Category: Politics

City Council, Elections, Politics

The 2019 City Council Candidates: Phil Tavel
Image via Phil Tavel campaign.

This year’s council races include an unusually high number of open seats, an unprecedented amount of outside spending, and eight first-time candidates. To help voters keep track, I’m sitting down with this year’s city council contenders to talk about their records, their priorities, and what they hope to accomplish on the council.

Today: District 1 candidate Phillip (Phil) Tavel. Tavel, an attorney, is making his second run at the West Seattle seat, after being defeated in 2015 by Lisa Herbold. Like last time, Tavel was endorsed by the Seattle Times; this time, he also has backing from groups like the Seattle Metro Chamber of Commerce and former council member Tim Burgess’ People for Seattle PAC.

The C Is for Crank (ECB): You’ve talked about being someone who will listen to everyone, not just the “vocal minority.” What vocal minority do you think has too much influence, and who do you believe they’re drowning out?

Phil Tavel (PT): That comment actually came from some of the times I’ve been down at city hall. There was one particular time, I think it had to do with the police contract, when Sawant had had a lot of followers in their T-shirts, and they waited to put out the table for signups until their crowd kind of jumped right in and got in front of a lot of people. And so they were able to stand up and yell and shout and get very vocal in city hall. And it seems like they get listened to as the other people just sort of get pushed out and when they stand up, they get shouted down.

And a lot of times it’s the very energetic activist crowd that will be there, be in front and they will champion their issue, which is a wonderful thing. You want it to be that way. But the way Seattle can be sometimes is, the voice that just wants to say, ‘What’s going on?’ or ‘I don’t agree with this,’ but they don’t do it in that same vocal manner, kind of gets pushed to the side.

ECB: You think it’s kind of intimidating?

PT: Well I know from talking to some of those people, they literally feel intimidated out of the room. I don’t bring up Sawant for any reason other than that she is that poster child for the loud voice, which I’ve got to admit, when she ran against Richard Conlin, I thought it was awesome. But what I think has happened is that loud crowd takes over, and then a lot of the more moderate voices and a lot of the people who are just citizens that care because their life’s been affected, but that’s not their entire life, [aren’t heard]. They still have a job and a family and other things. And so it feels like those people kind of get pushed to the side.

ECB: At the Human Services Coalition forum, you said that you think the city has enough funding for homelessness; they just need to spend it better. Can you elaborate on where you think the city could find efficiencies?

It’s not that they have enough, so much as that it feels like there could be enough, but until we know what’s actually spent and what’s returned and what’s that gap, we don’t know. This is partially from my own sense as just a citizen, not as a candidate. And then the people I talk to say, come on, we have $6 billion, and we’re not talking about caring for a quarter of a million people living on the street or even the size of LA’s problem. It seems that if we marshaled our resources better, that would go farther.

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Your support makes it possible for me to bring you interviews like this one, which can take 6 hours or more to complete. I can ONLY afford to spend as much time as I do creating this content because I’m supported entirely by readers like you. If you enjoy reading my conversations with council candidates, along with breaking news, exclusive investigations, and thoughtful analysis of local news, please consider supporting this work by kicking in a few bucks a month, or a one-time donation. You can find all the details on my support page. I’ll let you get back to reading now. Thanks for your support!

ECB: When you say $6 billion, you’re referring to the total size of the city’s budget?

PT: Yes, $5.9 billion.

ECB: But a lot of that is capital spending that the city council can’t touch and that has nothing to do with services.

PT: Yeah, and I do recognize that. But again, this is just from that general public standpoint of, we are a very rich city. The amount of money we have to spend on these things does keep growing and we just need to have a better understanding of what’s there. What are we getting back? It was [National Alliance on Mental Illness founder] Eleanor Owen, actually, at the NAMI panel that we did, who sort of chastised all the candidates [by] saying, ‘You do realize who’s making out in this whole thing? It’s the providers. Look at how much money we spend on administration and bureaucracy that doesn’t get to that person who’s really in need.’ And that resonated with me and I had a really long conversation with her about that.

