Don’t Forget to Vote!

Posted by the Kenmore Crow | Filed under Politics | 2 Comments

Kenmore's BallotDon’t forget: Tuesday is “Election Day” (a.k.a. – mail your ballot day).

Here in Kenmore three of our seven city council positions are up for election this year. In the primary, only 29.4% of Kenmore’s registered voters bothered to return their ballots. Flip that around: that means that over 70% of voters in Kenmore did not vote in the primary. I have to say, that is pretty pitiful, especially considering how easy it is to vote now that we have been forcibly switched to an all-mail system.

I’m not interested in making “recommendations” that allow you to abdicate your civic responsibility to make your own informed decision, but I will do what I can to help you get to that point for yourself. In order to help you make an informed decision on the two contested races for Kenmore City Council, here is a collection of relevant links.

Don’t forget that there is also a convenient King County ballot drop box located outside the lower entrance to Third Place Books just down the street in Lake Forest Park.

You have no excuse not to vote other than sheer laziness.

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Read more | Comments (2) | November 1st, 2009

Reflections on the City Council Candidate Forum

Posted by the Kenmore Crow | Filed under Politics | 2 Comments

Thursday night I attended the first candidate “forum” (similar to a debate) at the Aqua Club in Uplake (which did not appear to be a very neutral location) for the two contested Kenmore City Council positions. Approximately 50 people were in attendance, which looked to me like roughly half to two-thirds the capacity of the venue.

The structure of the evening was mostly centered around pre-submitted questions, grouped into categories by the moderator, with each candidate being allowed a fixed amount of time (usually 2-3 minutes) to give their thoughts on each issue.

The categories covered at the forum were:

  • city budget, taxes, and spending
  • traffic, 522, transit, walkable neighborhoods
  • environment, air and water pollution
  • parks and recreation, St. Edwards, ballfields
  • Kenmore Village downtown project, Urban Partners

Here’s my general impression of the message each of the four candidates was presenting Thursday night. The commentary below represents my opinion alone, and should not be construed as an endorsement of any particular candidate.

Diane Brennan, Laurie Sperry, Patrick O'Brien, and Allan Van Ness
[left to right: Diane Brennan, Laurie Sperry, Patrick O'Brien, and Allan Van Ness]

Diane Brennan
What Diane lacks in eloquence she definitely makes up for in passion. You could tell that Diane feels very strongly about the environment in Kenmore, as well as the importance of an open and transparent local government. Diane’s main themes seemed to be that the city should do more for the environment, spend (and save) its money more wisely, and do more to attract businesses to Kenmore.

Laurie Sperry
As one would expect from an incumbent, Laurie spent most of her time touting the accomplishments that the city has had during the last four years while she has been in office. She mentioned the addition of numerous parks, the improvement of 522, and at least twice brought up the fact that Kenmore was named one of the “best towns and cities across the country for families” by Family Circle Magazine. Personally, I have a hard time making the connection between “Kenmore made some arbitrary list in a fluff magazine” and “re-elect Laurie Sperry,” but it’s obviously a big deal to some people, I guess.

Patrick O’Brien
Patrick came out swinging on his number one issue, which clearly appears to be financial responsibility in the city budget. At one point he claimed that his “number one priority” would be clearing up the traffic bottleneck at 68th and 522, but most of the points he hit on throughout the evening were city finance related. He brought up the fact that “several” city salaries are in excess of $100,000, consulting fees are in the millions, and the city has not reported the cost of various lawsuits. One specific money-saving action that O’Brien proposed was to re-bid Kenmore Village.

Allan Van Ness
Allan seemed to be somewhat on the defensive most of the night, spending most of his allotted time responding to accusations from Patrick O’Brien. Several times he corrected what he said were false statements by O’Brien on various issues such as taxes and spending. I was a little bit disappointed with what seemed to me to be a pattern of blame-shifting from Allan in some of his responses. On a question about opening up 522 to more lanes, his response was that “the state wouldn’t do it.” Referring to the idea of re-bidding Kenmore Village, his response was “nothing’s happening in the market.” His statements were true, but not very proactive, in my opinion.

Cross-Questioning
The portion of the evening that stuck out to me the most was the brief cross-questioning section, in which each candidate was permitted to directly pose a question to their opponent.

Diane’s question for Laurie was about the city’s dumping laws. She wanted to know why the current city code allows potentially toxic trash to accumulate on a property as long as it is not visible from the city street. Laurie’s response was “I have no idea,” and to outline the complaint-driven process for dumping law enforcement.

Laurie’s question for Diane was “can you name three positive changes you’ve seen in the city of Kenmore in the last four years?” It came across to me as sarcastic and childish. The line even drew laughs from some in the audience, who I assume were Sperry supporters. She was obviously attempting to prove some sort of point: that she apparently believes Diane’s campaign is too negative. Of course, if someone thinks everything in the city is going great, why would they run against an incumbent councilmember in the first place? For the record, Diane named four things: an improved tree ordinance, the opening of Snapdoodle Toys, new sidewalks on 522, and the new Swamp Creek Park.

Patrick’s question for Allan was “what are you prepared to do to reduce spending and budgetary increases?” Allan said that he would push for a reassessment and evaluation of the city’s consulting contracts, possibly creating some new city positions to do jobs that are currently contracted out. He also gave a generic response about “tightening our belts.”

For Allan’s question to Patrick, he took the same disappointing route as Laurie, asking Patrick to name “three other things that you think have been done well in the City of Kenmore in the last four years.” Rather than play along like Diane did, Patrick took the opportunity to instead point out the problems that he sees with non-public processes. Clearly he is not concerned about the possibility of being perceived as too negative.

Closing Thoughts
Overall I thought the forum was interesting, and gave me a much better idea of what the candidates are about than what I’ve been able to read in their statements and responses to our questionnaire. If there are more such forums between now and the election I will attempt to attend and report on these as well.

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Read more | Comments (2) | September 26th, 2009