SCHOOL CHAT: This morning, for the first time since the start of the new school year, West Seattle’s school-board rep Steve Sundquist invites anyone and everyone interested in talking about education to join him at Uptown Espresso in The Junction (map), 9 am, for a coffee-hour chat.

ASTRONAUT SPEECH: Continuing his local appearances, West Seattle-raised astronaut Capt. Gregory Johnson speaks tonight at Museum of Flight (7 pm; map).

CANDIDATES IN HIGHLAND PARK: Many of the people who want your vote for Seattle Mayor, City Council and Port Commission will appear before the Highland Park Action Committee at 7 pm tonight, HP Improvement Club building (map).

CANDIDATE IN HIGH POINT: Before participating in that forum, mayoral hopeful Mike McGinn plans a “town hall” get-together at High Point Library (map), 4:30 pm.

CHEESE! Metropolitan Market launches a special two-week cheese celebration today; full details here.

That’s not all – more events tonight (including Cub Scout recruiting at OLG, 7 pm), on the WSB West Seattle-wide Events calendar.

Mayoral candidate Mike McGinn just announced a town-hall meeting in West Seattle – 4:30 pm Wednesday, High Point Library (map). Add that to two other events in West Seattle this week – with Election Day just six weeks from tomorrow (and ballots in the mail much sooner): 7 pm Wednesday, the Highland Park Action Committee presents a Candidates’ Forum (we’re checking on who’s RSVP’d) at Highland Park Improvement Club (map); Thursday at 11 am, West Seattle Democratic Women present a City Attorney candidates’ debate during their lunch meeting at West Seattle Golf Course (map). For the Wednesday events, just show up; for Thursday, lunch costs $10 members/$20 nonmembers (which includes membership in WSDW for the remainder of 2009) – registration starts at 11, lunch/program at 11:30 – contact WSDW at (206) 938-5706 or wsdwomen@yahoo.com.

7:53 PM UPDATE: Rory Denovan has sent word of who’s confirmed for the HPAC forum on Wednesday night:

Mike McGinn, Candidate for Mayor
Sally Bagshaw, Candidate for City Council, Position 4
David Bloom, Candidate for City Council, Position 4
Nick Licata, Candidate for City Council, Position 6
Tom Albro, Candidate for Seattle Port Commission, Position 4
Rob Holland, candidate for Seattle Port Commission, Position 3
Robert Rosencrantz,Candidate for City Council Position 8
Mike O’Brien, Candidate for City Council, Position 8

CANDIDATE FORUM IN HIGHLAND PARK: Next meeting of the Highland Park Action Committee, 7 pm September 23, is now taking shape with a candidates’ forum as the centerpiece; HPAC chair Dan Mullins says they’re focusing on all the big races – King County Executive, Seattle Mayor and Council, Port Commissioner – and “the candidates are responding to our requests” (no final lineup yet though). It’ll be at the Highland Park Improvement Committee building, 1119 SW Holden (map).

MAYORAL HOPEFULS AT THE LABOR TEMPLE THIS WEEK: Less than one week after their much-talked-about first “debate” – more of a Q/A forum – downtown, Joe Mallahan and Mike McGinn will share the stage again at 4:30 pm this Wednesday (September 16) at the Seattle Labor Temple, 2800 1st Avenue (map) — not in West Seattle, but it was among the events announced at last Wednesday’s 34th District Democrats meeting.

MAYORAL DEBATE: In case you’re not going to the big showdown between Joe Mallahan and Mike McGinn at the Cinerama downtown today, sponsors say they’ll stream it here (look for that stream around noon – 12:15 pm update – it’s started, with an intro from moderator Steve Scher – 12:25 pm – added the embedded version above, click to watch – 1:57 pm, it’s over but you can click to see the archived video).

PORT COMMISSION CANDIDATES ON THE RADIO: Marcee Stone mentioned this at last night’s 34th District Democrats meeting (we’ve added more details to our report; see it here) – West Seattleite Max Vekich and incumbent Tom Albro are both scheduled to be on KUOW (94.9 FM or listen online) at noon.

WEST SEATTLE VOTERS HATED THE BAG FEE: May not surprise you. But if you’re interested in the breakdown, seattletimes.com (WSB partner) has made a map with the breakout on what parts of the city backed the bag fee in last month’s election and which parts didn’t. Doesn’t appear ANY part of West Seattle had a majority “yes.” 12:13 PM UPDATE: Via Twitter, @labradoodles points out that if you follow the link to a larger version of the map, you will see two small clumps where the fee was supported (here’s that link).