Go take a look at the  and look at the number of providers that are not meeting the county standards. And you know, a lot of it is self-reported. When Tim Burgess was mayor briefly, I remember reading an article that he wanted to see the service providers give quarterly reports as to what are their targets, what are their goals? Are they meeting them? And that type of thing has not happened. We haven’t seen that followup. After having gone through some of the things with the SCALE group [which filed multiple appeals to stop the Mandatory Housing Affordability plan, and of which Tavel was a member], we weren’t getting accurate information back from the city. And also I hear it from people in city departments. I mean, I get people from multiple departments coming to me saying, we spend our money badly and they give me examples of how much we’ve wasted.

I’ve been in meetings where I’ve had the city throw up statistics, then tell us they won’t answer questions, and then walk away. And you know, you’re sort of left with this [feeling of], ‘Well, wait a minute, okay, there are stats and numbers, but I’m dubious about where they comes from.’ I mean, I worked at the National Science Foundation, where every time you did a press presentation about a program, you had to make sure you’d triple checked everything. And I don’t get that same sense out of Seattle.

“For the last couple of years, I’ve been primarily doing private [cases]. But I’ve still got a handful of public [conflict] cases. I identify as a public defender because for 13, 14 years, that was 95% of the legal work I did.”

ECB: You’ve been supported by the Seattle Metro Chamber of Commerce, which opposes the employee hours tax that your opponent supported. How closely do you align with the Chamber on taxes, and would you propose an alternative to raise revenue for homelessness?

PT: I’m opposed to the way [the head tax] was put out. I’m for talking to [businesses] first about contributing to this issue.  I don’t feel that any conversations ever took place between the council and the largest, most successful companies to say, Hey, you know, we’ve got a choice. We can either attack you or maybe we can step up and work on something together. A couple of the larger food distributors said, ‘Our margins are pretty thin, we will pass 100 percent of this on’ [to consumers] and we’ll end up with a $25 hamburger in Seattle. I think we should looked for a higher threshold. And if we had gone out to those large companies and they were like, ‘No, we’re not going to chip in,’ fine, then let’s pick a good number and tax their net profits because clearly they’ve got enough to spend. I just didn’t like the fact that there was no real plan for how that money was going to be spent, what it was specifically needed for, and no early conversations with those people to say, would you work with us first?

ECB: You went on Saul Spady’s show and agreed with his idea of putting people on “regional homeless farms.” [Editor’s note: On his show, Spady praised the Malaysian government for its approach to “really, really low-level crime,” including prison farms. After summarizing the Malaysian policy as he understood it, Spady asked Tavel if he supported this approach. Tavel replied, “Oh, absolutely, in fact, I do,” then went on to describe the program he described to me.] I want to give you a chance to elaborate or explain what you meant, in case something got lost in translation.

PT: So a friend of mine down in southern Oregon, they had a really successful program where there was a neighborhood farm that took families where the parents were having real substance abuse issues and brought them into this cooperative model. This was just a program that where you get services, you get classes, you get daycare, you participate in this farm, you learn the farming side of things, you learn about sustainability and conservation and you’re dealing with your substance abuse issues. And if there’s associated mental health issues, they’re also taken care of. So it was basically that idea of the cooperative community model for helping people, where it was providing some work and some fresh food for the neighborhood.

I think I remember that Saul had mentioned his idea, which was like a foot-long [idea]. And he said, how do you feel about farms, which was one inch long. And so as I answered that question. It made me think about what my friend had been involved with and so I said, yeah, that’s cool. I wasn’t supporting his entire idea. I was saying that I actually do think you could have these cool cooperative models that do things that are really good for both the community and for the environment and for the people.

“My feeling is, you break the law, you get arrested for committing a crime, you are then charged with a crime you’ve committed. Because if you don’t arrest and you don’t charge, you’re sending a message that all of these things are just no longer crimes.”

ECB: You also proposed a transitional program for people coming out of jail, which sounds similar to what the city and county have proposed for responding to so-called prolific offenders downtown. Why does there need to be a program inside the criminal justice system, and would this be in lieu of expanding Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion [LEAD]?

PT: Over the years I have had literally hundreds of clients in this position where, you know, they end up getting arrested for something they’ve done attached to kind of the life that they’ve gotten on the street and impacted by the people they’re surrounded by. So they go to jail for a week to a couple of months, they come out, and they’re still in that same position. And so instead of having that cycle, the jail would [offer] a place for you to go that is close enough to social services, where there’s case manager, where there’s someone who is going to become your support mechanism. So you would either have housing available near the jail or enhanced shelter.

