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- Initiative 900 - performance audits
- Yes
- No
- Initiative 901 - smoking ban
- Yes
- No
- Initiative 912 - gas tax repeal
- Yes
- No
- Initiative 330 - capping medical malpractice damages
- Yes
- No
- Initiative 336 - restricting insurance rate increases
- Yes
- No
- SJR 8207 - including municipal court judges in judicial conduct review
- Yes
- No
- King County Prop. 1 - veterans and human services levy
- Yes
- No
- King County Executive
- Ron Sims
- David Irons
- Gentry Lange
- King County Sheriff
- Sue Rahr
- Greg Schmidt
- King County Council District No. 4
- Larry Phillips
- Ed Pottharst
- Court of Appeals Division 1, District 1, Position No. 2
- No vote
- Port of Seattle Commissioner Position No. 1
- John Creighton
- Lawrence Malloy
- Port of Seattle Commissioner Position No. 3
- Lloyd Hara
- Richard
Rich
Berkowitz
- Port of Seattle Commissioner Position No. 4
- Patricia
Pat
Davis - Jack Jolley
- Patricia
- City of Seattle Mayor
- Greg Nickels
- Al Runte
- City of Seattle City Attorney
- No vote
- City of Seattle City Council Position No. 2
- Richard Conlin
- Paige Miller
- City of Seattle City Council Position No. 4
- No vote
- City of Seattle City Council Position No. 6
- Nick Licata
- Paul A. Bascomb
- City of Seattle City Council Position No. 8
- Richard J. McIver
- Dwight Pelz
- City of Seattle Advisor Measure No. 1 - health care
- Yes
- No
- Seattle Popular Monorail Authority Board Member Position No. 8
- No vote
- Seattle Popular Monorail Authority Board Member Position No. 9
- No vote
- Seattle Popular Monorail Authority Proposition No. 1 - build monorail with shorter route
- Yes
- No
- Seattle Popular Monorail Authority Proposition No. 2 - establishing a majority elected board
- Yes
- No
- Seattle School District Director District No. 4
- No vote
- Seattle School District Director District No. 5
- No vote
- Seattle School District Director District No. 7
- No vote
This race has three candidates:
- Wen Wu Lee
- This is a representative section from Ms. Lee's statement in the voters pamphlet:
Wen Wu Lee has academic credential, finance/budget skills and service experience. She is familiar with both West and East culture/languages. She volunteers within Bellevue school district. She is on the board of Director of Wings Financial Credit Union ($1.5 billion asset, serving 100,000 members in air transportation).
Ms. Lee sounds very very bright, but if she can't be bothered to have someone proof-read her statement for correct grammar, I can't vote for her. It's a trivial thing, but I expect more from someone who is going to represent at this level. They need to cover both the details as well as the big picture. On top of that, she offers no specifics of her platform. - John Creighton
- John Creighton appears to be running on essentially two planks: fiscal responsbility and environemental protection. He mentions worker protection as well, but his position is to help it through trying to change things that are driving shippers to other ports.
- Lawrence Malloy
- The incumbent's main planks are the environment, worker protection, and diversity issues. Judging from his endorsements though, he's got the backing of the lefty progressive caucus.
I'll probably vote for John Creighton, particularly if I can find out that he supports the diversity issues that Malloy also supports. Particularly ones requiring port contractors to give same-sex couples benefits. If he doesn't, it'll be a closer call.
King County Sheriff primary - Greg Schmidt
Sep. 4th, 2005 05:33 pmThere are three people running for Sheriff.
- Sue Rahr - She was appointed to the position of Sheriff after Dave Reichert won election to congress. She's got a ton of endorsements, but her web site has only bland positions that say nothing. Still she's performed adequately as Sheriff so far.
- Jim Fuda - He's a hostage negotiator with the Sheriff's department. However, a couple of days ago news organizations revealed he got a pay raise for receiving a degree from an
online university
. He claims he thought they could grant degrees for life experience. I call bullshit. The Seattle Times has the story. - Greg Schmidt - Greg Schmidt is a Seattle Police Lieutenant. He's had a long running battle with the Sheriff's ever since he was arrested in a domestic violence incident in the mid-90s. He was acquitted, and ever since then he's been waging a battle the change policies over how men are treated in domestic violence incidents. He believes that too often men are
gender profiled
and under Washington's mandatory arrest policy, that means they are often victims when they shouldn't be.I think that incident is what's driving Schmidt to run for Sheriff. His positions are less bland than Sue Rahr's though.
Based on their positions, I think I'll vote for Schmidt in the primary. However, more information might show up in the voters pamphlet. I suspect that both Schmidt and Rahr will make the general election, and a tighter race might bring out better formed positions from the two of them. I might change my mind by then.
King County Executive
Sep. 2nd, 2005 07:31 amI was going to research candidates for King County Executive and their positions on the issues, and then write an editorial for all of you. But I can't find a web site for either of the two candidates running against Ron Sims in the primary. Karen Rispoli is a bus driver. I can't find nay decent information about Michael Nelson (name is pretty common). Thus, I will likely endorse no one in that race and also not vote in that race.
Next up, the race for King County Sheriff.
Monorail news
Jul. 1st, 2005 09:50 amIn other news, the Seattle Monorail Project board killed the financing plan for the future transit system. From what I can tell (I haven't read all the documents yet) the financing plan is the part that didn't really meet the terms of the original plan that voters approved. Other parts deviate slightly (with one exception I may write about later), but because the project underestimated how much revenue a car tax would bring, they had to find other ways to pay off the bonds. The project resorted to junk bonds that have a high interest rate. Meaning we'd be paying off the tax until 2050, unless miraculously people started buying more cars in Seattle or more expensive cars.
Now it's back to the drawing board to find another plan to finance the thing. Which is good. Though I don't know how likely that occurence will be. I'm not skilled in the world of government bonds.
