This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter).
Posts here are rare these days. For current stuff, follow me on Mastodon
|
Ballot Text:
To reduce transportation congestion, increase road and transit capacity, promote safety, facilitate mobility, provide for an integrated regional transportation system, and improve the health, welfare, and safety of the citizens of Washington, shall Sound Transit (a regional transit authority) implement a regional rail and transit system linking Lynnwood, Shoreline, Northgate, Seattle, Bellevue, Redmond, SeaTac airport, Kent, Federal Way and Tacoma as described in the Sound Transit 2 plan, financed by the existing taxes approved by the voters in 1996 and an additional sales and use tax of up to five-tenths of one percent imposed by Sound Transit, all as provided in Resolution No. R2007-15; and shall a regional transportation investment district (RTID) be formed and authorized to implement and invest in improving the regional transportation system by replacing vulnerable bridges, improving safety, and increasing capacity on state and local roads to further link major education, employment, and retail centers as described in Moving Forward Together: A Blueprint for Progress – King Pierce Snohomish Counties, financed by a sales and use tax of one-tenth of one percent and a local motor vehicle excise tax of eight-tenths of one percent imposed by RTID, all as provided in Resolution No. PC-2007-02; further provided that the Sound Transit taxes shall be imposed only within the boundaries of Sound Transit, and the RTID taxes shall be imposed only within the boundaries of the RTID?
Full explanation, pro/con statements and full text here.
There are some other things in here thrown in for good measure about improving transportation infrastructure, but the bulk of this is about approving a tax increase in order to fund a new light rail network.
I am on the fence on this one. On the one hand, a train would be cool. And this one would go places where I would go. I could see this train being one I would ride sometimes. On the other hand, I don’t really want to pay for it, and am generally luke warm at best about the notion of public transportation. It often (and certainly in this case) smacks me of attempted social engineering. They want to build a train so that I won’t use my car so that I can pollute less and be better on the environment and whatnot. And they want to use public funds to do it.
If this was about selling some public land or access ways to a private company so THEY could build a train with their own money, and then charge people to use it and one day perhaps make a profit, I think that would be a no brainer for me. But it isn’t. It is about taxing everybody to build it with public funds and then running it as public service. I have certainly enjoyed at times the public transit systems in certain cities. BUt I remain fundamentally a little uncomfortable with the government being the one doing such things. I’d much prefer that being a private enterprise. It is bad enough that the government has to deal with roads… but I get the logistical reasons why that almost has to be the case (at least in many cases).
Having said all that, I was still on the fence, cause while I have those high minded (but most likely impractical) philosophical objections… I like trains. And it might be cool to ride this one. And it would be nice to have it as an option.
But one comment from Brandy pushed me off the ledge and made me decide.
Brandy said that if they built a train, and if (as is also expected) they add tolls to the bridges over Lake Washington in the coming years, and taking the train into work ends up cheaper than driving my car, then she would expect me to usually take the train.
I like trains, but I like my car better. I like the train as an option, I don’t think I’d like it as the default option. And I resent government trying to orchestrate things in such a way as to encourage public transportation over private cars. Congestion and the environment be damned. And plus this would add additional sales tax to every local purchase I make. And the price is quite possibly underestimated, so they will probably come back in a few years asking for even more. Screw that.
So, my vote is:
NO
Two people on the ballot again:
And the officiall pamphlet info here.
As usual with these local races, it is hard to really tell much just from their websites and their statements. It does make me wish I paid closer attention to local issues sometimes, but fundamentally my attention is more drawn to international and national affairs. The local stuff generally doesn’t make much of an impression on me.
In this case BOTH of the candidates are advocating more openness, etc. They both say the usual sorts of things about wanting to make things better. One is the incumbent, the other says that while his opponant talks a good game, he doesn’t actually act on it.
An article in the Seattle Times helps here a bit to compare and contrast them. The stuff in that article solidifies me toward the incumbant. He seems to be pushing for things I agree with (Although not always very sucessfully) and the challenger seems to be more restrained and willing to go along with the status quo in certain cases. So, my vote goes to…
Alec Fisken
Once again two candidates, this time theoretically non-partisan:
And the official voter pamphlet here.
These are going to get pretty short, as I am running low on time.
