Recent Stories with tag ballot

Mayor McGinn

Yesterday, Mayor McGinn sent the City Council his proposal for a $243-million seawall bond measure on a special May ballot. Said McGinn:

We have a responsibility to address basic public safety risks. I have directed SDOT to accelerate replacement of the seawall. I look forward to working with the Council on the financing for this critical work.

To up the ante, the Mayor's office also noted that the accelerated schedule would create a "funding gap of nearly $20 million in 2011 for the Seawall Replacement Project." If work on the seawall is to accelerate in an uninterrupted fashion, the money would need to be scrounged up this year.

Said the Council: "How's never? Will never work for you?"

Richard Conlin

Publicola quotes Council president Richard Conlin as saying:

When you come up with these big projects, you can’t just say one day, "Hey, we’re going to do this," then the next day say, "No, wait, now we’re going to do something else." Our voters have been very willing to vote for things in the past, but we think that’s been the case because we’ve prepared the groundwork first.

I'm sympathetic to Conlin's position, but it should in no way be confused with reality. Should that be case, we might well imagine Conlin having giving his quote from the voter-approved Monorail, perhaps looking out over an expanse where two voter-unapproved stadiums do not sit.

In any event, the earliest the Council could get around to getting something on the ballot is likely November, adds Conlin.

Now I need to leave off writing this post to read Jordan Royer's Crosscut article, "City Council: Does process still outrank product?"

Initiatives are not just for Tim Eyman any more. A group called Sensible Washington has filed a ballot initiative that would "legalize all adult marijuana possession, manufacturing and sales under Washington state law," reports the AP.

Why the initiative, you might ask? Down in Olympia, there is already legislative talk of decriminalizing marijuana, and one state representative, Mary Lou Dickerson, is willing to bring up legalization. Here in Seattle, you can read pro-pot columns in the Seattle Times: "So why not let people have what they want, but then regulate it--heavily, if need be--and tax it to boot?"

For Sensible Washington ("hey we're on Facebook"), taking legalization of marijuana to the people of Washington is a question of timing and priorities. The committee includes two Seattle attorneys, Douglas Hiatt and Jeffrey Steinborn; Vivian McPeak, a co-founder of Seattle Hempfest and peace activist; Ric Smith, a longtime medical marijuana patient; and Philip Dawdy, initiative co-author and an influential independent reporter on mental health issues.

I spoke to Dawdy about the strategy. While he was happy to see the Legislature having the discussion, he said, the reality is "the legalization bill isn't going to get out of committee. It's dead. The decriminalization bill might get out of committee in the House, but it won't get a floor vote. This is a short session, and their attention will be focused on the budget."

For Dawdy, the initiative represents a chance for the people of the state to give the Legislature permission to do the right thing. Broad legalization for adult possession and use is inspired in part by his sense that "the medical marijuana law is clearly not working," and again and again people are ending up in court to justify possession.

The AP story quotes Mason County prosecutor Gary Burleson, who says, "I don't have a problem with marijuana being legal, and I don't have a problem with it being illegal. But right now, I have a big problem understanding what's legal and what's not."... (more)

Yes, it's two days in a row for Slightlynorth, but voting is timely. Don't forget to act irrationally from an economist's perspective and vote. (From the SunBreak Flickr pool.)