I’ve written already about the sorry state of affairs here in Seattle when it comes to our choices for City Council. I’ll say right now that when it comes to sensible housing and land use policy the two best candidates by far are Shannon Braddock in the 1st district (West Seattle, South Park) and Rob Johnson (Roosevelt, Ravenna, Green Lake). I have not gone on a big road show advertising how good I think these candidates are because the atmosphere is pretty poisonous; support from the builder and developer community can be seen as a negative. But as I’ve said before, our candidates and political discourse reflect the electorate, and the electorate just doesn’t get it, when you’re having a housing “crisis” the best thing to do is make more housing, not more rules and fees. Most people marking their ballots are more worried about the pace of growth than they are about welcoming it.

Nevertheless, this is just a quick reminder to get your ballot mailed in as soon as possible. In some cases I’ll be writing in a name in the two at large Council district races and in my own, Council district 3, the home of Councilmember Sawant. I will sleep better at night knowing that how ever things turn out in those contests I didn’t vote for the eventual winner; yes Burgess and Grant, and Gonzalez and Bradburd are all very weak or outright terrible on our issues. Burgess and Gonzalez are the better candidates mostly because they aren’t Grant and Bradburd. Burgess as I pointed out in my early post has a stubborn tendency to ignore basic math about critical development issues and Gonzalez seems to prefer the company of the Tenants Union and Puget Sound Sage to that of business owners and housing builders.

Sally Bagshaw, in district 6, has made some really inexplicably bad moves of late in downtown pushing significant changes to land use rules downtown to benefit some of her wealthy campaign contributors who live the the Escala Building (starting  price for a condo there is about $1 million). She’s called me strident for being vocal about her move to put a small group of people at the front of the land use and housing process line with their request for changes that benefit them. Strident? More like outraged.

In District 2, Bruce Harrell has listened to us, proposing an amendment to thwart a destructive change to design review requirements that forces new projects into design review because a project next door didn’t go through design review. We appreciate that even though the amendment failed. But we’re hoping for more leadership in 2016 from Harrell, who is running for Council President as well as reelection, especially when it comes to managing the process more effectively and pushing his colleagues to consider the impact of the legislation they propose and support.

In District 3, Kshama Sawant is mostly assured reelection. She has provided a great rallying point for the business community, however Pam Banks doesn’t seem to have matched her rhetoric or her charisma. She also hasn’t been especially responsive to us or reached out to the builder community. From experience, Banks would be slightly to the right of Nick Licata if elected. Not exactly the sea change we’re looking for in district 3.

I had a great conversation with Deborah Juarez running in District 5 shortly after the primary. However, she hasn’t pursued builder or developer support, and neither has her opponent Sandy Brown. Both candidates seem like they might be supportive of our issues, but they also have had to pay a lot of lip service to anti-growth sentiment in their district. I think both candidates offer the potential to take a fresh look at growth issues and I look forward to working with either one of them.

And of course, Councilmember Mike O’Brien is running for almost certain reelection in the 6th. If you are in District 6, vote against him, not because his opponent is very good, but because O’Brien has been like Godzilla when it comes to the housing economy in Seattle. Since his vote 5 years ago to blow up a proposal to allow ground floor commercial in low-rise zones, O’Brien has been relentless in pursuing and supporting just about every bad idea when it comes to housing and land use policy. Not only that, when he has compromised and tried to leaven terrible proposals, he hasn’t demonstrated the requisite leadership to keep the bad ideas from coming back and even getting worse. On small-lot legislation, for example, he got the idea that the 100 percent rule would make things better for everyone, but he couldn’t get his colleagues to go along.

Those are my thoughts for what they are worth, which isn’t much. The only people who’s voice will count are the ones who turn in their ballot. So please fill out your ballot now and mail it or drop it off.