Today’s updated vote count is in from the 7th Congressional District (which includes parts of King and Snohomish Counties). The top two candidates will advance to the November general election; while West Seattle’s Joe McDermott was in second place on election night, this is his second day in third place:

Pramila Jayapal 55,001 40.02%
Brady Piñero Walkinshaw 29,334 21.34%
Joe McDermott 28,112 20.45%

For other races, you can check the King County Elections website here, and the Secretary of State’s website here. Final results will be certified on August 16th; the general election is November 8th.

King County has released its second ballot count of the primary. The headline is in the race for second place in the U.S. House 7th District primary, to see who will advance to the November general election against Pramila Jayapal. Last night, West Seattleite Joe McDermott was in second, Brady Piñero Walkinshaw in third; tonight, it’s the other way round.

Jayapal 44,540 39.06%
Walkinshaw 24,285 21.29%
McDermott 23,798 20.87%

Most of the district is in King County, with a small slice of Snohomish County, so the official results are on the Secretary of State‘s website. Hundreds of thousands of ballots are still out, and the results won’t be certified until August 16th.

Otherwise, no changes of note – you can check the latest King County results here, and the latest statewide results here.

FIRST REPORT, 8:16 PM: From the Election Night vote count – just the first count, but the only one we’ll get tonight.

Congress District 7 – Pramila Jayapal leads with 38%, and the race to see who also goes into the general is close – Joe McDermott 21.5%, Brady Piñero Walkinshaw 20.9%. (All three are Democrats. See below for our side note on this race.)

Seattle Housing Levy – winning, 68% yes to 32% no.

Seattle Initiative 123 (elevated waterfront park) – 81% no, 19% yes

All the King County results are here.

****

Statewide results are here. Among the key primary races (note that these may change tonight depending on what various counties’ tallying policies are, and we’ll continue to update them):

Governor (updated 11:13 pm) – Democrat incumbent Jay Inslee 48.6%, Republican Bill Bryant 38.1%

Lt. Governor (updated 11:13 pm) – the leaders so far are Republican Marty McClendon at 20.3% and Democrat Cyrus Habib at 19.6%.

ADDED 9:36 PM: Again, the statewide races will change; the ones that are King County-only won’t. The link in each statewide race will take you to the most-recent results; we’ll be checking at least every half-hour until the early morning. Here are a few more, starting with two races without incumbents:

State Superintendent of Public Instruction (updated 11:13 pm) – Erin Jones 22.8%, Chris Reykdal 20.6%

State Commissioner of Public Lands (updated 11:13 pm) – Steve McLaughlin (R) 39.1%, Hilary Franz (D) 20.8%

And this one does have an incumbent:

Secretary of State (updated 11:13 pm) – Kim Wyman* (R) 48.5%, Tina Podlodowski (D) 45.7%

ADDED 11:17 PM: Only one election night party in West Seattle – Joe McDermott, at Alki Huddle. We stopped by after cutting our Night Out coverage a bit short to stop at the event. He was juggling a variety of interview requests, including ours – we talked with him briefly on video outside the bar:

A small section of the 7th District is in Snohomish County. The final results won’t be certified until two weeks from tonight; we’ll watch this race daily until it’s settled.

Thanks to Ken Gollersrud at the High Point Library for the photo reminding us all that West Seattle’s new permanent King County Elections dropbox awaits your ballot – cutoff time for your primary vote is tomorrow (Tuesday, August 2nd) at 8 pm. You can mail it, too, but that’ll cost you a stamp; using the dropbox is free.

The decisions you’ll be making in this election include two ballot measures for voters in Seattle only – the 7-year Housing Levy and the “elevated downtown park” proposal, Initiative 123.

You also will narrow the fields for the 7th Congressional District seat, as well as U.S. Senate, Governor, Lt. Governor, and other statewide offices, plus races for State Supreme Court and King County Superior Court, and one 34th District State House seat.

The dropbox is just north of the library, along SW Raymond east of 35th SW [map].