We have to find a way to help the people that want help. The ones that have those moments where they’re like, yeah, if there was a bed for me tonight, I would take it and I would get into services to start that path. Because once you take care of those people who will voluntarily take this assistance and get into that path going up, you’re going to then be left with that group of the longterm substance abusers, the longterm undiagnosed mentally ill, the longterm people with criminal problems. The program I’m talking about is something that would take everybody that wants a chance [and say] they get a chance.

I think we missed the opportunity to use the criminal justice system as the safety net. We’re pretty good with the cooperative courts, but they could be expanded. But it’s that when someone’s released that moment is such an opportunity to help people because all of a sudden it’s like, ‘Aw, man, I did something wrong. I ended up in jail. I don’t want to be here. I’ve been released. I want something better for myself.’ Continue reading “The 2019 City Council Candidates: Phil Tavel” →

City Council, Elections, Environment, homelessness, labor, Politics

The 2019 City Council Candidates: Dan Strauss

 

 

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Without belaboring the details of everything that goes into these interviews, let me tell you: It’s a LOT. From prep work, to the interviews themselves, to transcribing and writing up each post and getting it in shape for publication, each interview can take 6 hours or more to complete. I can afford to spend as much time as I do creating this content for you because I’m supported entirely by readers. If you enjoy reading my conversations with council candidates, along with breaking news, exclusive investigations, and thoughtful analysis of local news, please consider supporting this work by kicking in a few bucks a month, or a one-time donation. You can find all the details on my support page. I’ll let you get back to reading now. Thanks for your support!

This year’s council races include an unusually high number of open seats, an unprecedented amount of outside spending, and eight first-time candidates. To help voters keep track, I’m sitting down with this year’s city council contenders to talk about their records, their priorities, and what they hope to accomplish on the council.

Today: Dan Strauss, a legislative aide to retiring District 7 council member Sally Bagshaw and nearly lifelong Ballard resident who is running to replacing District 6 representative Mike O’Brien, who’s leaving the council after 10 years. We sat down at Ballard Coffee Works on NW Market Street, which becomes pertinent a couple of times during this interview.

The C Is for Crank (ECB): When you’re knocking on doors, how do you respond to complaints that the city isn’t doing enough to address visible homelessness in District 6, particularly in Ballard?

Dan Strauss (DS): I talk to them about the need to be able to provide everyone who is experiencing homelessness the opportunity to come inside four walls with a door that they can lock, that’s connected to the services that they need. I mean, that’s the baseline of what we need to be doing. And it’s a travesty that we aren’t providing enough enhanced shelters or places for people to be able to keep their things during the middle of the day, that folks are pushed out of their overnight shelters very early in the morning and haven’t gotten a good night’s sleep, and so now they’re sleeping during the day. That’s what we need to be focusing on. And that’s how I direct their commentary.

When I was growing up, there was a single resident occupancy hotel [in Ballard], which burned down in 2000. That was a place where people would be able to have four walls and a door that they could lock if rent was short that month, or if they were off of a fishing boat for a minute, or something like that. And so I think that’s something that is sometimes lost when we’re talking about what’s going on in Ballard—there have always been people experiencing homelessness in our community.

“In my perfect world, we would be bonding against our existing tax streams, using our total bonding capacity to build the housing we need today.”

ECB: You’ve also mentioned that you supported safe consumption sites. It’s been more than three years since the King County Opiate Task Force recommended opening two safe consumption sites in the county, and obviously it hasn’t happened. Are you just stating your values, or are you planning to actively push for safe consumption if you’re elected?

DS: There’s not a legal pathway given the federal government’s current position. So these are values I hold, because I know that harm reduction models work. This is the most extreme harm reduction model available, and there’s other ways that we can reduce harm in our communities. We know that there are drug addiction is a medical disease and it can be treated with medical interventions.

ECB: You said at a recent forum that you don’t support sweeping homeless people from place to place. What would you do with the Navigation Team, and is there more nuance that you weren’t able to express in that yes/no question?

DS: The nuance with that is that the Navigation Team, in its essence, is supposed to navigate people to services and to a safe, warm, dry place to live. And the problem is that we don’t have enough of those resources, right? So if we did have enough places with four walls and a door that someone can lock, that has the services on site, the Navigation Team would be effective.

ECB: In the absence of that, what would you propose to address people’s short-term needs?

