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Campaign Fizz: "Nobody Has Ever Chaired My Committee In My Absence."
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• At a candidate forum last night in Haller Lake, Bobby Forch, who's running against two-term incumbent Jean Godden, claimed that Godden had missed "20 percent of the meetings [of the committee] that she chairs," the council's budget committee. Godden shot back that Forch didn't have his facts straight: "Nobody has ever chaired my committee in my absence," she said. "Every committee meeting that I have ever scheduled, I have chaired."
We checked the records, and Godden's right: Since she was appointed budget chair in 2008, Godden has never missed a single meeting of the budget committee. Forch's error, which seems to be based on an inaccurate report by an intern at the Stranger, may stem from the fact that Godden---like all council members---cancels committee meetings when she isn't able to attend or when the committee has no business to attend to (the city council crafts its budgets starting in late summer, and adopts the next year's budget in November).
• PubliCola heard a wild rumor that Godden was thinking of hiring hot-shot consultant Christian Sinderman, who ran Godden opponent Maurice Classen's campaign and has a candidate in every other council race. (Classen lost in the primary). Sinderman calls the rumor "hilarious," and says it's not true. "No one has talked to me about working for her." But what a rumor!
• Classen, whose campaign was largely self-financed, just put another $6,000 into his now-defunct campaign coffers, bringing his total contribution to his own campaign to $38,800 (out of $119,000).
• Winpower Strategies, a consulting firm run by John Wyble, ran the numbers on the August 16 tunnel vote by city precinct. Their major findings, which you can view in detail here: While Capitol Hill, predictably, voted strongly against the tunnel referendum, many of the more "working-class areas" voted against it too, prompting Wyble to speculate that they are "concerned about the tax implications" of such a huge infrastructure project.
And although the pro-tunnel parts of town were, for the most part, equally predictable (wealthy areas went for the project), Wyble was surprised that the Montlake area had such a strong pro-tunnel turnout, as the area is "not usually where we see the strongest precincts for a referendum or tax measure."
• The Washington Secretary of State's office has posted the pro and con statements for all this November's ballot initiatives, including Tim Eyman's toll-killing I-1125, the SEIU's health-care worker training I-1163, and Costco's liquor-privatizing I-1183, along with two resolutions---one clarifying voter residency requirements and the other requiring the state to set aside extra revenues in its rainy day fund during periods of "extraordinary" growth.
• At a candidate forum last night in Haller Lake, Bobby Forch, who's running against two-term incumbent Jean Godden, claimed that Godden had missed "20 percent of the meetings [of the committee] that she chairs," the council's budget committee. Godden shot back that Forch didn't have his facts straight: "Nobody has ever chaired my committee in my absence," she said. "Every committee meeting that I have ever scheduled, I have chaired."
We checked the records, and Godden's right: Since she was appointed budget chair in 2008, Godden has never missed a single meeting of the budget committee. Forch's error, which seems to be based on an inaccurate report by an intern at the Stranger, may stem from the fact that Godden---like all council members---cancels committee meetings when she isn't able to attend or when the committee has no business to attend to (the city council crafts its budgets starting in late summer, and adopts the next year's budget in November).
• PubliCola heard a wild rumor that Godden was thinking of hiring hot-shot consultant Christian Sinderman, who ran Godden opponent Maurice Classen's campaign and has a candidate in every other council race. (Classen lost in the primary). Sinderman calls the rumor "hilarious," and says it's not true. "No one has talked to me about working for her." But what a rumor!
• Classen, whose campaign was largely self-financed, just put another $6,000 into his now-defunct campaign coffers, bringing his total contribution to his own campaign to $38,800 (out of $119,000).
• Winpower Strategies, a consulting firm run by John Wyble, ran the numbers on the August 16 tunnel vote by city precinct. Their major findings, which you can view in detail here: While Capitol Hill, predictably, voted strongly against the tunnel referendum, many of the more "working-class areas" voted against it too, prompting Wyble to speculate that they are "concerned about the tax implications" of such a huge infrastructure project.
And although the pro-tunnel parts of town were, for the most part, equally predictable (wealthy areas went for the project), Wyble was surprised that the Montlake area had such a strong pro-tunnel turnout, as the area is "not usually where we see the strongest precincts for a referendum or tax measure."
• The Washington Secretary of State's office has posted the pro and con statements for all this November's ballot initiatives, including Tim Eyman's toll-killing I-1125, the SEIU's health-care worker training I-1163, and Costco's liquor-privatizing I-1183, along with two resolutions---one clarifying voter residency requirements and the other requiring the state to set aside extra revenues in its rainy day fund during periods of "extraordinary" growth.