We covered tonight’s 34th District Democrats‘ meeting as-it-happened on our special @wsblive Twitter account (read the updates here). And now, here are the headlines from the 2-hour-plus Hall at Fauntleroy gathering, till we add more details later:

Anyone endorsed by the group for the primary who made it to the general got to keep that endorsement. But under terms of a one-time rule change, anyone who wasn’t endorsed and made it to the general was welcome to try again tonight. At the head of the line: Mayoral candidate Joe Mallahan (photo above). For the primary, the 34th DDs endorsed Mike McGinn, who’s in the general with Mallahan, and incumbent Greg Nickels, who isn’t. But a vote to add an endorsement for Mallahan fell short – two-thirds majority was required, and Mallahan came up with 49 percent, so McGinn is the sole 34th District Democrats’ endorsee for November. In the City Council Position 4 race, the 34th DDs endorsed David Bloom tonight, adding that to Sally Bagshaw, who retains her share of the endorsement that also had included West Seattleite Dorsol Plants, who didn’t make it to the general but is backing Bloom. A proposal to endorse Mike O’Brien for Council Position 8 – where the pre-primary dual endorsees were Robert Rosencrantz, who made it to the general, and David Miller, who didn’t – failed.

More on tonight’s endorsements (which included other races), and other news from West Seattle’s biggest political group, coming up.

12:29 AM NOTE: In the meantime, the full list of endorsements is on the 34th DDs’ own website, per webmaster Bill Schrier – check it out here.

ADDED 9:42 AM THURSDAY: More details from last night’s meeting, including Mallahan’s explanation of what he considered an “ignorant” remark – click ahead:Read More

The precinct-by-precinct breakdown of votes from the August primary is available; seattletimes.com (WSB partner) has published a look at the mayoral race (summary: the areas of West Seattle that didn’t vote for the WS-residing incumbent were split between Joe Mallahan and Mike McGinn). If you’d like to do some number-crunching of your own, here’s the link to a zip file with enough numbers (in plain text) to make your eyes swim. We pulled out the mayor’s home precinct in North Admiral just for curiosity’s sake — turnout passed 50 percent, and Mallahan came in second – this is the text block pulled/cut-and-pasted directly from the county file:

“City of Seattle Mayor”,”SEA 34-1417″,8,34,7,”Kwame Wyking Garrett”,0
“City of Seattle Mayor”,”SEA 34-1417″,8,34,7,”Registered Voters”,320
“City of Seattle Mayor”,”SEA 34-1417″,8,34,7,”Times Counted”,167
“City of Seattle Mayor”,”SEA 34-1417″,8,34,7,”Norman Zadok Sigler”,0
“City of Seattle Mayor”,”SEA 34-1417″,8,34,7,”Jan Drago”,10
“City of Seattle Mayor”,”SEA 34-1417″,8,34,7,”Write-in”,0
“City of Seattle Mayor”,”SEA 34-1417″,8,34,7,”Joe Mallahan”,37
“City of Seattle Mayor”,”SEA 34-1417″,8,34,7,”Greg Nickels”,75
“City of Seattle Mayor”,”SEA 34-1417″,8,34,7,”James Donaldson”,12
“City of Seattle Mayor”,”SEA 34-1417″,8,34,7,”Mike McGinn”,22
“City of Seattle Mayor”,”SEA 34-1417″,8,34,7,”Times Over Voted”,0
“City of Seattle Mayor”,”SEA 34-1417″,8,34,7,”Times Blank Voted”,6
“City of Seattle Mayor”,”SEA 34-1417″,8,34,7,”Elizabeth Campbell”,5

A completely nonscientific comparison to a precinct on the other side of West Seattle – ours, 34-1524 in Gatewood/Upper Fauntleroy, with 253 registered voters – it was Mallahan 38, McGinn 30, Nickels 27, Drago 13, Donaldson 10, Campbell 2, Sigler 1, Garrett 0, 7 blank ballots. If you want to find out your own precinct number so you can see how the vote total turned out, one way is to look up your “voter guide” (right side of this page). ADDED 10:38 AM: The Times has just added another breakout – county executive – see it here.