DS: In the short term, we need to treat this like the emergency that it is. The fact that it’s taking three to five years for the modular houses from King County to come online—that’s not satisfactory. We know what the solutions are and that we need to get going, and we need to put this at the front of the queue.

“All [the Office of Police Accountability] does is file complaints and grievances. We should also be giving commendations and saying, ‘You did a good job.’“

ECB: You’ve mentioned finding efficiencies in the system as one way to save money and be able to invest more in things like housing and shelter. Do you think that there needs to be a new revenue source as well?

DS: I mean, at this point, especially for the capital side of things, there’s no way around that. The ride share tax that [Mayor Jenny Durkan just proposed]—that’s another revenue source. I would love to see the state do more. I’d love to see the county do more. I’d love to work with my colleagues to develop good proposals that aren’t putting the burden on property or sales tax. What I would love to see is us fully use our bonding capacity. In my perfect world, we would be bonding against our existing tax streams, using our total bonding capacity to build the housing we need today.  We’re in an emergency—we’re just straight-up in an emergency. If there is any untapped [bonding] capacity, that needs to be used.

ECB: What do you think of how the mayor has proposed allocating the revenues from the ride share tax, splitting it between housing and the streetcar?

DS: I think we’re at the point where we’re going to need to connect the streetcars or rip them up. It’s just such an example how Seattle does things halfway. And we’ve had such a long history of doing things halfway. And that’s one of the reasons that I decided to run. I’m tired of seeing it done that way. We need to have Yesler Terrace connected to South Lake Union and South Lake Union connected to the International District. The frustrations that I have with the streetcar is it needs to have dedicated lanes, and we need to have a connected system. It’s also frustrating that this was a premier mode of transportation when it was first proposed and we never got behind it and now we’re behind the times.

I don’t think that the housing dollars should expire in five years. And I would love to see a way that we could get those funds to be bondable. Continue reading “The 2019 City Council Candidates: Dan Strauss” →

City Council, Density, Elections, homelessness, Politics, Transportation

The 2019 City Council Candidates: District 2 Candidate Tammy Morales
Image via Tammy Morales campaign.

This year’s council races include an unusually high number of open seats, an unprecedented amount of outside spending, and eight first-time candidates. To help voters keep track, I’m sitting down with this year’s city council contenders to talk about their records, their priorities, and what they hope to accomplish on the council.

Today: Tammy Morales, an organizer for the Rainier Beach Action Coalition and former Seattle Human Rights Commission member. Morales ran in 2015 against District 2 incumbent Bruce Harrell and lost by just over 300 votes. She’s running for the same position this year, but without Harrell (who’s retiring) in the running.

The C Is for Crank (ECB): Four years ago, you ran as a progressive alternative to Bruce Harrell, but you certainly strike me as the kind of candidate that would join the DSA or call yourself a socialist. So how have your positions changed in the four years since you last ran?

Tammy Morales (TM): I don’t know if my positions have changed. I think for me, I’ve gotten clearer about sort of the macro economic structure that is driving the inequality in our country. That’s why I was really interested in learning more about what DSA is. And tied to that is my deeper understanding about racial inequality and how so much of that is rooted in every structure and system that we have in this country and this sort of extractive economy that is driven by this constant need to grow and expand the markets. And it all just sort of came together for me in a way that it was less clear before.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t believe in small business or that I don’t believe in having a market-based economy. But it does mean that I think even more so strongly now that the role of local government is to intervene when the market is failing the most vulnerable in our community.

(Morales followed up later to say that she would consider a business and occupation tax rebate program for micro-businesses with fewer than 20 employees, commercial rent control or longer leases for small businesses, community land trusts for commercial spaces, and a public bank that could provide small-business loans).

ECB: When you say “growth,” are you referring to economic growth or growth in terms of population?

TM: Well, I think the people growth is driven by our idea that we have to constantly attract more businesses. We have to expand industry. We have to provide the incentives that let Amazon bring 53,000 people here. And at some point, you reach capacity and it’s just not a sustainable model, especially when we haven’t really prepared all the infrastructure that we need to absorb that.

“We’re talking about permanent, affordable housing, things like community land trusts that could ensure long-term affordability, right of return, affirmative marketing of projects, and preserving existing affordability rather than allowing for affordable buildings to be torn down and replaced with market-rate buildings.”