Anyway, from the vote pamphlet alone I was leaning toward Tarleton. I liked what she was saying about making things public, openness, etc. But then I went to her website. It was all about slamming her competitor, and it was very partisan focused for a supposedly non-partisan position. She just lost my vote on that alone. My vote is for:
Bob Edwards
[Edit about 5 minutes later]
Hmmm…. OK. That was a bit flip. I spent a few more minutes reading stuff on both websites. I do like the transparency stuff. And in general I was more attracted to what she was saying policy wise. Bob Edwards site was pretty sparse on future plans as opposed to past things. I will revise this. I’ll go ahead and vote for Tarleton in spite of the bad taste the front page of her website left on me. So my vote is… really this time…
Gael Tarleton
Once again, I don’t really think this should be an elected position, but since it is, two candidates:
And the official info packet thing here.
Hmmm. Once again not really a lot to go on. And this is the sort of position where there are not really “policy differences” to distinguish candidates. I generally have a natural bias against incumbents in most things, but in this sort of professional position that shouldn’t really be political anyway, I’ll go with the gut who has been doing it for 15 years and seems to be doing an OK job. So my vote goes to:
Scott Noble
I’m really not sure positions like this should even be elected positions. It seems to be that they should be somewhat insulated from that process, and an appointment and confirmation process, perhaps combined with a single term limit or something would be a better way to deal with these sorts of positions. But in this case we indeed have two candidates:
And the official voter pamphlet descriptions here.
I also note that I’m not sure these should be partisan positions either. Oh well.
From their websites and their brief statements, I really find nothing of substance to compare the two. They both are against crime and will protect the public. Yup, OK, Fine. There really isn’t much basis here alone for me to make an informed decision. If I’d been diligently following local news for the past few years maybe I’d have more of an opinion, but I don’t.
I think though I am tipped toward Satturberg by the first few sentences of his statement:
I am the Interim Prosecuting Attorney for King County. I have spent the past 17 years as Norm Maleng’s chief deputy prosecutor, and have experience in every aspect of running the office.
Today our office is non-political and professional. I want to keep it that way.
That’s one reason why I have the support of more than 500 local attorneys, Democrats, Republicans, business leaders and unions.
These include our nonpartisan Sheriff Sue Rahr, the Democratic prosecutors for Pierce and Snohomish Counties, as well as prominent Republicans.
I was appointed to this post by the unanimous vote of the King County Council.
I like the bipartisanship and “non-political” bits. I unfortunately have no good way of evaluating this morning if they are true, but even the fact that it is mentioned as a prominent item is a good thing I think.
I am very weakly inclined and am having a hard time distinguishing these too from the information I can get quickly, but I’ll vote for:
Dan Satterberg
Ballot Text:
Initiative 25 is a proposed ordinance. If approved by voters, it would place a charter amendment on the November 2008 general election ballot that would ask: “Shall the King County Charter be amended to provide that the position of county director of elections be created as a nonpartisan elected office?†Should Initiative 25 be adopted so that this charter amendment will be placed before voters in November 2008?
Explanation, pro/cons and full text here.
OK, let me get this straight, this is a vote to ask if I think that in the next election we should vote on something? What kind of asinine process requires a step like this, a vote to agree to vote later? OK, I know legislative bodies do that kind of thing all the time (and it is stupid there too). But it is idiotic to require this sort of thing in a public election. Have a process that lets you get something on the ballot directly if you must, but a vote on if you should have a vote? Come on.
In any case, looking briefly at what is proposed to be put on the NEXT ballot, I think I would vote against it. But this is NOT a vote on the merits of that proposal, this is just a vote on if the other thing should be voted on later. And I’m OK with that. The question here is really, “is this an issue that should be decided by the people directly rather than by another process”. The issue at hand is a structural one. Basically if the County Director of Elections should be an elected position rather than an appointed one. I am generally against bringing POLICY matters directly to the people, that is what a legislature is for, and on most issues I think direct democracy is folly, and the representative nature of a legislature provides a direct buffer. But for structural issues, I think a direct vote is sometimes appropriate. So I will go ahead and vote:
YES
Ballot Text:
The legislature has proposed a constitutional amendment on investment of higher education permanent funds.
This amendment would authorize the investment of money in higher education permanent funds as permitted by law, and would permit investment in stocks or bonds issued by any company, if authorized by law.
Explanation and pro/cons here. Full text here.