King County has certified the results of the August 18th primary. You can find all results here; we’re breaking out how West Seattle-residing candidates did in the final certified countywide vote totals – top three in each race (top 2 move on to November 3rd election), West Seattleite with asterisk before name:

COUNTY EXECUTIVE
Susan Hutchison 110052 33.05%
*Dow Constantine 89833 26.98%
Fred Jarrett 40527 12.17%

SEATTLE MAYOR
Mike McGinn 39097 27.71%
Joe Mallahan 37933 26.88%
*Greg Nickels 35781 25.36%

SEATTLE CITY COUNCIL POSITION 4
Sally Bagshaw 63348 51.01%
David Bloom 22690 18.27%
*Dorsol Plants 17822 14.35%

SEATTLE PORT COMMISSION POSITION 4
Tom Albro 121518 41.86%
*Max Vekich 81362 28.02%
Robert Walker 61848 21.30%

Besides Constantine and Vekich, two other West Seattleites will be on the November ballot – their races only had two candidates, so it was an automatic pass to the general – Tom Carr, incumbent Seattle City Attorney challenged by Pete Holmes, and David Ginsberg, challenging incumbent City Council President Richard Conlin in the Position 6 race. Finally, a few turnout notes from the August primary: 31.5% participation countywide (percentage of ballots returned); 38.5% participation in Seattle; among the County Council districts, ours – District 8 – had the second-highest turnout, 37.2%, eclipsed only by District 4 (downtown/north end) with 38.2% (the lowest was District 3 [easternmost King County] with 24.6%).

KCTS (Channel 9) announced tonight that it’s confirmed the first live TV debate between the King County Executive finalists, Susan Hutchison and West Seattle-residing County Council Chair Dow Constantine. 7 pm October 15th. It’ll be held in their studios, according to the station’s announcement.

Followup to last week’s update from a spokesperson for the homeless encampment that calls itself “Nickelsville”: The Port of Seattle has just published a statement saying it’s rejecting the encampment’s request for an “extended stay” at Terminal 107 Park in eastern West Seattle, and will post new trespassing notices this week, expecting the camp to clear out by the end of September. We’re checking with encampment organizers for their reaction/next steps; they moved to the site a month ago.

The election results won’t be final until a week from Wednesday, so daily counts are still coming out, and today’s total has Mike McGinn still on top of the Seattle mayoral race, almost a thousand votes ahead of Joe Mallahan, with incumbent Mayor Nickels (who conceded last Friday) two thousand votes behind Mallahan, in third. Here are those results; politics-watchers also had been noticing something we pointed out last week, the narrowing gap between the top two in the King County Executive race – Susan Hutchison now has 33% and Dow Constantine has 27% (full results here). As of the final Election Night count, it was 37% Hutchison, 22% Constantine. The county Elections Department estimates about 6,000 ballots remain to be counted.

Today was the day by which the Port of Seattle had said it had hoped to use legal action to evict the homeless encampment that calls itself “Nickelsville” from its latest location, at Terminal 107 Park in eastern West Seattle. Instead, encampment spokesperson Revel Smith just sent this news release:

ln a last-minute collaborative effort, Speaker of the House Frank Chopp, Port Commissioner Gael Tarleton, Port Commissioner Kurt Beckett, Michael Ramos, Director of the Church Council of Greater Seattle, Paul Benz of the Lutheran Public Policy Office, Cecile Hansen, Chairperson of the Duwamish tribe and 4 Nickelodeons met together yesterday at the Duwamish Longhouse to discuss viable options for Nickelsville.

Speaker Frank Chopp asked the Port to work together with them. Speaker Chopp has worked on legislation for the Port before, and said he would introduce legislation clarifying the Port’s concerns so they were legally satisfied. In return, Port Commissioner Tarleton agreed to take a proposal to the rest of the Port Commission allowing extension of Nickelsville’s stay.

If allowed, the proposed agreement would allow Nickelsville to remain at the T-107 Park for an initial two months with a third month safety net. This would give parties who were at the table time to work together to find a permanent site for Nickelsville. The Port of Seattle and Nickelsville would seek a Temporary Use Permit from the City of Seattle for the three month stay at T-107 Park. Signals from the City are that a permit would likely be granted, and city police would comply.

Nickelsville thanks Speaker of the House, Frank Chopp for his advocacy and willingness to introduce clarifying legislation. Nickelsville continues to seek a stable permanent site, as well as sustain responsible stewardship of park land or sites which may become available in the near future.

