Vote for Oly City Council

A number of city positions are up for election, including seats on the city council (the seats of Jeff Kingsbury and Joan Machlis). The primary deadline is Aug 18th.

Although our government is fucked and totally non-democratic, which can make voting pointless and discourage one from wanting to, I encourage anyone to vote in the local primary and upcoming election. As many of you already know, the current city council is working on gutting the culture of our city and gentrifying the shit out of it. They're bought out and working in the interest of corporate developers. They passed the noise ordinance, repealed the nuke-free ordinance, and passed the 'get homeless people off the sidewalk in downtown' ordinance so that when Triway Enterprise builds big condos right downtown, all the rich people that move into town won't be scared away by our music, the fact that there are homeless people everywhere, and Olympia's political activeness. SO, by voting in the primary you can try and ensure there are different candidates in the upcoming election so that we might get some better representation, if any (we're getting none at all at the moment).

If you care: Karen Veldheer, Janine Gates, and Stephen Buxbaum are running against the current city council regime. They have been endorsed by a number of community groups such as Friends of the Waterfront, and Citizens for a Responsive Local Government. They claim they are against condos downtown on the isthmus and that they will be more representative of city residents.

-James

here is the voter's pamphlet: http://www.co.thurston.wa.us/auditor/Elections/2009elections/aug/vp/voters_pamphlet_pdf.htm

Here's the general website about thurston county elections: http://www.co.thurston.wa.us/auditor/Elections/electns.htm