ECB: When you talk about infrastructure, are you talking about concurrency [the idea that the city shouldn’t allow more density without providing infrastructure to support it]?

TM: We’re witnessing the result of this confluence of things. The feds have disinvested in public housing, our housing policy has been driven by serving developers that are interested in facilitating more market-rate construction, and then there’s the fact that we grew by 100,000 people in 10 years and our projections were that we would do that in 20. We just weren’t ready. And so we’re playing catch up. And what that means is that because so much of what has been in the pipeline for construction has been market-rate and not workforce housing or low-income housing, we’re witnessing displacement, especially in this district. So one of the priorities for me is dealing with that displacement.

ECB: Tell me about some of the policies you would want to implement to deal with displacement.

TM: We’re talking about inclusionary zoning—revisiting that and making it mandatory to include some percentage [of affordable housing on-site at new developments] rather than chipping into a pot of funds. We’re talking about permanent, affordable housing, things like community land trusts that could ensure longterm affordability for rental or homeownership opportunities, right of return, affirmative marketing of projects, and preserving existing affordability rather than allowing for affordable buildings to be torn down and replaced with market-rate buildings or something that people can’t afford anymore. So I think there are a slew of things that we could be doing to acknowledge that we can’t keep pushing out low-income folks out of the city.

ECB: When Kathy Nyland was head of the Department of Neighborhoods, she pushed for a new kind of outreach and engagement strategy that reached neighborhoods who had been excluded from traditional policymaking discussions. The idea was to expand the idea of community engagement beyond the traditional neighborhood district councils. How do you think that’s going now?

TM: I just spent a year working on a racial equity analysis with the office of civil rights, and the thing that we talked about for a year was the lack of commitment to authentic community engagement. So I think we need to reinvest in that department. We need to bring back the neighborhood service offices, so that people don’t have to go downtown, so that the resources that folks need to help them navigate the city departments are here for them, and to provide it in language  and during hours that people can actually access.

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Sorry to interrupt your reading, but THIS IS IMPORTANT. The C Is for Crank is a one-person operation, supported entirely—and I mean entirely— by generous contributions from readers like you. If you enjoy the breaking news, commentary, and deep dives on issues that matter to you, please support this work by donating a few bucks a month to keep this reader-supported site going. I can’t do this work without support from readers like you. Your $5, $10, and $20 monthly subscriptions allow me to do this work as my full-time job, so please become a sustaining supporter now. If you don’t wish to become a monthly contributor, you can always make a one-time donation via PayPal, Venmo (Erica-Barnett-7) or by mailing your contribution to P.O. Box 14328, Seattle, WA 98104. Thank you for keeping The C Is for Crank going and growing. I’m truly grateful for your support.

The other thing is that if we are going to hold ourselves accountable to being a race and social justice city, a human rights city, then we have to commit to what it takes to do authentic community engagement. I think what I would like to see is that every city department has, in their budget, a line item for community engagement. So you budget for public education, for outreach, for events in the neighborhoods. And that needs to include funding for translators, for childcare, for food, for stipends for community members who you’re asking to come and give up their time to share their expertise about their neighborhood.

ECB: In response to recent news about fare enforcement, a lot of people are calling for free transit. That would obviously impact District 2, which has both light rail and some of the heaviest-ridership buses in the county along with a lower-income population than most other council districts. What do you think of that idea?

TM: I know Metro gets cranky whenever candidates start talking about this. This is where I do start thinking about revenue in the city and in the state, and, um, what it would take to be able to provide free transit, which is why I supported the statewide income tax, capital gains tax or whatever we can do to try to generate a more progressive funding stream in the city and in the state. Because I do think that we have a role to play in providing basic ways for people to get around.

ECB: You’ve been a food security advocate for a number of years. What are some steps that the city counts that you as a city council member would take to improve food security in District 2, which is a district where a lot of residents lack access to healthy food?

TM: We need longterm, local food resiliency. People need to learn how to grow food again, needs to learn where food comes from. And so, to the extent that we can expand community gardens, support people in growing their own foods so that they could start to understand what that means, that’s important. As part of the local Food Action Plan, we created and expanded the Fresh Bucks program [which gives SNAP recipients access to fresh fruits and vegetables], and it’s oversubscribed. Continue reading “The 2019 City Council Candidates: District 2 Candidate Tammy Morales” →

City Council, Elections, Politics

PAC Spending Pays Off, Sawant’s In Trouble, and Other Lessons from Election Night
Yes, those are District 3 campaign mailers I received this year. No, that is not even all of them.

