Dump No Waste Drains To Sound

Protecting water quality must be a community effort. Sometimes it is important to remind people to not pollute.

I spotted the above yesterday in West Seattle area known as Alki Beach (map). Subtle messages can help build a collective community conscience.

Puget Sound is stunning. They want to make sure it stays that way.

‘Project HERO’ Gets Cold Reception

The former Days Inn motel at Tucker & Washington Ave underwent a $14 million dollar renovation recently and it emerged as the Washington Ave Apartments with 94 units.

St. Patrick’s Center, a provider of services to the homeless, is working with the city and Veteran’s Affairs to rent 45 of the units to homeless vets.

Many downtown residents are upset they were not included in the planing before it went forward. More than 20 formerly homeless vets have been residents in the building since June 2008.

It is true many of the homeless vets have addiction issues. But would we prefer they be sleeping in our parks and doorways?

A participant must:

• Be an honorably discharged veteran. Men only.
• Undergo weekly drug testing.
• Pay 30 percent of income toward rent and utilities.
• Not possess alcohol on premises.
• Not have violent crime or sex offense convictions.
• Do daily morning check-ins in person or by phone with a staff member of St. Patrick Center.
• Not have overnight guests unless it is the tenant’s minor child.
• Leave his Project HERO apartment after a maximum of two years.

About the building:

• Key card access 24 hours a day to track who is coming and going.
• Security cameras in hallways and common areas.
• No loitering outside the building. A courtyard not visible from the street is available for tenants. The building also has a community room and free use of laundry facilities.
• Apartments come with kitchens. There are no communal meals.
• A St. Patrick Center employee lives in the building.
• Frequent and random visits by a case manager, which includes a check for alcohol and drugs and proper upkeep of apartments.

I personally welcome this as a means of providing housing to those in need who are trying to rebuild their lives. I do agree it should have been handled more openly. The risk, of course, is that if it had been more open it might have gotten squashed.

I’m glad to see the building being occupied. The tiny apartments were not leasing too well so these men may be the perfect tenants. These units can be a good first step to getting these men back on their feet and part of society.

The important thing is not not stigmatize the building or corner. To a degree these is no different than when a black family would move to a formerly all white street. People jumped up and down and talked about a drop in property values. The drop in values came as a result of the panicked selling cheap so they could flee mixing with someone outside their comfort zone.

I’m going to take a wait and see approach. I already like seeing ligts on in the building at night and increased foot traffic in the area. To me this will be 45 more working residents adding to the mix downtown. It will be more users of transit. The potential positives outweigh the potential negatives. So guys, I’m glad to have you as a neighbor! Welcome to downtown.

A Partisan Primary For Just 341 Voters

In Tuesdays primary 32,196 out of 222,145 registered voters cast ballots.  That is only 14.49%.

The break out among the parties tells the reason why we should just dispense with partisan politics and just go non-partisan.  98.9% (31,855) took Democratic ballots.  The remaining 341 ballots (0.0105913%) were split among Greens, Libertarians and Republicans.  Of those only the Greens had a contested primary!

A mere 168 people voted in the Green primary for Mayor.  51 for Don De Vivo and 117 for Elston McCowan.  These 168 voters represent 0.005218% of those that voted Tuesday and 0.0007562% of registered voters.  Is partisanship at the municipal level worth the extra time and money for a primary and general so that a minor party can hold a primary?

Denise Watson-Wesley Coleman received the fewest votes in the Democratic primary for Mayor but she managed to get 2,047 votes. That is nearly 20 times as many as McCowan.

As a city we have no business wasting money on holding a primary and general election every two years.  If necessary I’ll start a signature campaign to get a charter revision on an upcoming ballot (8/2010?) to change our system to non-partisan.  But I’d prefer one of the members of the Board of Aldermen to introduce legislation to get this on the ballot so the voters can decide.  This change is simple, doesn’t eliminate the number of elected offices and would save taxpayer’s money.

The challenges of a McCowan facing a Slay are apparent with our partisan system.  Going non-partisan will not make challenging a well funded incumbent any easier or more difficult.  I believe going non-partisan will increase the number of candidates in most wards.  Wards with contested races the participation of voters was much higher than in wards without contested races.  Non-contested odd-numbered wards had turnout as follows: 5th (9.1%), 7th (10.8%), 9th (11.8%), 11th (13.8%), 13th (15.8%), 15th (12.8%), 17th (%), 27th (10.0%).  Contested wards were: 1st (15.2%), 3rd (15.8%), 21st (18.1%) 23rd (26.4%), 25th (16.5%).