Story, photos, and video by Tracy Record and Patrick Sand
West Seattle Blog co-publishers

Though cleanups preceding Monday night’s Find It, Fix It Community Walk in Westwood/Roxhill left less of the area’s rawest problems to be “found,” it wasn’t all pre-sanitized.

The top photo is from a peek into an overgrown lot just off Trenton, northeast of Westwood Village, passed by the 120=plus walkers between official stops; the previous stop had been nearby, at a spot where a resident took the microphone and talked about a “recycling” bin that seemed to be a dumping magnet.

Another unofficial stop was a home on 24th with signs meant to catch the procession’s eyes – asking for speed bumps and police reform.

The department heads in whose purview those lay – SDOT’s Scott Kubly and SPD Chief Kathleen O’Toole – both stopped for a look, though not a chat, so far as we saw.

A few minutes earlier, we talked to the people in the yard, who said that regarding the speed bumps, their street is a popular cut-through, and somebody who zoomed through recently not only almost took out young siblings, but actually, they say, flipped off the kids before continuing on their way.

Also unplanned: A question about long-promised improvements that hadn’t materialized along Barton, after an SDOT employee promised some community-requested improvements are on the way to the crossing by the RapidRide stop and Longfellow Creek,

But let’s get back to how it all started. Community members and city staffers gathered in and around Longfellow Creek P-Patch, east of Chief Sealth International High School, awaiting Mayor Ed Murray:

Once he arrived, it was showtime: Read More

On Saturday, Mayor Ed Murray walked in the West Seattle Grand Parade. Tomorrow night, the mayor will be back in West Seattle for this area’s second Find It, Fix It Community Walk – the first one was last October in Delridge (WSB coverage here). The route is already planned, after several weeks of community discussions – as previewed here last week – but that doesn’t mean everything is scripted, so come along and join not only the mayor but some of his department heads, and see where the conversation goes. The walk starts at 6:30 pm from Longfellow Creek P-Patch on SW Thistle east of Chief Sealth International High School and will proceed through Westwood, to end at Roxhill Park:

You can arrive at the P-Patch as early as 6 pm for pre-walk refreshments and mingling.

By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

At a full-house meeting at The Hall at Fauntleroy last night, the 34th District Democrats had an hour of Q&A with the mayor, plus a major endorsement:

34TH ENDORSES ST3: The group voted to endorse the Sound Transit 3 ballot measure, shortly after the chair of the Sound Transit board, County Executive Dow Constantine, got up and told the 34th DDs that he never thought he’d be standing before the group and able to say, “Light rail is coming to West Seattle.” He gave a short, raucous speech – including his note as a UW alum that light rail would mean a ride to Husky Stadium – urging the group to give it their support. Constantine is scheduled to talk about ST3 at this afternoon’s lunch meeting of the West Seattle Chamber of Commerce, and we’ll include his 34th DDs speech in that report.

MAYOR MURRAY: We recorded his entire appearance on video:

He started by saying he wants to keep his speech short, so he can answer more questions. But first – “the events of last week – in Minnesota, in Louisiana, in Dallas. … This is a pivotal moment in our history as a country. The unfinished business of racism is once again at the forefront of our discussion, and it’s a good thing if we are able to engage in that discussion.” He recapped local communities with whom he spoke in the past week – both “communities of color” and the “police community,” both experiencing pain and fear. He talked about his plans to change the Office of Police Accountability and auditor positions, which recently made citywide headlines. But, he warned, “We did not get here overnight and we are not going to get out of this overnight.” And he warned that this all must be dealt with in the context of the other issues with which police deal, including domestic violence and sexual assault. And the fact “there are bad police officers, the same way there are bad politicians.”

Next, he acknowledges “the growing homelessness crisis in this country,” and says other cities are dealing with it too, not just Seattle.

Read More

(Added 8 pm, WSB video of this afternoon’s announcement, including Q&A, where we’d embedded Seattle Channel live stream during event)

As-it-happened coverage:

2:30 PM: We’re at City Hall downtown, where Mayor Ed Murray is about “to announce the formation of the Community Involvement Commission, which will replace the District Council system,” per the media advisory sent about this time yesterday. The live Seattle Channel stream should appear above, once the event begins, if you hit “play.”

