1. At a debate sponsored by Rainier Valley Radio, Converge Media and the South Seattle Emerald on Wednesday, Sara Nelson, a candidate for Metropolis Council Place 9, ran out the clock on a query from her opponent about why her enterprise, Fremont Brewing, has positioned concrete “eco-blocks” within the public right-of-way round their brewing facility in Ballard.
Oliver requested Nelson why, because the candidate within the race who needs to prosecute misdemeanors like “stealing meals,” she thought it was effective to violate the legislation towards obstructing public streets. (As we’ve reported, it’s unlawful to put obstructions like eco-blocks in public areas, however the metropolis says the legislation is tough to implement.) Nelson responded by protesting that she doesn’t contemplate herself the “law-and-order” candidate, however “a public security particular person,” and stated that the misdemeanors she needs to prosecute “should not small crimes, particularly when they’re repeated time and again.” The clock ran out simply as Nelson began responding to Oliver’s query.
In the meantime, the eco-blocks across the brewing facility Nelson owns stay in place, and a number of other extra have been positioned straight on the grassy planting strips close by, one other unambiguous violation of the legislation.
2. Voters throughout town have obtained mailers from Nelson that not-so-subtly counsel broad assist amongst Black leaders and different individuals of shade, that includes 5 individuals of shade (three of them Black, two Asian American) and no white supporters.
Nelson, who’s white and lives in North Seattle, has made quite a lot of controversial statements about what “the Black group” needs, suggesting throughout a September discussion board, for instance, that the Black and brown individuals she has talked to “don’t need no police… they need higher police.”
Oliver referred to as {that a} “very racist” assertion, including, “to say Black and brown individuals don’t desire a world past prisons and police, as a result of you may identify three which have endorsed your marketing campaign, is making us right into a monolith. We’re not.”
Of the 5 individuals of shade featured on Nelson’s newest mailer, three are recognized: Former Gov. Gary Locke, SPD Neighborhood Advisory Council chief Victoria Seaside, and Harriett Walden, the longest-tenured chair of the Neighborhood Police Fee. The 2 unidentified supporters—an Asian American girl and a Black man featured in a inventory “speaking to group members” picture—are longtime Vulcan exterior affairs director Pearl Leung, who now works at Amazon, and her husband James Parker, an actor.
3. A number of enterprise and developer teams that beforehand supported King County Councilmember Kathy Lambert, who was removed from her leadership roles on the council after sending out a racist mailer that portrayed considered one of her colleagues, Councilmember Girmay Zahilay, as a bow-tie-wearing “Seattle socialist”—have quietly joined the Seattle Occasions in dropping their endorsements for Lambert.
The Grasp Builders Affiliation of King and Snohomish Counties tweeted on October 8 that their political arm, the Reasonably priced Housing Council, had rescinded their endorsement and was requesting a refund of their contribution ($2,000, in line with the state Public Disclosure Fee) to Lambert’s marketing campaign. The account, @MBAKS_Voice, has 749 followers.
The endorsing physique for the Bellevue Chamber of Commerce, the Eastside Enterprise Affiliation, additionally rescinded their endorsement of Lambert, EBA govt director Caitlyn Gallagher confirmed.
And the Related Common Contractors of Washington now not lists Lambert on their endorsements web site. (The AGC didn’t reply to a request for remark.) The AGC’s political motion committee, BUILD PAC, contributed $1,000 to Lambert’s marketing campaign in March.
4. This week, half the entrance web page of the Seattle Occasions’ web site was taken up by an infinite flashing advert calling metropolis legal professional candidate Nicole Thomas-Kennedy “reckless and excessive” due to tweets she posted through the June 2020 protests towards police violence. The advert included a quote from “The Seattle Occasions” saying that Thomas-Kennedy’s “poisonous tweets” present she is “unfit to be Seattle Metropolis Lawyer,” omitting the truth that the quote is from the Occasions’ editorial board, not its information reporting. Extra egregiously, the advert didn’t embody legally info figuring out who paid for the advert—on this case, huge company donors together with Vulcan, the president of Microsoft, and the pinnacle of Goodman Actual Property.
The Occasions has endorsed Thomas-Kennedy’s opponent, Ann Davison.
State legislation requires impartial expenditure teams that buy adverts, together with on-line adverts, to obviously establish the highest 5 donors behind the marketing campaign. The anti-Thomas-Kennedy advert didn’t checklist any donors; as a substitute, in tiny white-on-black print, one of many flashing panels stated the marketing campaign was bought by “Seattle for Frequent Sense.”
After I posted the advert on Twitter, somebody filed a criticism with the State Public Disclosure Fee, charging that the advert violated state disclosure legislation by failing to incorporate the contributors. Within the meantime, about half an hour after my preliminary tweet, a brand new model of the advert appeared on the Seattle Occasions’ web site, now together with a listing of the marketing campaign’s high donors, if an outdated one (it excluded Microsoft president Brad Smith and developer Jon Runstad).
The duty for guaranteeing that adverts don’t run afoul of the legislation is shared by campaigns and the businesses that select to publish or run them. Kim Bradford, deputy director of the PDC, says the truth that the advert was ultimately fastened doesn’t imply the company received’t examine. “We open a case if we expect there’s one thing there and there’s sufficient proof of a possible violation,” Bradford stated. The PDC does enable an exemption to disclosure on the advert itself for “small” on-line adverts, which Bradford outlined as “the small embedded adverts that you simply see on some web sites—those which are type of throughout the textual content.” It’s unlikely {that a} flashing advert that takes up half the entrance web page of an internet site when considered on a browser would qualify as a small advert.
The Occasions has a historical past of bending the principles to advertise Republican candidates and causes. In 2012, the newspaper donated a full web page of the newspaper to gubernatorial candidate Rob McKenna, the equal of an $80,000 contribution. The unprecedented choice to contribute free promoting to a partisan candidate made nationwide news, and greater than 100 Occasions workers protested the paper’s funding of McKenna’s marketing campaign.
5. The Washington Coalition of Minority Legal Professionals—a coalition of state bar associations together with the Loren Miller Bar Affiliation (representing Black legal professionals), Washington Ladies Attorneys, QLaw (representing LGBTQ+ legal professionals), and a number of other Asian American bar associations—has given Davison an “unqualified” score. In response to the group, their rankings mirror “our nonpartisan evaluation whether or not a candidate can be efficient in workplace, will serve the pursuits of the group and society, and is dedicated to the honest administration of justice and enchancment of the felony justice system from the angle of the taking part minority bar associations.”
One issue within the coalition’s rankings have been the candidates’ solutions to a normal questionnaire, which included questions like “how will you interact with communities of shade?” and “as metropolis legal professional, how will you interact with tribal governments?”
In response to a query about whether or not “you or the organizations you may have been part of have contributed to white supremacy and/or the devaluation of the lives of Black and Indigenous individuals or different individuals of shade,” Davison had this to say:
“I’ve spent most of my life working to assist individuals in want. In my youth I labored in a refugee camp for individuals fleeing horrible violence from civil conflict and at a congressional workplace the place I helped underserved individuals get entry to providers they wanted. I at the moment serve on a board that provides housing and assist to individuals in extreme psychological well being and habit. Whereas my time working in skilled sports activities, typically as the one girl in an workplace of rich males of varied races, was a lot much less altruistic, it was nonetheless a place of service.”
The group gave Davison’s opponent Thomas-Kennedy a score of “enough.”