By Evan Smith
When I wrote recently about local candidates’ reaction to Seattle’s decision to start electing city council members by district, I misquoted two Lake Forest Park council candidates.
Mark Phillips, who recently won a council election, opposes making such a change for his city.
Jason Colberg, who lost an election for another LFP Council position, supports such a change.
Here are statements that the two candidates sent me in late November:
Mark Phillips—
“If I lived in Seattle, I would have voted for district elections, and I think other cities should be allowed to structure council elections that way. In Seattle it reduces the number of most council members’ direct constituents to under 100,000.
“However, I don’t think it’s a good idea for Lake Forest Park and many other small cities. LFP’s population (under 14,000) allows council candidates, and elected council members, a high degree of interaction with many residents across the entire city, without district divisions.”
Jason Colberg--
“Having city council candidates elected by district seems to make sense.
“Lake Forest Park is relatively small. This makes it easier for residents to get to know the candidates of each race than larger cities.
“Even so, I would expect that often times voting residents don't know the candidates they are selecting and are selecting based on factors such as party (even though the race is billed as non-partisan). If the residents do know the candidates and their positions, maybe because having voters within a district select a candidate for that district because they have been able to knock on their door and have a conversation, this could take a lot of money and partisanship out of the race.
“Also, even though Lake Forest Park is small, neighborhoods and portions of the city still have their pet projects/issues that are really only affecting them (i.e. occasional flooding of Sheridan Beach, Cedarbrook being considered for redevelopment, the Southern Gateway, mountain beavers near Grace Cole Park, the McKinnon Creek trail). It would be good to have representatives from these areas/(districts) more personally engaged in the outcomes of a decision and knowledgeable of the specifics of any debate.
“My vote would be for districting Lake Forest Park.”
It crossed my mind this morning that not only should we look at splitting Lake Forest Park in to districts, but we should also stop lying to ourselves and calling city council races non-partisan. Not being a politician, I was unaware that it is business-as-usual for Slate-Democrat candidates to use the endorsement process to make non-partisan races partisan. This is done because it provides an advantage in our area (just as is probably the same for Republicans in Republican strongholds). So the question to be asked is, "Why are we kidding ourselves?"
ReplyDeleteTo address this issue and at least attempt to further take the politics out of local governance (which I believe would be healthier for our society), not only would it be good to split the city in to districts (for the reasons detailed above), but it would also be good to consider having at least one candidate from each "party" be able to represent the constituents from each of these districts.
Ideally, it would be good to keep the odd number and current make-up of the city council. But, to make this even out what might work is splitting LFP in to three or four districts, having two different party reps from each district and allowing the mayor to serve as the tie-breaker if there are ever split votes. I'd guess the Democratic Party in LFP wouldn't like this here/now because they are in the driver's seat. It would be the same on the Republican side if the table were turned. There probably is no ideal time to do this Doing it would be just a matter of getting past the politics (which is the point) and identifying it as a healthier way to run our government.
At any rate, it is an idea, in my opinion, worth considering and discussing. This probably has been considered in the past. If anyone has any particular insights as to why this would, or wouldn't be a good idea worth implementing, I'd love to hear what you have to share. Thanks!
~ Jason Colberg
2013 Lake Forest Park City Council candidate
LFP resident & parent