QUICK PRIMER: For the purpose of interaction between city government and neighborhoods, Seattle was split into 13 “districts” more than a quarter century ago.

West Seattle has two – western WS comprises most of the Southwest District, while most of eastern West Seattle is in the Delridge Neighborhoods District. They, and the other 11, each have a “district council” made up of representatives from community councils and other organizations in their respective areas. District councils usually meet monthly; each of their member groups/organizations decides who to send as a representative. They are informal advisory councils, without governmental powers, without stipends or salaries; the city has supported them with neighborhood district coordinators, whose numbers have been reduced in the past five years.

When the City Council switched last year to being elected mostly by district – seven districts whose boundaries had nothing to do with the 13 pre-existing neighborhood districts – they issued a “statement of legislative intent” asking the Department of Neighborhoods to evaluate the neighborhood-district system and whether the community involvement might be realigned with the council districts.

The draft report on that review came out in May; the final report was expected at the end of this week – and suddenly, the mayor announced he was going to make a move.

2:36 PM: The mayor has entered the room. He says, “We should constantly be looking for ways to bring down barriers and open up dialogue. Our city has changed dramatically … since the district councils were created. We communicated by picking up a phone or putting a letter in the mail.”

He says communities have been created in the years since then. Going to an evening meeting doesn’t work for many people, he says. “The executive order I’m about to sign directs city departments to begin developing robust community engagement plans, and take steps toward dissolving the city’s ties to each of the 13 district councils. The district councils may still exist, but Department of Neighborhoods resources that previously supported the district councils will be redirected to support all City departments in these efforts.”

The mayor says the city will be “more in touch with itself” once a number of steps are completed – civic engagement focus groups in August, and Department of Neighborhoods drafting “legislation for a new citywide community engagement framework and strategic plan” by September 26th. A “digital engagement plan” will have to be submitted by March 1st, with the city’s IT department working on that along with Department of Neighborhoods.

We asked the mayor how much of a budget cut would result – he said there will be no budget cut resulting, “the money will stay in the neighborhoods.” He says the spending had to change, though, to evolve to being offered to a “more diverse group of people” per the city’s race and social justice policies.

Kathy Nyland (at left in photo above) of the Department of Neighborhoods says the current eight district coordinators will keep their jobs – the descriptions will be updated, and hasn’t been updated in 15 years.

The mayor also says the timing of this – as we mentioned in the “primer” above, sooner than expected – does not have anything to do with an upcoming possible “backlash against HALA,” as one reporter asked.

We asked who the people in the front of the room are, besides the University District renter and Ingraham High School student who have spoken. Evan Clifthorne from Belltown came up and spoke. DoN director Nyland then explains more, saying she has a “file of complaints” about existing community councils, and the people who were invited are those who” were in that file.

2:55 PM: In the FAQs, one question is “Will the District Councils and City Neighborhood Council be disbanded?” The answer is no – but “the level of staff support that is provided” is what this is about. They “can continue to participate/advocate/inform as they do now even if not formally supported by City. They don’t need to be formally recognized by statute to exist or to be valued.”

We ask about Neighborhood Matching Funds and how this will affect those. The mayor says basically, what will change is who decides who gets that money. (District councils have had some review responsibilities.)

Nyland says that the Statement of Legislative Intent final report IS still coming out on Friday – the mayor says he hasn’t seen it, but “doesn’t think these things will be in conflict with each other.”

And with that, the event is over. We never did hear who the rest of the people behind the mayor were. The news release isn’t online yet so far as we can tell, but another line of interest – #3 of the 5 action steps:

The Department of Neighborhoods, in partnership with the Seattle Office of Civil Rights and the City Budget Office will draft a resolution for City Council consideration detailing the community outreach and engagement principles and ending the City’s official ties to District Councils and the City Neighborhood Council.

So the city council does have a role in this, regarding whether the city formally breaks its ties with the DCs and CNC.