Challengers to the Democratic nominee face an uphill battle from the start.  First, most voters only vote for the Democrat.  Two, everyone assumes the winner of the March Democratic primary is the winner before the April general election. So the reality is we have one election in March.  We already have one election, we just call it a primary.

Besides going non-partisan, we need a system for instant-runoff voting (IRV).  In this type of system you rank candidates rather than just pick one.  From Wikipedia:

If no candidate is the first preference of a majority of voters, the candidate with the fewest number of first preference rankings is eliminated and that candidate’s ballots are redistributed at full value to the remaining candidates according to the next ranking on each ballot. This process is repeated until one candidate obtains a majority of votes among candidates not eliminated. The term “instant runoff” is used because the method is said to simulate a series of runoff elections tallied in rounds, as in an exhaustive ballot election.

When you have only two candidates it doesn’t matter because you know one will get at least 50% + 1.  But when you have four (25th) or seven (23rd) candidates it can make a difference in the final outcome.

Look for a change to non-partisan races with IRV coming to a ballot near you in 2010.

Few Surprises in St. Louis Primary

As expected, many incumbent Democrats became their party’s nominee for the April general election.  Few were opposed.

In two wards, the 23rd & 25th, the incumbent did not seek re-election so we were guaranteed to see new faces in the Board of Aldermen.  In the 23rd Joe Vaccaro bested six other candidates to win the primary.  In the 25th Shane Cohn defeated three other candidates.  In both of these wards there are no candidates from any other political parties so they will be the new Aldermen for their wards.

Cohn becomes St. Louis’ first openly gay elected official.  I had hoped that would have been me four years ago.  Cohn is bright and energetic and he should set a good example for others.

In the 1st Ward Incumbent Charles Troup defeated Sharon Tyus with 54% of the vote.

Blogger Antonio French will be changing titles from Committeeman to Alderman as he has defeated incumbent Bennice King in the 21st ward.  King was the only incumbent defeated in the primary.

Francis Slay, as expected, won the Democratic primary for Mayor.  He now faces three opponents in the April general election.

For all the results click here (PDF of results).

Updated at 1pm on 3/4/09 — headline revised from ‘No Surprises in St. Louis Primary’ to ‘Few Surprises in St. Louis Primary’

I Guess I’ll Vote Today

Four years ago today I was a candidate for Alderman in the 25th ward.  I spent the day at Cleveland High School where two of the four precincts voted.  I lost that election but gained a better understanding of local politics and what needs to change.

In 2007 I moved to downtown and now reside in the 6th ward.  This year is the odd-numbered wards up for election.  That leaves, for me and others in even-numbered wards, two races to vote on: Comptroller and Mayor.

Comptroller Darlene Green is unopposed in both today’s Democratic primary and the general election on April 4th.  If she gets a single vote she’ll be reelected.  I suppose a write-in could get some votes but basically this race isn’t a race at all. I’m not going to vote in this race.  Green doesn’t need my vote.

The Democratic ballot for Mayor includes three candidates: incumbent Mayor Francis Slay, Irene J. Smith and the woman with too many names, Denise Watson-Wesley Coleman. Slay will win, no doubt.  Slay has had very good timing.  The availability of state historic tax credits helped fuel the rebirth of downtown during Slay’s first two terms. Slay and his cronies do want St. Louis to be like Chicago.  Not the vibrant urban Chicago — the corrupt backroom Chicago.  I cannot vote for Slay.  I can vote against Slay.

Denise Watson-Wesley Coleman is an unknown and remains so on election day. No dice.

Smith is a very smart woman with a lot of passion and some good ideas.  However, she’ll never get past the 2001 “incident.”  But I will go vote today and it will be for Smith.

Remember that today’s primary is just that first step leading up to the general election.  Until we go non-partisan, we have this charade of primary and general. What a waste of time and money. I saw Maida Coleman, the independent candidate for Mayor, last night at The Royale.  She is gearing up for her race against Slay.  That race will include the winner of today’s Green primary, a Libertarian and a Republican.

Hopefully the 2013 Mayoral race will be more competative.