Tag: elections

City of Seattle Proposition No. 1 Pike Place Market Levy

The City of Seattle’s Proposition No. 1 concerns increased property taxes for six years for Pike Place Market.

If approved, this propsition would fund seismic, safety, energy-saving, and other basic infrastructure improvements at the publicly-owned Pike Place Market, last renovated in the 1970s; all as provided in Ordinance 122737. It would authorize regular property taxes higher than RCW 84.55 limits, allowing collection of up to $12,500,000 in additional taxes in 2009 (up to $73,000,000 over six years). Taxes collected in 2009 would be limited to $2.60 per $1,000 of assessed value, including approximately $0.10 of additional taxes.

Should this levy lid lift be approved?

I am torn on this one, but ultimately I think I will vote for it.

Mostly I just don’t know that the benefit to Seattle is worth the public cost. I don’t think Pike Place Market really brings in that many tourists. Sure they’ll go there once they get here. But I don’t think it brings additional tourists who wouldn’t have come otherwise. On the other hand, I like the market (I used to hang out there every day after high school) and I like the ability to buy fresh foods and handmade items. But I don’t go there that often anymore. I’d love to see businesses renting there put up more of the infrastructure money.

Count me for this one, but reluctantly.

King County Superior Court

Position No. 1:

Position No. 22:

Position No. 37

I wouldn’t know these candidates from Adam. And I wouldn’t know how to evaluate a judicial candidate for the most part. So I’m just going to vote what The Stranger tells me to vote in these races.

Bradshaw, Hill, and Rietschel. Other folks, sorry for not knowing your strengths. You might have been good.

Washington State Representative District 43 Position 2

Choices are:

  • Frank Chopp (Prefers Democratic Party)
  • Kim Verde (Prefers G O P Party)

Chopp isn’t a bad representative. But he could be doing so much more. As Speaker of the House, he could have used the super-majority the Democrats held to enact some amazing things. Instead, he’s held back for fear of losing the majority. In other words, don’t overstep. Well, that makes some sense. However, we elected Democrats for a reason. If they don’t do anything, what’s the point. He’s also enthralled by the B.I.A.W., an anathema to good business and good government in the state.

Kim Verde is worse. And she won’t even use her party’s name, Republican.

Hold my nose and vote for Chopp? Or skip this race? Does it matter, given that Chopp is popular?

Washington State Representative District 43 Position 1

Choices:

I rarely vote for or endorse candidates running unopposed. There doesn’t seem to be much point. However, I make an exception for Jamie Pedersen. His cause celebre is marriage equality. He’s been the leader in the legislature getting a domestic partner registry law passed, and then expanding it the following year. The stated plan is to add more and more of the rights and privileges associated with marriage to the domestic partner law, until it’s indistinguishable from marriage. Huzzah!

I vote twice for Jamie Pedersen.

Washington State Insurance Commissioner

Choices are:

This position is the watchdog for the insurance industry. Why anyone would think putting an insurance agent (Adams) in place as a watchdog for the industry is a mystery to me. John A. Adams believes in creative solutions to expand insurance coverage. Coming from an agent, I suspect that means he wants to unfetter the industry so it could (in theory) offer all sorts of new insurance options at lower cost. Possibly. But the way insurance works, someone needs to hold their feet to the fire to pay up when disaster strikes. The idea that the free market will force them to honor their obligations is ludicrous. Consumers pay up front. Insurance companies can take the money and run. There’s just too much incentive to meet profit objectives by denying claims. You want someone independent of the industry like Kreidler to be the watchdog.