3:27 PM: We’re heading back to West Seattle now, and will add either the city’s archived video of the event or ours, whichever is ready first. Meantime, the “Community Involvement Commission” touted in the announcement of today’s event did not get much discussion; the printed materials say it will be created by January 2017, but that “details regarding the commission have not been worked out.”

Two West Seattle neighborhood advocates were here to observe, Cindi Barker from the Morgan Community Association – a veteran of many city-appointed committees and commissions – and David Whiting from the Admiral Neighborhood Association, current co-chair of the Southwest District Council. We talked with them briefly afterward; Barker said she was puzzled about why this wasn’t presented by the mayor and council with a unified front, since the latter was already engaged in a process of reviewing the district-council system. Whiting said the statement that the district councils could continue to exist really wouldn’t mean much without any city support.

3:44 PM: The FAQs about the mayor’s action are now on the city website, here. And the news release is here.

P.S. If you have a question for the mayor about this or something else – reminder, he’s due at the 34th District Democrats‘ meeting tonight at The Hall at Fauntleroy (9131 California SW), around 8 pm (the meeting starts at 7).

2:27 PM: One day after President Obama‘s departure, one of his predecessors paid a much-lower-key visit to Seattle – including a stop here in West Seattle. Thanks to Jerry for the tip on this one. He was walking his dog in Fauntleroy when, he said, he saw some unusual vehicle activity and he swore he saw President Bill Clinton in the back seat of one of the vehicles – he waved, and the man waved back. We just did a bit of searching; nothing in citywide media, but then we found first a Politico story mentioning the former President was fundraising in Seattle today – no specifics – and then these photos posted on Facebook by King County Councilmember Jeanne Kohl-Welles as proof. The hosts mentioned in that post are the owners of the historic Laurentide estate in Fauntleroy.

5:29 PM: Found a page for this on the Hillary Clinton campaign website, where contribution levels for this event were listed as ranging from $1,000 to $27,000+.

A reader just e-mailed a reminder that tomorrow is the City Council hearing about the proposal to regulate short-term rentals. The reader included a link to the following video by another West Seattleite concerned about the proposal – she says enforcement of an existing city rule shut down her AirBnB:

It’s been almost two weeks since we published the city’s announcement of the proposal to limit how many days a year some units could be rented out via tech platforms such as AirBnB and VRBO. Another West Seattleite, Rhonda Porter, has said she plans to comment tomorrow too; she and her husband have a Beach Drive bungalow that’s available as a vacation rental. She wrote in the discussion section on our June 1st story that “90 days is not enough time to break even on a vacation rental” – that’s the proposed limit for some rentals. Tomorrow’s hearing is at City Hall downtown, 9:30 am, before the Affordable Housing, Neighborhoods, and Finance Committee.

Three weeks ago, we reported on the call for 11-to-25-year-olds to vote in the Youth Voice, Youth Choice “participatory budgeting” process – with $700,000 in city money to be spent on the winning projects, themselves the result of a series of discussions around the city.

3,065 people voted, the city says, and here are the results, as announced in a city news release. (We added the descriptions, dollar amounts, and locations as listed on the “sample ballot,” where you can also see the projects that didn’t make the cut.)

· Houses for People Experiencing Homelessness – Youth collaborate with carpenters to build 10 tiny homes for people experiencing homelessness.

Estimated Cost: $128,500
Location: City-wide

· Youth Homeless Shelter Improvements – Physical improvements for a youth homeless shelter such as installing lockers, washers and dryers, and new paint.

Estimated Cost: $42,000
Location: Central, North Seattle

· Job Readiness Workshops for Homeless Youth – A term-limited expansion of existing services for youth experiencing homelessness focusing on job readiness.

Estimated Cost: $43,600
Location: City-wide

· Homeless Children and Youth Liaison Services – A term-limited expansion for school liaison services connecting youth experiencing homelessness to needed resources.

Estimated Cost: $70,400
Location: City-wide

· Wi-Fi Hotspot Checkout – A term-limited expansion of the Seattle Public Library’s checkout system to include more Wi-Fi hotspots, which increase internet access.

Estimated Cost: $165,000
Location: City-wide

· Park Bathroom Upgrades – Creating a map of public bathrooms in the city and implementing improvements at 1-2 bathrooms in parks in most need of repair.