Seattle voters sent mixed messages in Tuesday’s primary election, backing many of the candidates who were supported by hundreds of thousands of dollars in independent spending by two conservative-leaning PACs while sending three incumbent city council members to the general election at the top of their respective packs, although some of those incumbents will face a tougher road than others.

Lightning rod city council member Kshama Sawant got less than a third of the vote in her reelection bid in District 3, leading second runner-up Egan Orion by just nine points (33 to 24) in a six-person race. Orion benefited from an incendiary anti-Sawant campaign funded by People for Seattle, the PAC started by her former council colleague Tim Burgess, as well as independent spending by the conservative Moms for Seattle PAC and the Civic Alliance for a Sound Economy, the political arm of the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce.

In District 5, incumbent Debora Juarez was doing a bit better than Sawant, with 42 points to challenger Ann Davison Sattler’s 28 percent in a six-way race. (Sattler, whose campaign has been promoted heavily by the online group Safe Seattle, did not get the support of any PAC.) And in District 1 (West Seattle), incumbent Lisa Herbold got 48 percent in a three-way race, besting challenger Phil Tavel, who was supported by People for Seattle, Moms, and CASE but barely topped 33 percent of the vote.

In District 2, Tammy Morales (45 percent) and Mark Solomon (25 percent) will advance to the general; in District 4, Alex Pedersen (45 percent) and Shaun Scott (19 percent) will move forward; in District 6, Dan Strauss (31 percent) and Heidi Wills (23 percent) will advance; and in District 7, the winners are Andrew Lewis (29 percent) and Jim Pugel (24 percent).

So what should we make of these results? A few early takeaways:

1) PAC money (maybe) matters; democracy vouchers (maybe) don’t.

A lot has been made of the fact that Seattle voters now have the ability to direct public funds to the candidate or candidates of their choice, through property-tax-funded system called democracy vouchers. (Yes, that’s a link to my own story). The idea was that by giving every Seattle voter $100 to spend as they want in the primary and general elections, democracy vouchers would help temper the influence of corporate money in local politics.

But in every race but two (more on those in a moment), upstart conservative PACs—with a heavy assist from legacy groups like CASE—managed to push relatively obscure candidates through to the general election by spending huge amounts of money on campaigns targeting incumbents or presumptive frontrunners like Tammy Morales. In nearly every election where People for Seattle and Moms for Seattle bombarded voters with negative ads and mailers, their candidate moved through to the general election.

Overall, PACs have reported spending more than $875,000 in the primary election alone, a number that is likely to rise as late reports come in. That number is larger than the total amount of independent expenditures on all nine primary and general city council elections in 2015.

Moms for Seattle spent about $33,000 in each of four target districts, bombarding voters with oversized mailers featuring heavily Photoshopped images on one side and the group’s endorsed candidates on the other. Given that two of their candidates (Michael George in the 7th and Pat Murakami in the 3rd) didn’t make it out of the primary, tonight was a mixed result that probably didn’t justify an outlay of more than $130,000.

People for Seattle, a PAC started by former city council member Tim Burgess, seems to have been more effective. In almost every case, the candidates People for Seattle supported were also backed by the Chamber’s Civic Alliance for a Sound Economy PAC, providing a double punch of conventional campaign materials bolstered by negative, and in many cases inaccurate or misleading, mail.

In District 1, Herbold challenger Tavel—who got 18 percent of the vote against Herbold in 2015 despite being endorsed by the Seattle Times—benefited from nearly $34,000 in spending from People for Seattle, more than half of that targeting Herbold. (CASE threw in another $102,000).

In District 2,  sleeper candidate Solomon—a civilian employee of the Seattle Police Department with no prior involvement in local elections—benefited from $23,000 from People for Seattle, including $2,700 in negative mailers targeting Morales (whose name the group’s reports consistently and inexplicably misspell “Moralas.”) CASE spent another $88,000 on Solomon.