Washington State Superintendent of Public Instruction

My choices are:

So here’s the thing, I’m note sure there’s anything seriously wrong with Washington State’s schools. I don’t know if they are being run well either. And if they are being run poorly, what can be done to fix them? I don’t think the education establishment has acquitted itself very well on it’s attempts to improve education. Both candidates are members of that establishment, from somewhat different perspectives. Whether or not we have the WASL in it’s current form I think is of little import, despite the arguments pro and con from teachers and whatnot. From my experience mentoring high school kids at Chief Sealth (one of the poorer performing and under-supplied schools in Seattle) the WASL is neither causing anyone’s downfall nor proving to be anyone’s savior. (I do wish the SPI would ban the gimmicks the Seattle Public Schools use to drop badly performing students from the official WASL statistics, but that’s not going to actually fix education.) And lastly, I don’t really know how much influence the Superintendent of Public Instruction really has on the individual school districts in the state.

So unless someone posts something really insightful here, I’ll not be voting in this race. I know I changed my mind on the Lt. Governor race, so maybe I will here too. But I’ll definitely need better arguments than either of the candidates’ web sites or the newspaper endorsements I’ve seen. Comment away, if you care.

Washington State Commissioner of Public Lands

My choices are:

An overly pro-business anti-environment Republican who has issues with harassing female interns, or a pro-environment rancher (agricultural credibility!). Goldmark all the way.

Washington State Attorney General

My choices are:

Rob McKenna has always struck me as a self-promoter more than a doer, and his prominent issues have tended to be standard law-and-order and protect business issues. He did a good job defending the top 2 primary when it went against the desire of his party organization. Of course, that’s his job. Now he wants to be lauded for doing his job as if it’s something special. Give him credit for not shirking that one area at least.

John Ladenburg promises to expand the enforcement activities of the attorney general to focus on the environment, consumer protection, and protecting rights. Huzzah! I’m glad McKenna liked to keep meth labs closed, but I’m of the opinion that meth labs are not our #1 law enforcement priority. And I think that pretty much any attorney general could and would prosecute meth manufacturers.

My vote is for John Ladenburg.

Washington State Auditor

My choices are:

The state auditor’s position got a lot more interesting a couple of years ago with the passage of a performance audit initiative. After that, the state auditor could conduct performance audits (not just financial audits) of any government entity in the state. Liberals are hopping mad that Sonntag used the new powers too much, and conservatives are hopping mad that he hasn’t uncovered billions of dollars of government waste. McEntee is running on a platform of wishful thinking that there just has to be some $1 billion in wasteful spending in government in the state, and he’s gonna find it. He thinks he’ll find it in higher education. Sonntag certainly should audit them, but he’s not going to find a billion in savings, and you don’t start your job with the trickiest cases. Sonntag has done a good job. McEntee could probably capably run the office, but he promises more than he can deliver.

I vote for Sonntag.

Washington State Treasurer

My choices are:

The primary job for the state treasurer is managing the state’s money. My favorite candidate came in third in the primary. ChangMook Sohn was the state economist and would have brought to the table an economist’s outlook.

Left in the race is an administrator from the Treasurer’s office who has spent much of his career as a government treasurer and a former state representative who is an economist. One has a lot of experience with running treasuries in the state and knows the issues they face. The other possibly will have insight into the economy and will be able to make better investments of our money because of this. However, McIntire hasn’t been out there with an economics blog or frequent publication in the press about the economy, so I have no way to compare his insights with what actually happened. As a professor, perhaps he’s had some academic publications. This is the thing, quite a large majority of the public economists (i.e., those who have been profligate with their opinions) completely missed or dismissed the housing bubble. I have no way to tell if McIntire is one of those people. What comes up when I search for articles written by him are micro-economics papers on the minimum wage and decisions on training. What I’m worried about is whether he falls into GroupThink like a lot of other economists have.

I kind of have to take a leap of faith here. I’m going to vote for McIntire on the guess that he has some insight, or at least can recognize it well from the people he employs if he wins. I think Allan Martin would be a capable administrative treasurer, and I would vote for him if times were good or McIntire had some indication of being a poor economist. I hope he stays on in the treasurer’s office under McIntire, should McIntire win. But if he doesn’t there are other folks with his background that could replace him.

So my vote will be for McIntire.