MAYOR
Mike McGinn took office during an economic crisis and has skillfully led Seattle toward a new era of prosperity. Businesses are moving INTO the city (Brooks shoes' worldwide headquarters will be a mile from my house within a year), the city's unemployment rate is 4%, the budget is balanced, education is funded, crime rates are low, nightlife is rejuvenated, bike and pedestrian infrastructures are improving, and light rail is expanding.

Detractors of McGinn's point to the lack of immediate police reform under his watch as a negative of his first term in office. Blaming McGinn for the problems at SPD is like blaming Barack Obama for the problems in Iraq; these issues pre-date his administration by decades. The fact that police reform is even on the table is a sign of progress.

Meanwhile his opponent, Ed Murray, is endorsed by the corrupt and unwavering Seattle Police Officer's Guild, proof that Murray has no real interest in actual reform at SPD. And this is the problem with Ed Murray: He is a toady of the establishment. Yes, he may play nicer in the mayor's office than Mike McGinn has, but I don't need him playing nice with SPD, downtown developers and the City Council if playing nice comes at the expense of average citizens.

Furthermore Ed Murray is not very bright. If you've ever met him, this would be evident. He's going to need A LOT of help in managing the job of mayor. Who will he bring into his administration? At a recent debate in my neighborhood, Murray lamented McGinn's reluctance to reach out to leaders from Seattle's past. The implication is that Murray's administration would likely look a lot like Greg Nickels', where regular folks were swept aside and only insiders had a voice at City Hall.

The fact that Murray opposes the Burke Gilman Missing Link is proof that the voices of a couple of businesses can and will trump the voices of thousands of citizens. Been there, done that, no thanks.

VOTE MIKE McGINN

CITY COUNCIL, POSITION 2
Richard Conlin has been on the Seattle City Council for 16 years, and every time I've ever seen him he's been wearing a fleece vest. Have you ever worn a fleece vest? I have. And the problem with them is there's just something missing. They keep you kind of warm and kind of dry, but they don't really do a good job of either. They're ineffectual and leave you wanting something more.

Richard Conlin is a lot like a fleece vest. He gives lip service to progressive causes, but he opposed paid sick leave, led the way on the deep-bore tunnel and has not been a strong advocate for mass transit.

Kshama Sawant is a warm and fuzzy Socialist who wants to wrap you in Karl Marx's coat, Che Guevara's beret and Leon Trotsky's ascot. She also wants to implement a $15 minimum wage in Seattle, work for affordable housing and expand mass transit.

VOTE KSHAMA SAWANT

CITY COUNCIL, POSITION 4
Sam Bellomio is a bit of a nutjob. He's the dude at a public meeting or City Council hearing who is always there and is always speaking. I admire his fortitude, but he's still a nutjob.

In his Voter's Guide Candidate Statement Bellomio asks: "When's the last time a Councilmember held a meeting in your neighborhood, at night, off-work hours, and asked your community directly about what issues you find important?" For me, the answer to that question is, "Sally Bagshaw, at a neighborhood greenways meeting last year."

Sally Bagshaw is not the flashiest of city council members, but at least she's present, aware and responsive. And since her opponent is a nutjob, that's reason enough to vote her into a second term.

VOTE SALLY BAGSHAW

CITY COUNCIL, POSITION 6
Last year the left-leaning Nation magazine named Nick Licata the nation's most valuable local official. Apparently that endorsement was not good enough for Licata's opponent, Edwin Fruit, who is running to Licata's left for his seat on the City Council. Only in Seattle.

Fruit points to Cuba as an example of the working people seizing power from the capitalist class. Hey, I'm all for the Power of the People, but unless their weather comes with it, I'm not sure I want Seattle to be the new Havana.

Licata is indeed a valuable local official. He wrote the ordinance that provided paid sick leave to employees in Seattle, and he's fought hard for affordable housing. He hates sports (unlike Castro), but nobody's perfect.

VOTE NICK LICATA

CITY COUNCIL, POSITION 8
Mike O'Brien is my favorite Seattle City Councilmember. Good hair, great smile, nice guy.

In his first term in office, O'Brien took on the Yellow Pages and created an "opt-out" from phone book deliveries. He helped pass Seattle's Paid Sick Leave law and the Families and Education Levy. He's proposed a resolution to make Seattle carbon neutral in time for my 82nd birthday. He's a passionate advocate for public transit and police reform. And he rides a bike.

Albert Shen hates bike lanes, public transit and paid sick leave. He also doesn't mind that CVS wants to tear down a 100-year-old building in my neighborhood and replace it with a crappy suburban-style structure (becoming the FOURTH pharmacy in our neighborhood, by the way).