In District 3, People for Seattle spent $12,500 against Sawant, $12,500 targeting a Sawant challenger, Zach DeWolf, and another $15,000 supporting Orion. (CASE spent another $122,000 on Orion, and $12,000 against Sawant)

In District 4, the PAC spent $19,000 backing Pedersen, who happens to be Burgess’ former council aide, and $11,000 targeting Emily Myers, a UW doctoral student who had labor backing and came in fourth. (Pedersen got a $13,000 boost from CASE).

Support The C Is for Crank
Sorry to interrupt your reading, but THIS IS IMPORTANT. The C Is for Crank is a one-person operation, supported entirely—and I mean entirely— by generous contributions from readers like you. If you enjoy the breaking news, commentary, and deep dives on issues that matter to you, please support this work by donating a few bucks a month to keep this reader-supported site going. I can’t do this work without support from readers like you. Your $5, $10, and $20 monthly donations allow me to do this work as my full-time job, so please become a sustaining supporter now. If you don’t wish to become a monthly contributor, you can always make a one-time donation via PayPal, Venmo (Erica-Barnett-7) or by mailing your contribution to P.O. Box 14328, Seattle, WA 98104. Thank you for keeping The C Is for Crank going and growing. I’m truly grateful for your support.

People for Seattle stayed out of Districts 5, where they endorsed Juarez, and 6 and 7, where three of their non-endorsed but recommended candidates, Heidi Wills in District 6 and Jim Pugel and Andrew Lewis in District 7, came through. CASE spent $6,900 on Juarez, $6,600 on Wills, $6,600 on Jay Fathi, $12,000 on Michael George (D7), and $6,000 on Pugel.

Other notable expenditures from legacy PACs include $148,000 from UNITE HERE 8, the New York City-based labor union, supporting Andrew Lewis.

Overall, PACs have reported spending more than $875,000 in the primary election alone, a number that is likely to rise as late reports come in. That number is larger than the total amount of independent expenditures on all nine primary and general city council elections in 2015. Continue reading “PAC Spending Pays Off, Sawant’s In Trouble, and Other Lessons from Election Night” →

City Council, Elections, Politics

Half the “Moms for Seattle” Don’t Vote in Local Elections. But You Should!
via King County Elections.

Moms for Seattle—a brand-new election PAC whose biggest contributors are a Bellevue charter-school advocate and the wives of local multi-millionaires such as Forbes-lister Tom Pigott, telecom mogul John McCaw, and former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz—continues to portray itself as just a small group of concerned local moms, telling KUOW last week that they decided to form a PAC after talking on the phone and realizing how frustrated they were with the current state of the city council. They “thought this was the best way for us to actually make a difference,” one of the Moms told KUOW.

So let’s take them, for a moment, at their word—Moms for Seattle, a PAC that raised more than $25,000 in a single day when it launched, is just a group of four politically inexperienced moms who wanted to make a difference in their city. (Since then, Moms for Seattle has raised more than $200,000, including about $10,000—almost 90 percent of it from men and people who live outside city limits—in the last few days.) How engaged have the four Moms been in local politics over the years, not counting their recent campaign contributions?

KUOW mentioned that most of the Moms haven’t given much money to local campaigns, which isn’t that unusual in itself—very few people, relatively speaking, do. What the radio station didn’t mention is whether they’ve shown their interest in local elections in the past by doing the bare minimum of voting in them, particularly in the council elections that would presumably be of greatest interest to people concerned about the state of the city council.

So here’s a look at the voting records of the four women who serve as the public face of the Moms for Seattle organization, obtained through the Washington Secretary of State’s voter database.

Celeste Garcia Ramburg and Betsy Losh have voted in most recent elections, including recent city council and mayoral primaries.

Before this year, Laura McMahon has voted just five times since 2004, a period that included seven primary and seven general city council elections as well as three special elections on local measures (and, of course, state and federal primary and general elections, as well as special elections, in even years). She skipped every Seattle election those except the general election in 2017. This year marks the first time she’s ever voted in a local primary election.

And finally, Jeannine Christofilis has also rarely voted, casting ballots in just six elections since 2008. Until now, she has only voted in a single local election—the general election in 2015.

The final tally: Half of the four women who say they formed Moms for Seattle because they’re concerned about local politics vote regularly, but the other two have never voted in a Seattle primary election, and have each voted in exactly one local election before this year. According to KUOW, the group believes that “the most effective way to reach [their electoral] goal would be to form a PAC and endorse the candidates they liked across the city.” The rest of us will have to reach our own electoral goals the old-fashioned way: By actually showing up and voting.

