Small Business Factors in Seattle City Council Elections: Status to Date

• There are 45 candidates running for the Seattle City Council. The first point is that we have a small number of candidates from the business field.
• The Forward Party welcomes Nirvana’s Chris Novoselic to its board. Also, Chris Vance is leaving the emerging third party.
• The city of Seattle is considering new rules for delivery app companies.

This post originally appeared in KUOW’s Today So Far newsletter on May 25, 2023.

There are officially 45 candidates running for the Seattle City Council in the upcoming election. It’s a lot. But as KUOW’s David Hyde points out, “many” can be relative. There were 55 candidates running in 2019, but this was the last time Seattle had seven seats on the ballot.

Seattle voters approved the city’s democracy voucher program in 2015. This was used for the first time in his 2017. It’s a way of publicly funding elections with the goal of encouraging candidates who don’t normally get large donations (this year he’s $5.25) Democracy Coupons available is 1 million Sheet). After that, more candidates began to appear. The number of candidates seems to be down, at least this year. The deadline for submitting candidates was last Friday.

Hyde says one potential reason for this year’s drop in candidate numbers is the “increasing toxic atmosphere in Seattle politics.” There are no incumbents in four of the seven seats open. City Council Speaker Deborah Juarez told The Seattle Times, “I’m not seen as a human being by some people and it’s not safe for me or my family,” and is not running for re-election.

Still, some might think Seattle’s democratic coupon is having an effect. At the very least, the majority of candidates endorse them, and so far, 36 candidates (out of a total of 45) are on the list to participate in the Democracy Voucher Program.

While chatting about Bill Radke’s “Week in Review” last Friday, I made an observation, albeit fairly early for such a statement. But it has only become clearer since then. Quite a few candidates have emerged from corners of Seattle’s business community, including two cannabis entrepreneurs in District 3 alone.

• Stephen Brown is running for District 1. He owns Eltana Bagels and says, “His career has been spent building and running companies.”

• Tanya Woo is running for District 2 and is a well-known name in the CID business community.

• Joy Hollingsworth is campaigning in District 3. She works at Hollingsworth Farms, her family’s cannabis business.
• District 3’s Alex Cooley founded the cannabis company Solstice.
• District 4’s Ken Wilson is a small business owner and engineer.

• Pete Hanning of the 6th District is the former owner of Fremont’s Red Door and currently serves as Executive Director of the Fremont Chamber of Commerce. He has also worked with the Seattle Restaurant Alliance, the Washington Restaurant/Hospitality Association, and the Seattle He Nightlife & Music Association.

• District 6 John Lisbin founded and sold an advertising agency in Seattle. He also served on the board of the Seattle He Entrepreneur Network.
• Victoria Palmer of District 6 is an individual organizer.
• Olga Sagan of District 7 is the owner of Piroshki Piroshki Restaurant in Seattle.

Then there are the candidates I call “business adjacencies.” They’re in the business, they’ve run businesses before, they’re consultants. For example, people like Shea Wilson (District 7), an attorney who helps businesses form and buy and sell businesses. ChrisTiana Obeysumner (District 5) is a consultant for Epiphanies of Equity LLC. Maren Costa (District 1) is a startup advisor and has held leadership roles at several of the region’s leading technology companies (Microsoft, Adobe, Amazon). And Phil Tavel (District 1), who previously ran a business in Pioneer Square, describes himself as an entrepreneur, but he’s a lawyer by profession.

This adds up to 13 candidates, about 29% of the candidates.

Have you heard much about the Forward Party in other political news? This new third-party effort has lost its original local leader, but has also added some of Seattle’s music royalties to its ranks.

You may remember Andrew Yang as the Democratic nominee for the 2020 presidential primary. Since then, he’s launched a campaign to create a third party, mostly populated by people who don’t like the sensationalism, extremism, and general Sharks vs. Jets mentality of the two parties. His third option, suggested by him and various other organizers, is Forward Party.

They have been setting up state-level chapters in recent months. Washington has its own. Yang was in town for a Forward event this month. Scroll through the party’s recent social media posts to see a variety of locally signed volunteers and leaders.

