It took a couple of tries, but she finally did it. North Seattle Businesswoman Faye Garneau has changed the way Seattle elects its city council members.
On Nov. 5, even with just a portion of the votes in, it was as plain as day. The charter amendment to elect city council members by district instead of at large was passing overwhelmingly, 65-35.
Garneau and other supporters, who gathered at 125th St Grill on election night, were wowed by the results.
“When it was so overwhelming, I was really tickled,” she said. “I had my second drink of the day. I drink vodka martinis.”
The amendment is set to take effect in 2015, when all nine of the city councilmembers will be put up for reelection. Seven will be elected by district and two will be elected at large. Then, in 2020, after the U.S. Census, the district boundaries may be readjusted by a broadly represented commission.
Currently, several councilmembers share districts. Sally Clark and Bruce Harrell are in District 2, in the Southwest. Tim Burgess and Sally Bagshaw are in District 7, which includes downtown and Queen Anne. Nick Licata and Mike O’Brien reside in District 6, which includes Ballard, Crown Hill and Fremont. No one lives in District 5, in North Seattle. (Garneau, a longtime Aurora businesswoman, lives in District 5.)
In other words, the council is bound for a shakeup.
For good or for ill, you can blame Garneau for the results. She almost singlehandedly bankrolled the charter amendment, supplying over $230,000 of her own money into the campaign (out of $263,000). While she contends that there were plenty of other supporters from a variety of backgrounds, it’s her name that was required to be on the ballot -- “Charter Amendment No. 19 sponsored by Faye Garneau.”
Why did Garneau decide to go all in this year? Garneau, who is referred to in blogs as that “Rich white woman who lives in North Seattle,” said it was an “accident.” Truly, she said, she hadn’t meant to contribute so much.
“It just kept going on and on and on, so when they needed money I supplied it,” she said. “I don’t regret it, I feel very blessed I was able to afford to do it. I’m pleased that the citizens understood what I was trying to say and what the amendment was trying to say.”
The measure has failed three times before, in 1975, 1995 and 2003. Garneau was barely involved in the 2003 effort -- she doesn’t recall, but records show her donating $5,000 -- and was heavily involved in the 1995 effort.
In 1995, she said people were telling her that the ballot measure was a slam dunk. However, that campaign was confounded when it was uncovered that the late Thomas Stewart, owner of Services Group of America and a reclusive GOP donor, illegally funneled $60,000 into the campaign. Garneau said they were naïve; they had never run a campaign before and didn’t realize that how Stewart gave them money was illegal.
The opposition also had a lot of money to fight back with that year, waging a last minute ad campaign that would ultimately bury the ballot measure.
Besides Garneau’s money, this year’s attempt offered a couple of other changes. It was the first time the campaign has incorporated two at large seats into the amendment, as opposed to electing every member by district. And there was an extra piece of eye candy: A map designed by UW Professor Emeritus of Geography Richard Morrill.
The map follows neighborhood lines and geographic features as closely as possible. 2010 Census data was used to balance population between the districts and no district differs in population more than one percent.
Garneau said she was convinced this year that it was the right time for it to pass. Seattle has seen startling growth in the past decade, and many neighborhood residents have been frustrated by the negligence of the at large city councilmembers.
In Ballard and elsewhere, pleas by residents to take a closer look at the unmitigated increase in high-rise apartments, townhomes, infill housing and aPodments -- and the effect they have on parking and traffic -- have gone ignored or unheard.
Last year, when Central Ballard Residents Association Chair Mike Kahrs expressed concerns to Councilmember Richard Conlin about the possibility of aPodments coming to Ballard, Conlin brushed him off, reasoning that the zoning didn’t allow for it. (At the time, the microhousing was mostly just a concern in Capitol Hill.)
Now, there have been at least three different projects that resemble aPodments, much to the chagrin of residents.
By electing a councilmember to represent neighborhoods, Faye said it would increase accountability. While she said she had nothing against any particular candidate right now, she reasoned that the city of Seattle was simply too big and too complex for one person (or nine) to understand.
“They can’t make decisions based on lack of information, you don’t do that,” she said. “In your everyday life you don’t do that. You don’t go into your car or ride on your motorbike without knowing if you don’t have gas.”
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