I just got through reading a host of candidate ratings, questionnaires, blogs and endorsements from various group's around town.  It's enough to make George Orwell (and me) laugh and cry. 

You've got groups who make up "FUSE" a self proclaimed "progressive" coalition endorsing corporate candidates like Sally Bagshaw and Jesse Israel. Both candidates, especially Bagshaw are bankrolled by downtown, Paul Allen and real estate interests. Given who they've ignored, FUSE has only demonstrated with their listing just how out of touch they are with the Seattle political scene.

Then you've got the Cascade Bicycle Club (CBC) endorsing Greg Nickels, Israel and Bagshaw simply because they blindly support Paul Allen's agenda including the Mayor's Mercer Corridor Plan. Maybe one one-hundredth of the $200 million Mercer plan will go toward bike and pedestrian improvements, the rest to pour concrete for cars and make congestion worse in that area especially for bikes.

With those dollars we could add bike lanes to every city arterial with enough left to paint the lanes in gold leaf. Yet, mysteriously, to these folks, it's a litmus test.  

Mainstream environmental groups like the Washington Conservation Voters and the Sierra Club are opposing candidates (or not endorsing them, i,e, such as David Bloom) simply because they don't tow the line for a pro-density-at-all-costs agenda. 

The limousine enviro's support candidates like Michael O'Brien who oppose use of developer fees that would require developers to share in the costs of growth or replace housing they remove.  O'Brien told the 43rd Dem's such fee requirements would impair developer's ability to build in Seattle.  Of course, we've heard this position articulated by the Master Builders for years now suddenly (and depressingly) embraced by folks like O'Brien who paint the old nostrum in a green patina.

By the way, incumbent Nick Licata (who'se supported a green agenda for years), and Miller (who just helped save a large old grove of trees from the chainsaw) and candidate Bloom (no slouch on enviro issues himself), do support use of developer impact fees. Miller says it must be complimented with a permitting process that is more streamlined.  Rusty Williams also supports impact fees as does Bobby Forch. Rosencranz and Royer (the younger) predictably oppose them while other candidates are not on record on the issue yet.

Publicola recently tossed out the word "marxist" to suggest how "progressive" O'Brien was on issues. Perhaps they meant Groucho not Karl. Other than his opposition to the tunnel option for viaduct relacement, I haven't heard anything from O'Brien that would suggest he's at all progressive. In this town, he's a corporate liberal and mainstream as they come. He'd fit right in with our current get-along- and go-along council.

And the same can be said of Mike McGinn in the mayor's race, and council candidates Bagshaw and Israel.  I also see nothing in these folks to suggest they give one iota about the question of economic and racial justice and how that fits into the public policy debate.  In fact, as far as I can tell, there's been very little discussion at all around this fundamental question.

What would the candidates do to overcome poverty, homelessness and lack of low cost housing in our city.

Candidates like Bloom and Licata do get real specific on how to address poverty and inequality when the issue comes up.  They've called for (and made a career out of advocating for) more police accountability, repealing the Sidran laws, requiring one-for-one replacement, redirecting more the city budget from downtown to our neighborhoods, supporting tent city, and liveable wage jobs, the party line from candidates like Bagshaw, Israel, Rosencranz, Royer, et al....is "I support the housing levy."  Well thank goodness for that but who doesn't in this town?

Of course Bloom, Miller and Licata do, too. Each went a step further calling for the vast bulk of levy funds to reach down to continue to serve the poorest of the poor rather than folks with $65,000 incomes at 80 percent of area median as are current mayor would have preferred.  Royer, Bagshaw, Israel, Rosencranz and O'Brien also are more inclined to prefer giving away incentives (meaning our tax dollars) to promote still more market rate or near market development espousing "trickle down" nostrums that would make Ronald Reagan (and my old Econ 101 Prof) very proud indeed.

And we've seen mudslinging but now it's the so-called "greens" carrying the freight for big business.  Candidates who support tree protections in our city and managed and responsible levels of growth, stream preservation, and housing replacement requirements are automatically typecast as NIMBY's. 

These pseudo-greens also are attempting to cast the debate in subtle and not so subtle ways as an intergenerational thing - you're not hip if you call for limits on runaway growth in our city and ask developers to pay their share of the infrastructure costs. (Israel goes further accusing Licata of being obstructionist or a naysayer because right now he's the only councilmember who regularly stands up to the pro-developer crowd). 

Or you are called myopic. That's what mayoral candidate McGinn called Knute Berger when, in a recent column, Berger said that a green agenda must include measures to preserve our historic character and older buildings. Painting the issue as an either/or debate, McGinn like his supporters at The Stranger and Publicola believe that density must be maxed out in Seattle in order to prevent sprawl.

Record levels of growth in Seattle certainly have not contained sprawl. The argument just provides more cover for developers. 

When the Displacement Coalition joined forces with Southend neighborhoods to turn back state legislation that would have mandated 50 unit per acre mandates around rail stations (in areas at three to five units per acre now where literally several thousand low income families are people of color now live), McGinn chided the coalition and they were ill-informed about the value of "compact development". 

This wasn't about compact development already being planned for that area with neighborhood support.  It was about a bill mandating too much growth destroying low cost housing and displacing hundreds of longtime residents (and trees and open space).

There is such a thing as a poly-centerered approach to growth that more evenly clusters or distributes growth around the region and provides adequate funding for buses serving those areas. That's an alternative to sprawl or cramming all growth in Seattle.  That's the green way to get people out of their cars. But its not even recognized by the pro-growth enviro wing.  And these are the folks that call the neighborhood movement "doctrinaire"

In the mayor's race, I'm disappointed that Joe Mallahan supports replacing the viaduct with a tunnel unlike McGinn, the only mayoral candidate to oppose it. McGinn in this instance sides with grassroots groups and the general public.

Even though I co-chaired the No Tunnel Alliance, and agree with that position, Mallahan is closer to the neighborhoods and grassroots on all the other key issues affecting this city and especially around the debate over density and it's equity and justice implications. 

Mallahan has said city residents should not absorb tunnel cost overruns and that it must keep freight moving.  Ramps should be added to better serve Ballard and West Seattle residents.

He's also the only candidate to raise concerns about Paul Allen's plans in South Lake Union.  He's said he would oppose draining away bus service dollars for street car expansion, and opposed Nickel's Mercer corridor plans. In meeting with citizen activists, he has said he'd re-open a door long ago slammed shut by Nickels (and that would stay shut if Drago won). Mallahan also said he would expand funding for the neighborhood matching program. He's clearly the only real choice in that contest.

Most importantly in the city council races, look for candidates in the races with a nuanced approach to density and growth, such as incumbent Nick Licata, and candidates David Miller and David Bloom, who don't just blindly support development like we've seen too much of in Seattle. (If Bobby Forch or Rusty Williams make it past the primary rather than Miller in that race, they too could carry this ball).

These are the true greens and true progressives in this race who believe in balancing growth with the need to preserve the qualities in our community that make this city liveable and affordable.