Article 8, Section 5 of the Washington State constitution prohibits “using state funds for gifts or loans to any individual, association, company or corporation” and Article 12, Section 9 prohibits the state from “subscribing to, or having an interest in, the stock of any company, association, or corporation”. These both sound like very sound provisions that represent the proper distance a state government should have from the private sector.
Apparently over the years there have been a number of amendments carving out more and more exceptions to these rules for various funds set up for one thing or another. This amendment would make another exception, this time for a fund which backs state funding for various higher education initiatives.
The argument is that by allowing investments in corporate stocks, you can get better returns, and therefore do more of whatever those funds were set up to do. The counter generally proposed is that investing in stocks can be risky. And indeed, sometimes it can be. But it also does generally in the long term do better than the alternatives over the long term. And the long term is what matters for this sort of fund.
However, I think that is irrelevant. The real issue here is not how the investments would do, or if it is risky or not, it is that by directly investing in corporate stock a conflict of interest is set up, and the state governments interests are now tied extremely directly to the interest of making sure the stock prices of the companies they invest in go up. There may be overall economic interests that align those interests any way in certain situations, but I think creating a direct state increase specifically in the rise of stock prices is highly unadvised. I think the previous amendments were a mistake when they carved out exceptions earlier. I think this would be another mistake. So, my vote is:
REJECTED
Ballot Text:
The legislature has proposed a constitutional amendment on school district tax levies.
This amendment would provide for approval of school district excess property tax levies by simple majority vote of participating voters, and would eliminate supermajority approval requirements based on voter turnout in previous elections.
Explanation and pro/con statements here. Full text here.
In general I like supermajority requirements. Not just on taxes, but on most things. If we required 90% for everything, I think we’d be better off. The current constitution requires 60% approval (and a certain level of turnout) for approval of certain ax measures. The pro statement points out that this can result in some taxes not being approved, and therefore less money to spend on things (in this case generally schools.) Duh. But if it is important enough, 60% is not that high a bar, and according to the con statement, that bar is generally met.
Also, independent of all that, I somewhat dislike that the WAY it is done in the actual text is not to change the original text to eliminate the supermajority requirement, but rather by tacking at the end a “Not withstanding what was said earlier, it will be like this.” There is probably some good reason to do it that way, but I don’t like it, it makes reading the text less straightforward and makes it harder to determine the overall meaning without reading very carefully. I don’t like that.
So, my vote is:
REJECTED
Ballot Text:
The legislature has proposed a constitutional amendment on inmate labor.
This amendment would authorize state-operated inmate labor programs and programs in which inmate labor is used by private entities through state contracts, and prohibit privately operated programs from unfairly competing with Washington businesses.
Explanation and pros/cons here, full text here.
Basically, right now prison labor is allowed, but only in programs run directly by the state. The current state constitution specifically prohibits that labor being contracted out to private parties. This would eliminate that restriction, allowing the state to contract out the prison labor to outside companies.
Now, in general I’m all for privatization, but I am very wary of government contractors in specific. The proponents point to this giving increased opportunities for inmates to work and therefore pay off debts and be more prepared to resume their position in society when they get out. I agree with the “con” position that there are better ways to do this. Including of course the state expanding inmate labor directly, instead of contacting to private parties to do it.
I don’t think this is a good idea, and I think the existing provision of the state constitution is fine. So therefore, on this one my choice is:
REJECTED
That’s a nice mouthful. I am way behind on these things. Election day is today. My ballot has to be postmarked today, or I need to actually go and vote in person. I’m thinking I’ll try to get it in the mail. I got up a little early to try to finish going over this before I have to head in to work. I’m also still feeling under the weather ever since Sunday and that sucks. Perhaps I should just stay home. Dunno. Anyway, for now, election stuff.
The ballot text of this one is:
The legislature has proposed a constitutional amendment on establishment of a budget stabilization account.
This amendment would require the legislature to transfer 1% of general state revenues to a budget stabilization account each year and prohibit expenditures from the account except as set forth in the amendment.
More complete explanation and pro/con statements are here. Full text is here.
On this one I think it is a good idea to have such a fund. If anything I would make the restrictions on its use more strict, not less. In general I am consistently against using state constitutional amendments to implement policy decisions. But I do not see this as a policy decision, I see this as a governmental structure issue, which I think is appropriate for an amendment. So, on this one, I’m going to vote:
APPROVED
|
|