enough money to live your life, and your work is close to where you live, hooray for you Erica, but for the majority of people today the reality is not so simple.  When you are in a crisis, looking for a job, or in any other hardship, the last thing you gonna do is to bicycle in a polluted traffic in the rain, take 4 buses with mentally insane and thugs, or ride a slow shiny tram between Westlake and SLU back and forth.  This regressive tax is just not fair anymore, and the timing for it can not be any worse.  Dian Ferguson has been making a lot of sense lately… I think Sally Clark’s time is over, the happy days of delusional prosperity and unicorns of 2000′s is so over. Many urbanist ideas of yearly 2000′s do not make sense anymore and come across as obstacles for the working poor.  Sally Clark is also endorsed by the Seattle Police Guild… ughh… we sure do not need another pro police voice on the council after endless brutality and unaccountably inside the SPD.  Dian Ferguson has been talking about the police reform from the start… I am voting for Dian.