As candidates start queuing up for next year's city council race—from food activist Tammy Morales in Southeast Seattle to Democratic party activist Michael Maddux in the UW/Sand Point district to Planned Parent organizer Halei Watkins in North Seattle to a whole pile up of community folks in West Seattle—the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce is evidently getting anxious about the lack of self-ID'd business candidates. And equally wary that a pro-business agenda is getting lost in the mix of district issues.

In an email to chamber members late last week Chamber Senior VP George Allen wrote: "With various communities within the districts already mobilizing, it’s critical for economic vitality to be part of the dialogue now."

The chamber has suffered some big defeats recently. While chamber leader Maud Daudon was on Mayor Ed Murray's $15 minimum wage task force (and frankly was key to hammering out the final deal), she didn't officially sign off on the deal because her membership wasn't fully on board. Additionally, the chamber felt burned by the city's earlier paid sick leave law and ended up lobbying against the local law in Olympia in concert with Republican state legislators who were trying to repeal it. 

Allen's email outlines a series of district-level meetings for community business leaders to get together to organize around a business agenda for the upcoming elections. He explains that local business owners need to "identify the opportunities and challenges the North Seattle business community faces and begin building a proactive policy agenda that can be shared with local elected officials and candidates."

I have a call in to Allen.  UPDATE: Allen told me the purpose of the meetings was for small, local businesses to get together and have "a bottom up discussion to find out what local businesses care about."

Allen says the district system has created "a new opportunity to be heard." Asked if the meetings could also suss out a candidate from among their own ranks, Allen said simply the purpose was "to convene businesses and hear their issues." He concluded: "We're going to learn a lot." 

Asked what he thought the issues were, he identified: affordable housing, public safety, transportation, and edcuation.

The chamber's political committe Civic Alliance for a Sound Economy contributed $138,300 in the 2013 municipal elections, most of it going to then-candidate Ed Murray. 

Here's Allen's email in full, letting his members know specifically about the Chamber's first district meeting, a breakfast roundtable at the Hotel Nexus on N. Northgate Way in North Seattle's 5th council district on November 19.  

Colleagues,

The Seattle Metro Chamber is partnering with neighborhood groups and local business associations throughout the city to convene small breakfast roundtables for business leaders in each new Seattle City Council district.  Our first breakfast will be in district 5 (North Seattle) on November 19. We are planning three other district breakfasts this year and will share information about them once we have confirmed the details.

We could really use your help recruiting business leaders for this inaugural breakfast. The goal is to fill the room with civically/politically engaged small business owners and operators who know the issues on the street and can lend their voice to a productive conversation.

Attached (and below) you’ll find suggested invitation language to share with your select contacts in District 5. Here is an interactive map of the Seattle City Council district boundaries you can reference while thinking on good participants for this conversation. This a private breakfast with very limited seating so please do not share this invitation widely; there will be additional events in the coming months so no one will be left out.

At this meeting we will identify the opportunities and challenges the North Seattle business community faces and begin building a proactive policy agenda that can be shared with local elected officials and candidates. With various communities within the districts already mobilizing, it’s critical for economic vitality to be part of the dialogue now.

 Thank you for your help. If you have any questions, please let me know.

And here's the attached "invitation language to share with your select contacts" :

Now that Seattle will elect Councilmembers by districts, the door is open for business leaders in North Seattle to really be noticed in City Hall. But not if we don’t work together.

The North Seattle and Seattle Metropolitan chambers of commerce invite you to join a small breakfast roundtable with your peers at the Hotel Nexus on Wednesday, November 19 from 7:30—9:00 a.m.

The purpose of this meeting is to identify the opportunities and challenges the North Seattle business community faces. It’s important to start mapping out your issues and begin building a proactive policy agenda that can be shared with local elected officials and candidates.

This is a tremendous opportunity for the North Seattle business community and stakeholders to pull together around a common agenda and speak with a strong, united voice of North Seattle constituents in the new district system.

 With various communities within the districts already mobilizing, it’s critical for North Seattle’s economic vitality to be part of the dialogue now.

ACLU attorney Alison Holcomb grabbed the small business mike for a moment when she was getting ready to run against socialist City Council member Kshama Sawant in the central Seattle (where no one else is running yet), but she decided at the last minute not to run when the ACLU gave her a prominent national gig running a campaign against mass incarceration of low-level offenders.

UPDATE: The Puget Sound Business Journal has the news today that Mian Rice, son of former Mayor Norm Rice, is running in North Seattle's 5th District. Rice currently works at the Port of Seattle as small business and policy manager. He has a degree in transportation planning from the the University of Washington.