VOTE MIKE O'BRIEN

AMENDMENT 19, DISTRICT ELECTIONS
Currently we have nine City Councilmembers, all voted in at large (by everyone). Amendment 19 would create seven separate council districts, leaving just two at large seats, so instead of being represented by all nine Councilmembers, each Seattle resident would be represented by only three. I don't like this.

Advocates of Amendment 19 point to district elections as a way for a single, local representative to be responsive to your particular needs and neighborhood. But what if this single, local representative is not responsive to your needs? You're pretty much out of luck. Also, you have absolutely no say in who is elected to six of the nine seats on the City Council, further limiting your power in representational government.

I prefer the style of Council representation we have right now. If you pay attention, you'll realize that each Councilmember has their own pet projects and agendas, and that's how you should target your correspondence with each of them. So for bike issues I email Mike O'Brien, for social justice issues I email Nick Licata and for gossip column advice I email Jean Godden.

VOTE NO on AMENDMENT 19

PROPOSITION 1, PUBLICLY FINANCED CAMPAIGNS
Proposition 1 seeks an avenue to combat the special interest and corporate money in Seattle City Council elections. If passed, this Proposition will create a pool of money available to candidates who have proven themselves worthy (via multiple small donations) for public financing. This is already done in New York City and San Francisco, and the policy is credited with creating a more diverse array of candidates running for office.

Detractors claim that your property tax dollars will go to support candidates for office that you do not agree with. While this is factually true, it is disingenuous. The bar for receiving public financing is high (personally I believe it is too high). A candidate must first attract 600 individual donations of $10 to $50 to qualify, something that is rarely done in today's Big Money electoral climate. This high bar ensures that far-out fringe candidates are unlikely to qualify for public financing. David Duke need not apply.

This is indeed paid for by a property tax levy, but it is very low. A house assessed at $400,000 will pay $6.56 a year, or basically the cost of a pint in London. That's a small price to pay for a fairer and more inclusive election process.

VOTE YES on PROPOSITION 1

SEATTLE SCHOOL DISTRICT 1, DIRECTOR DISTRICT 4
Suzanne Dale Estey is definitely the well-financed favorite in this race. She is also endorsed by organizations and people I don't particularly care for (The Seattle Times, Suzie Burke, Ed Murray and others). She emphasizes "STEM courses" in her Voters' Pamphlet candidate bio, which I usually take as undermining Arts education.

Sue Peters is not well-financed, is not endorsed by people I don't like and makes no mention of STEM courses in her bio (even though she co-founded the Seattle Math Coalition with local weather icon Cliff Mass).

VOTE SUE PETERS

SEATTLE SCHOOL DISTRICT 1, DIRECTOR DISTRICT 5
The LaCrese Green for Seattle School Board website has a page devoted to reinstilling the American Dream into every high school student. Her conclusion is,"The American dream was made possible because God was the guiding force behind it. In other words, if you take God out of the picture, there's no dream." That's fine, but not on the School Board.

Enough said.

VOTE STEPHAN BLANFORD

CHARTER AMENDMENT 1, COUNTY DEPT OF PUBLIC DEFENSE
Until recently King County did not have a Department of Public Defense. Instead, private non-profit organizations were contracted to provide public defense resources for the county. Who knew?

Due to a 2006 class-action lawsuit, as of July 1, 2013, these public defenders and their staff are now county employees. A "YES" vote makes this change permanent. Makes sense.

VOTE YES on AMENDMENT 1

PROPOSITION 1, MEDIC ONE
Proposition 1 renews the levy for county funding of Medic One, our emergency medical service system. The annual cost for the average homeowner is around $110 a year. That's a whole year of ambulance rides for less than two cab trips to the airport!

VOTE APPROVED

EXECUTIVE
Dow Constantine has got this thing locked up. In a four-way primary this year he grabbed 77% of the vote. Despite a troubled economy, his first term as King County Executive was good, and my only real complaint of Dow's administration is that the online redesign of the Metro bus schedules sucks. But at least the buses are funded and still running.

Dow's opponent is a Tea Party-esque candidate named Alan Lobdell. He's a bit of a kook, but his "Mission Impossible" spoof video is worth two minutes of your time. The man has acting chops!

VOTE DOW CONSTANTINE

COMMISSIONER POSITION 1
The Port of Seattle is all about big trucks, big boats and big planes, so when the Cascade Bike Club and the Sierra Club endorse you, you must be doing something right (or wrong). John Creighton is endorsed by both.

