The race for the City Council District 1 has grown very heated in recent days with what at first appeared to be a political stunt taking place on Tuesday as a garbage filled trailer was parked near incumbent Lisa Herbold’s home in Highland Park. Both Herbold and her opponent Phil Tavel decried the incident. It was later determined to be a simple coincidence.

But on Thursday night’s debate between the two candidates Herbold raised the stakes considerably as she brought out facts and data accusing Tavel of “recklessness and mismanagement” with a series of businesses dating back to 2001 that were “dissolved by the State of Washington” and a history of unpaid taxes including one tax bill for $26,434 that incurred a federal lien. She said that “One of his businesses, Business IQ LLC, seriously mismanaged their money.” She followed up the statements in the debate with a letter to constituents on Thursday evening.

Herbold went on to  say that Tavel’s campaign is being backed by “Big Business” noting that they’ve spent $167,000 in support and that downtown business PAC’s “have raised nearly $2 million to try and buy votes and buy Council seats.”

To back up her claims she included the sources to the court cases:

*Sources: Publicly available records from the Washington State Secretary of State, King County District Court case 115-00376-cvkcd, King County Recorder document 20111013000059, and King County Superior Court case 11-2-16017-3.

Tavel responded to the claims by saying: "This is a desperate attack. I look forward to providing more information and am disappointed that this is the tone that Councilmember Herbold set after calling for civility and a clean campaign."