Evan Smith on Politics: Diverse views on electing council members by district

By Evan Smith

Seattle voters have decided to start electing most of their city council members by district, but two Shoreline council members and a losing Lake Forest Park council candidate don’t want their city to follow suit.

A Lake Forest Park council candidate who won in the recent election disagrees.

Shoreline City Councilman Will Hall said last week that none of the problems that led Seattle voters to make a change exist in Shoreline.

“Here in Shoreline, city council members can and do get out to all areas of the city,” he said. “Our total population of 53,000 is less than what a new Seattle district will have.”

He added that Shoreline always has had a diverse council without division into districts.

“Council members have come from all parts of the city,” he said. “Council has had diversity of every kind: gender, race, religion, age, sexual orientation, you name it.” 

Hall noted that voters frequently replace incumbents when things aren't going well and that contested elections are not usually determined by huge amounts of money.

With a big majority of the community saying the city is in the right track, why make a major change in the form of government?” he said. “If it ain't broke, don't fix it.”

Shoreline City Councilwoman Doris McConnell said that she thinks districts work better in larger cities. She added that if citizens are interested in going that way, elected officials should listen.

Jason Colberg, who lost a November election for Lake Forest Park Council, said that if he lived in Seattle, he would have voted for district elections, and that he thinks other cities should be allowed to structure council elections that way, but he doesn’t favor the system for his city.

“In Seattle it reduces the number of most council members’ direct constituents to under 100,000,” he noted. “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.”

Mark Phillips, recently elected to the Lake Forest Park Council, likes the idea of a change.

“Having city council candidates elected by district seems to make sense,” he said. 

“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 re-development, 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.”