His opponent, Pete Lewis, is the current Mayor of Auburn, which last I checked is landlocked, without an airport and not in Seattle. I'm not sure how he qualifies to serve as a commissioner at the Port of Seattle.

VOTE JOHN CREIGHTON

COMMISSIONER POSITION 2
Gregoire, Gregoire, why do I know that name?

She's only 34 years old, but Courtney Gregoire has already served as Chief Counsel for Senator Maria Cantwell and as a Director at the U.S. Department of Commerce for President Obama. So young and so successful. I wonder how she got those sweet gigs?

Oh, right, GREGOIRE.

Courtney Gregoire is former Governor (and Obama BFF) Christine Gregoire's daughter. I hate nepotism, especially in politics. But Courtney seems like a good, young, energetic candidate, endorsed by labor, environmentalists and all those other good Leftists, so I guess I won't hold the family name against her.

VOTE COURTNEY GREGOIRE

COMMISSIONER POSITION 3
In the August primary election I lamented that the campaign websites for the two front runners in this race, Stephanie Bowman and Michael Wolfe, were "remarkably low on details about their plans and visions for the Port of Seattle," so I endorsed the one guy who didn't make it through the primary. Well guess what? Nearly three months have passed and Bowman's and Wolfe's sites are still very low on details.

Two things that stand out for me, however, is that unlike most other candidates for Port Commissioner, Michael Wolfe doesn't use the Port of Tacoma as a boogeyman and he puts an emphasis on SeaTac airport, rather than just freight mobility. Maybe he'll bring some different thinking to the job. Also, he kind of has a baby face, so if he wins, I'm gonna call him Port Commissioner Teen Wolfe.

VOTE MICHAEL WOLFE

COMMISSIONER POSITION 4
Rule number one if you're running for public office: Make sure your website works! The site for Richard Pope, as printed in the Voters' Pamphlet, is inactive. I tried to go to his site specifically to get more information on his claim that "Port Commissioners recently increased their own salaries by 700%!"

It turns out this claim is true. A 700% raise? In these times? Well, it turns out that raise was from $500 to $3500 a month, which are hardly massive wages.

Current Port President Tom Albro proposed this wage increase "as a way to attract more people to the five-member body and make it feasible for people who have to work for a living to serve." When he's not giving himself a raise, Albro is bitching about the SODO location of a potential NBA and NHL arena.

At least his website works.

VOTE TOM ALBRO?

INITIATIVE 517, SIGNATURE GATHERERS
How ironic is it that Tim Eyman, the biggest bully in state politics, filed an Initiative to keep Tim Eyman from being bullied? Like most Eyman Initiatives, I-517 is poorly reasoned and unnecessary. It is, in fact, designed to make Tim Eyman a protected class of citizen, and to make Tim Eyman more money.

I-517 sets penalties for interfering with, or retaliating against, signature gatherers. Guess what? You can't do that now. What it really does is strip the rights of property owners to not allow signature gatherering on their property. Do you want to be harassed by a signature gatherer at a baseball game, in a library or while shopping for groceries? Hell, what will stop them from following you into a public bathroom?

I-517 does extend the time that signatures can be gathered, bringing that time frame more in line with that of other states, and that's not a bad thing. But the thought of Tim Eyman corralling me at a Safeco Field urinal trumps any possible good that could come out of the passing of this Initiative.

VOTE NO on I-517

INITIATIVE 522, GMO LABELING
I-522 would require foods produced using genetic engineering to be labeled as such. The opponents of this Initiative argue that genetic engineering has helped improve crops by resisting disease and requiring fewer pesticides. If this is true, if genetic engineering is such a great advance in food production, you'd think these folks would support this labeling initiative.

But they don't. They know that genetic engineering of food is a touchy subject that gives consumers pause. The fact is, every one of us likely eats genetically modified food almost every day, but we're not aware of it. What's the problem with knowing what goes into our food?

This law does not ban genetically engineered food from our shelves, it simply notifies the consumer of the fact that their food has been genetically modified. If as a result of labeling consumers decide to not buy a certain product, well that's a story for another time. We are what we eat.

VOTE YES on I-522

ADVISORY VOTES 3 thru 7
These votes are ridiculous. All you're doing is advising the Legislature whether to repeal or maintain a tax increase. These votes are non-binding. Furthermore, these taxes were already voted on by the Legislature and every one of them passed, several by 80 or 90 percent!

These advisory votes are not just a waste of time, they're a waste of paper. They take up 10 pages in the State of Washington Voters' Pamphlet, which goes out to hundreds of thousands of homes. You know who likes advisory votes? Weyerhaeuser.

VOTE FOR THE TREES