Estimated Cost: $205,000
Location: South, West Seattle

· Safe Routes to Schools – Improve crosswalks in areas near schools to create safer routes to school for students.

Estimated Cost: $145,000
Location: South, West Seattle

The announcement says, “Now that the choices have been made, City staff and local agencies will implement the projects.” (We’re following up with a few questions, including location and final cost tally, since it appears the estimated costs are about $100,000 over that $700,000.)

At City Hall this afternoon, councilmembers voted unanimously to pass an ordinance that “prohibits rent increases on properties with unsafe housing-code violations,” as described by the announcement from the bill’s sponsor, Councilmember Kshama Sawant, who proposed it last year with then-Councilmember Nick Licata. All the documents related to the ordinance are here. From the slide deck, here’s how it works:

• Landlord provides written notice of a rent increase

• Tenant must respond in writing within ten days and describe defective conditions

• Landlord can cure the problem any time before rent increase is set to take effect.

• Tenant or Landlord may call SDCI to request inspection any time before effective date of rent increase

• If SDCI inspects and finds RRIO checklist failures, then rent increase delayed until defective condition is remedied

It will take effect 30 days after Mayor Murray signs it.

Two election notes tonight:

PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY TOMORROW: If you’re voting in our state’s presidential primary, tomorrow’s the voting deadline. While the state Republican Party will use its votes to allocate delegates for the national convention, the state Democratic Party is only using the caucus process, so the primary votes are just for show. You can mail your ballot as long as it gets postmarked with tomorrow’s date, or you can drop it off – no postage needed – at one of the county’s dropoff spots, including the dropoff van making its last appearance at West Seattle Stadium:

Joseph and Third, who said they’d received 175 ballots by our 3 pm visit, reminded us that by the August election, West Seattle’s new permanent ballot dropbox will be in place at High Point Library. In the meantime, the ballot van will be at the stadium (4432 35th SW) 10 am-8 pm tomorrow, in the northwest corner of the parking lot. If you’re in south West Seattle or White Center, your closest dropoff van is on 8th SW in Greenbridge, about a block south of Roxbury; that too will be a thing of the past after tomorrow, as White Center also gets a permanent dropbox, at the new library (1409 SW 107th) that opened last Saturday.

AUGUST PRIMARY: Filing for the August primary is over, and here’s the list of who’ll be on ballots for state and federal offices in our state. Both 34th District State House Representatives have challengers this time (names are linked to the campaign sites/pages we found):

State Rep. Position 1
Eileen Cody (incumbent Democrat)
Brendan Kolding (Democrat)
Matthew Benson (Republican)

State Rep. Position 2
Joe Fitzgibbon (incumbent Democrat)
Andrew Pilloud (Republican)

Benson and Pilloud are the first Republicans to run in the 34th District since 2010, when Ray Carter challenged Cody while declaring his party preference “Reluctantly Republican”; in 2014, Cody was unopposed, while Kolding ran against Fitzgibbon; in 2012, Cody had a Democratic opponent, while Fitzgibbon was unopposed.

Also of local note, West Seattleite KumRoon “Mr. Mak” Maksirisombat (his ballot listing includes the nickname), a teacher at Chief Sealth International High School, is one of the nine candidates in the running for state Superintendent of Public Instruction.

The state primary election is August 2nd.

If you are – or know someone who is – between ages 11 and 25, this week brings your/their chance to help make a big decision – voting on how to spend almost three-quarters of a million dollars in the city budget.

It’s voting time in the city’s first-ever Participatory Budgeting process, dubbed “Youth Voice, Youth Choice.” While online voting has just gone live, a special feature of this is the chance to vote in person – and it’s happening in places where the participants are likely to be found.

North Delridge resident Nancy Folsom e-mailed to say she will have ballots with her on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, starting at 3:30 pm, at Delridge Skatepark (Delridge/Genesee).

