David Bloom and Dorsol Plants spoke at tonight's Admiral Neighborhood Association meeting. They are not only running against each other for the 2009 Seattle City Council election, they are running against five others in the "Not Designated Position," and eight others, collectively, in "Position 4" and "Position 8."

Jan Drago and Richard McIver are not running for reelection while Richard Conlin and Nick Licata are. Declaring a designated position is not required.

Plants talked about his five years of service in the army, including two missions in Iraq in 2003 and 2005. His website states that he earned the rank of Sergeant and his Airborne Parachutist Wings.

"I served as chair for Highland Park Action Committee, fighting the jail site proposals there. I'm a case manager at a veterans homeless shelter," Plants said. "That is what led me to run for office, jail, homelessness handled made me concerned, and feel the need to get involved. My father said, 'Unless you get down in the dirt and do something you can't complain.' It is my hope to make human services more efficient. Some shelters receive kids clothing but they don't serve kids. I want to create more efficient, less costly system.

"There are not enough shelter beds for people sleeping outside. For every person we get off streets, if a family of four is evicted from their home we are not making progress. Seattle's 10-year plan to end homelessness is a considerable first step, but after following the plan for 2 years I believe it is time for a review to make some necessary changes."

Then David Bloom: "I agree with Dorsol's analysis of the problems with neighborhood preemptive (strategies) on homelessness. I am a longtime community organizer of Seattle. Affordable housing, homelessness, race relations. I organized the Interfaith Taskforce on Homelessness. My major concern is that we are losing the qualities that have made Seattle one of the most attractive places to live in the United States. It has become unlivable for working families, even with the downturn of the economy. Houses still average $400,000. Firefighters, nurses, students, depend on renting or moving out to other communities.

"We have investments diverting money from neighborhoods, spending millions of dollars like fixing the so-called 'Mercer Mess.' It will be a beautification process, but will not help traffic and at the same time our neighborhoods are deteriorating. We do not have an integrated planned public transportation system. I'd advocate for a coordinated regional public transportation system.

"Every year we lose more housing than we build. I want..a plan to build 5000 affordable housing units, or we will lose ground for housing for our working families. There is close to a billion dollars of needed infrastructure repair, including 33 bridges. I would propose a living wage ordinance in our city that over 100 other cities have in place.

"The jail...we need to look at alternative sentencing programs to keep people out of jail and into programs who are misdemeanants. It is a self-fulfilling policy, 'If we build jails they will come.' Let's find other ways to serve these people."