Other big-money PACs that are trying to influence this year’s council elections through independent expenditures—digital and print ad campaigns, mailers, and phone calls—include the Seattle Chamber of Commerce’s PAC, Civic Alliance for a Sound Economy (over $800,000 as of July 31); People for Seattle, the PAC formed by former council member Tim Burgess, which sent out mailers attacking two of his former council colleagues (more than $300,000 as of yesterday); and the labor PAC Unite Here Local 8 (about $158,000 as of July 31).

Ballots must be postmarked by today, August 6, or dropped in a ballot drop box by 8pm tonight. 

City Council, Elections, homelessness, human services, Mayor Durkan, Morning Crank, Politics

Morning Crank Part 2: Homelessness Division Loses Another Key Player; Burgess Can’t Quit the Council

1. As I mentioned on Twitter last week, Navigation Team outreach leader Jackie St. Louis announced his resignation last month and his last day was last Friday. St. Louis did not return my calls asking about his decision to leave the city back in June, but he had recently been reassigned to a new position as “manager of unsheltered crisis response” in the Homelessness Strategy and Outreach division—a reassignment that could be interpreted as a demotion. Tiffany Washington, the erstwhile director of the homelessness division, also quit recently to become deputy director of the city’s Department of Education and Early Learning.

“So, this is where this part of my story ends. Not how I would have intended it to. Not how I would have envisioned it, but I accept that this is the way that it is supposed to be. Because a good name is worth more than any earthly reward, and integrity should never be entrusted to those who it is a stranger to.” – Former Navigation Team leader Jackie St. Louis, whose last day was last Friday

St. Louis told homeless service providers about his departure in a brief email. It read: “I wanted to take the time to thank you for your partnership over the years under what have been trying circumstances. I also want to wish you well and offer well wishes as you forge ahead with your respective missions. Though differing, they all help to try and create a better community for all those who call it home. Today will be my last day at the city.”

His departure letter to colleagues was significantly more dramatic. “To live is to wage war: war with the external forces that threaten our existence but even more so the war we wage with our own selves,” it began. “They tell us that history is told from the perspective of those who survive to recount that which has transpired. I challenge that assertion, because amongst us live and toil those who bear the scars of battles long since waged.

“It is not those who survive who tell those stories as much as it is those who still retain the desire of sharing the morbid details of things which they have most likely experienced as an observer. …

“The jury is still out on whether my ‘work’ here resulted in any significant impact for those whom it was intended. Yet, I am certain of the fact that I have been deeply impacted by your word and deeds. They have moved me toward being a better, more humble, more courageous, and resilient version of myself. …

“So, this is where this part of my story ends. Not how I would have intended it to. Not how I would have envisioned it, but I accept that this is the way that it is supposed to be. Because a good name is worth more than any earthly reward, and integrity should never be entrusted to those who it is a stranger to.”

St. Louis concluded by thanking a long list of colleagues. They did not, notably, include either Washington or Johnson.

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2. The Navigation Team also came up in a recent mailer from former mayor Tim Burgess’ PAC targeting city council incumbent (and Burgess’ former colleague) Lisa Herbold, who is running for reelection. In the mailer, Burgess’ group, People for Seattle, accuses Herbold of “vot[ing] to cut funding for the Navigation Teams tasked with reducing homeless camps.” This is inaccurate—as I reported at the time, although Herbold joined other council members in seeking a smaller permanent increase in the size of the team than Durkan initially requested, they ultimately gave the mayor everything she wanted, finding funds to marginally increase human service provider pay while preserve the increase in funding Durkan requested.

Burgess, who retired in 2017, has remained unusually active for a former elected official. Burgess’ PAC, which has raised more than a quarter-million dollars, has also sent out mailers accusing Kshama Sawant challenger Zach DeWolf of offering “more of the same” in an effort to boost Seattle Metro Chamber of Commerce-endorsed candidate Egan Orion through the primary. This week, Burgess also sent an email to council members admonishing them directly for defying Durkan with their vote to create a dedicated fund for the soda tax, providing the language of the original bill establishing the soda tax, and suggesting four things the council “could have” done instead of creating the dedicated fund.

Burgess’ attempts to influence not only council votes, but the makeup of the council itself, have prompted some on the council to joke that he should probably just run for council again.