Then, from the city, youth-engagement strategic adviser Jenny Frankl sent this message:

As you might recall, there were a series of Idea Assemblies held in February, where Youth Voice, Youth Choice collected 530+ ideas for projects. Since that time, a group of youth budget delegates have been culling that list and have now narrowed that list down to 19 project proposals. Youth ages 11 – 25 are being asked to select their top 7 projects out of this list of 19 during Vote Week (which is currently underway!). There are two ways to vote: Youth can vote online @ bit.ly/youthvoicevote or via a paper ballot. In West Seattle, some in-person polling stations have been set up in various locations:

· Chief Sealth IHS, through their Social Studies classes

· Southwest Youth & Family Services (contact Fernanda Hernandez, fhernandez@swyfs.org, for exact times)

· Delridge Skatepark [see above]

· High Point Youth Program

· High Point Youth Tutoring Program

· West Seattle branches of the Seattle Public Library

Anyone who needs a paper ballot or is interested in participation by youth with whom they work – contact Jenny at jenny.frankl@seattle.gov or 206-396-0200.

P.S. If you’re not eligible to vote but interested in what projects are on the ballot – go here and choose the “preview” (non-voting) option.

How should our city handle its next 20 years of growth?

The 575-page proposed answer to that question is now public – the updated “comprehensive plan” proposed by Mayor Murray.

With the recommended plan’s release, it heads to the City Council’s Planning, Land Use, and Zoning Committee (whose members include our district’s Councilmember Lisa Herbold). This is the first major comprehensive-plan update since 2004. One of its key points is an echo of what happened a decade before that, in the city’s first such plan: “The urban village strategy is this Plan’s approach to managing growth. … The City intends for each of these areas to see more growth and change over time than other commercial locations or primarily residential areas, and together they will accommodate the majority of the city’s expansion during this Plan’s life span.”

The announcement from the mayor’s office – which you can see in its entirety here – includes:

Seattle 2035 includes goals and policies, including those that:

· Guide more future growth to areas within a 10-minute walk of frequent transit
· Continue the Plan’s vision for mixed-use Urban Villages and Urban Centers
· Monitor future growth in greater detail, including data about racial disparities
· Increase the supply and diversity of affordable housing consistent with the Mayor’s Housing Affordable Livability Agenda (HALA)
· Update how we measure the performance of the city’s transportation and parks systems
· Integrate the City’s planning for parks, preschool, transit, housing, transportation, City facilities and services

Our area has four urban villages – which are part of the list of neighborhoods in the section of the report that includes highlights from neighborhood plans. You can search that section for each of these:

Admiral
Delridge (not an urban village)
Morgan Junction
West Seattle Junction
Westwood/Highland Park

The plan spans many topics, from off-street parking to potential North Highline annexation. As the announcement observes, “Forecasts suggest that over the next twenty years, Seattle will need to accommodate 70,000 additional housing units, 120,000 more residents, and 115,000 additional jobs.” This would set a framework for doing that. The plan “and related legislation” will go to the PLUZ Committee later this month, the announcement says. The comments that went into it were gathered in a variety of ways, including meetings like this one in West Seattle last November.

10:20 PM: Even if you weren’t part of it, you might recall the discussion of last Sunday’s long-running caucus in the 34th Legislative District (West Seattle, White Center, Vashon, and vicinity). The lists of who got elected are posted – but according to one precinct-committee officer who e-mailed us, urgent action is needed. Here’s the note we received Jennifer Knutson, Precinct 1252 PCO:

Long story short, because they were counting delegates so late … most of the delegates didn’t get their paperwork filled out – and it must be filled out by TOMORROW in order for both Clinton and Sanders delegates to be seated. We need your help getting the word out to our West Seattle/Burien neighbors.

Here’s the link from the 34th Dems.

Here’s what they say:

If you were elected as a delegate or alternate you need to submit a delegate form by Friday to this email address: 34demscaucus@gmail.com

Here is the delegate form and here is the Alternate Delegate form.

If you already completed one of these forms on the day of the caucus, you still need to submit again.

Contact Chair Marcee Stone-Vekich with questions. Her contact information is here.

Here is the credentials report for the caucus (PDF).

7:26 AM FRIDAY: See an update from the 34th chair in comments.