The new Lake Forest Park City Council
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
By Evan Smith
When the Lake Forest Park City Council convenes in January, three of the seven members will be new. Here are the seven people who will make up the new council:
Catherine Stanford—The longest serving member of the council; first elected in 2007 after an unsuccessful campaign in 2005; re-elected in 2011 against an opponent backed by the LFP-Gov-Watch organization;
John Wright—First elected in 2009; re-elected in 2013 with the endorsement of LFP-Gov-Watch and with no opposition;
Tom French—Elected in 2011 with the endorsement of LFP-Gov-Watch after unsuccessful campaigns in 2005 and 2009;
Jeff Johnson—Elected in 2011 with the endorsement of LFP-Gov-Watch;
Mark Phillips—Newly elected in 2013;
John Resha— Newly elected in 2013 against an LFP-Gov-Watch-backed opponent
Hilda Thompson—Newly elected in 2013 against an LFP-Gov-Watch-backed opponent whom she vastly outspent; daughter of longtime Councilman Dwight Thompson, the losing 2011 candidate for mayor.
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4 comments:
Wow, Evan Smith...it appears you've thrown in the towel on maintaining your facade of journalistic neutrality. Do you really believe GovWatch has had such an outsized effect on LFP politics that you need to describe the election returns in terms of endorsement by that little group?
And of course an outsider reading your little screed here might wonder what personal hard feelings you have toward candidate Thompson and note it seems inappropriate for a news report. Are you going to bother to discuss LFP with anyone other than GovWatch members?
Blech.
Looks to me that Mr. Smith is spot on in his reporting on candidate Thompson and providing some factual detail identifying how LFP-Gov-Watch has been a part of LFP city council governance. You identify the group as little. Maybe??? BUT, they are representative of the community as a whole and achieving big results.
I submit that GovWatch is NOT representative of the whole as it pertains to a vote of the people according to the most recent election. But perhaps you have a more pragmatic method of determining what the community as a whole supports...the views of your friends gathered for coffee? Or the general opinion of those gathered at a GovWatch meeting? Nyuk.
GOVWatch is definitely more representative of Lake Forest Park than any other political organization. The 46th Legislative District Democrats or Republicans are really the only other political organizations with LFP membership (other than organizations like the League of Women Voters, Cascade Bicycle Club or labor unions who have members from all over Seattle). The problem with these two organizations is that they also represent large swaths of northern King County, not just LPF and few of the members of each Legislative District organization are from LFP residents. GovWatch has better representation because it is made up of LFP residents from both of these organizations AND Independents. ...all solely focused on just LFP governance issues. So, no organization is going to be representative of the whole community. But, at least GovWatch is representative of the majority because it's membership is made up of representative democrats, republicans and independents who care about LFP, LFP citizens and are not beholden to the larger political organizations.
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