One name familiar to Washington residents is Chris Vance, former King County Rep. and state legislator, and former state Republican Party chairman. He left the Republican Party and has since run unsuccessfully as an independent. Vance has been pushing for a more moderate third party in recent years.

Mr. Vance said he had signed on as Washington state leader of the Forward Party, but recently announced that he “sadly just quit the Forward Party and is politically homeless again.”

In a tweet, Mr Vance said he had hoped for a 2023 Forward Party Congress to enact a new party platform, but that has not happened. Not having a rigid program has been a sticking point of the Forward Party since its inception. Vance doesn’t think it will work.

Around the time Vance left, Yang recruited Nirvana band member Chris Novoselic to the Forward Party.

“The only way to do something is to be really proactive,” Novoselic said in a statement to Forward Party members.

In an email to supporters, Mr. Novoselic said Mr. Novoselic was the former leader of the Democratic Party in the county and had a history of political activism in Washington. He now joins the National Board of the Forward Party.

“I have been in touch with Christ for many months, but the first time I met him was in Seattle last month … He attended a speech with me at the Washington Progressive Party and met with local activists and activists. After meeting them, they agreed to participate in our activities.Volunteers in the province,” Yang wrote.

Novoselic joined the board to “accelerate our strategic efforts and strengthen American democracy,” the Forward Party said.

The current Seattle city council is set to consider legislation this week that could change the way delivery companies fire their own employees.

The basic idea here is that companies like DoorDash, Uber Eats, etc. can “deactivate” drivers for a variety of reasons. It is very difficult to understand the reasons for them or to get a clear answer about them. This is the problem Trini Hernandez encountered when DoorDash deactivated her account. She had to work through a translator to find out why. In the end, all she got was pages and pages of the company’s legal language on deactivation. She believes DoorDash hurt her for not taking orders that were too far from her location. There wasn’t much she could do about it.

The measures, taken in front of city council members, aim to remedy this situation. Network companies (aka delivery app companies) must notify you before disabling drivers. You should also develop clear guidelines for this policy, create ways to appeal decisions, and actually explain, with evidence, why individuals were disabled.

The full story is posted on KUOW’s Ruby de Luna here.

New partnerships will encourage more students to pursue higher education. The goal of this new partnership, called the Renton Program, is to create new avenues to higher education for students who otherwise would not be able to attend. This covers a maximum of two years until the student’s first associate degree. Graduates from all four of her high schools in Renton are eligible regardless of grade point average, income or ability. A new state budget provides her $400,000 for free college programs. (Renton School)

did you know?

A lot of space is packed on May 25th. First, the first “Star Wars” movie was released in theaters on May 25, 1977. This kicked off a series of space operas from some very famous movies (and some that we don’t even know about). don’t talk about it).

But it happened in a galaxy far, far away. Here on Earth, President John F. Kennedy led the United States on his May 25, 1961 road to the stars. Kennedy addressed a joint session of Congress and announced his national goal of a trip to the moon. The speech wasn’t all that sensational, except for the proposal to go to the moon. JFK also demanded billions of dollars from the American people over the next decade, a sensational sum, especially by 1960s standards. Despite this being the big debut of America’s intentions for space travel, it’s not the moment that most people will remember.

The following year, JFK addressed a crowd at Rice University in Houston, Texas. That speech was much more poetic and is still often quoted. Thereupon he said, “There is no strife, no prejudice, no national strife in space yet. Its dangers are hostile to all of us. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and the opportunity for peace cooperation is not.” We may never visit again.” But why the moon? Why did we choose this as our goal? Why did you fly across the Atlantic 35 years ago?….We choose to go to the Moon Doing anything else in this decade is not because it’s easy, it’s because it’s hard . “

Eight years later, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon.

even in our hearts

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Trump’s Biggest Rival, Submits Papers to Run for President

Ironically, the ultra-conservative and cultural warrior Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who saw his political career take off by defending and channeling former President Donald Trump, said: It seems determined to challenge him for the Republican presidential nomination.

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