No formal statement yet from the port. 7:33 PM UPDATE: Port spokesperson Charla Skaggs sent a note saying there’s “incorrect information” in the Nickelsville news release we posted verbatim above:

Speaker Chopp requested, and strongly urged, the port commission to grant an extension. In return for that extension, the members of the encampment would guarantee that they would leave willingly at the end of the extension. The port did not request that Speaker Chopp amend the port’s authority in any way.

The port has continuously stated that it is illegal for port land to be used for housing.

Please note that the commissioners have been asked to consider this request; no decision has been made.

Also, Kurt Beckett is the port’s director of external affairs, not a commissioner.

According to the port’s website, the commission has two meetings next week: a special meeting on Monday, a regular meeting on Tuesday. Agendas for both are linked here.

(WSB photo by Christopher Boffoli, added 10:21 am)
Mayor Nickels has just announced at City Hall, with family at his side, and applause greeting him as he entered, that he’s called Joe Mallahan and Mike McGinn to congratulate them on advancing to November’s general election. He is making his statement with a tone of “no regrets” and pride. He says he and city government has “made a difference each and every day” of his two terms. He says, “The Seattle today is stronger, better and kinder than the Seattle of yesterday” and says this is “an amazing place in an amazing time.” He says he will continue working hard for the “131 days left” of his administration. In response to the first question after his statement – why he lost – “I think the people of Seattle have decided it’s time for a new generation of leadership” and then he semi-joked, “I think there are dozens of issues” which caused people to vote against him. He said leadership means making tough decisions and “You get to make everybody unhappy – The Viaduct might be an example of that.” He says he hasn’t decided which candidate he will support in November. And regarding what he’ll do next – he says he has “no idea” yet. 10:19 AM: The mayor’s news conference just wrapped up. (Side note: In our photo above, in addition to family members with the mayor, that’s Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis near the center of his photo, also a West Seattleite, looking on.) ADDED 12:03 PM: Seattle Post-Globe has published a statement from City Council President Richard Conlin (who decided against a mayoral run, going for re-election instead; he faces West Seattleite David Ginsberg in November). ADDED 12:56 PM: You can see some of the humor that the mayor displayed, in this clip published to YouTube by the politics site horsesass.org:

ADDED 2:06 PM: Covering the announcement for WSB, Christopher Boffoli provides this transcript of what Mayor Nickels said this morning, including the questions that followed from the assembled media:Read More

King County Elections’ daily vote update has just come out, and Joe Mallahan remains in the lead for mayor, with Mike McGinn second, incumbent Mayor Greg Nickels third. See those results here. Here’s the table from the results website:

Joe Mallahan 28126 27.22%
Mike McGinn 27586 26.69%
Greg Nickels 26416 25.56%

Full results are all linked here. ADDED 4:36 PM: Browsing through the rest of the results – no big changes but in the King County Executive race, the gap between Susan Hutchison and Dow Constantine has narrowed again – she is now at 34.6%, he is at 24.9%. (Here are the full County Exec results.)

King County Elections has just published results of today’s vote count – first one since just before 10 pm last night – and the first of what will be mostly daily updates over the next two weeks. In the most closely watched race, the mayoral results are now Mallahan, McGinn, Nickels; see those vote totals here (scroll down the page a bit); we’ll add a few more notes here shortly, but in the meantime, all the results are linked here. ADDED 4:25 PM: In the King County Executive race, the Hutchison-Constantine gap is a little narrower – she has 36 percent, he now has 23 percent. Nothing else has changed significantly – for City Council, it still looks like Bagshaw/Bloom, Licata/Israel and O’Brien/Rosencrantz; the “No” votes are still way ahead on the bag fee, 57 percent against; for Port Commission, it remains Holland/Doud and Albro/Vekich. Back to the mayor’s race – here are the vote totals and exact percentages from the King County site:

Joe Mallahan 21101 26.76%
Mike McGinn 20880 26.48%
Greg Nickels 19864 25.19%

Next vote count around 4:30 pm tomorrow. 9:06 PM NOTE: The county’s released its nightly count of how many ballots have been received. The County Council district that includes West Seattle, 8, has the highest percentage – more than 34 percent – here are all the breakouts.

(WSB video added 9:17 pm, the first minute of Dow Constantine’s speech)
Latest results here – Susan Hutchison in first at 37 percent, Dow Constantine is in second with 22 percent.

(Constantine party, just before the first results were announced)
8:04 PM: We’re covering all tonight’s key results, but this is the marquee race – so your editor here is at King County Council Chair Dow Constantine‘s event at Kells Irish Pub in Pike Place.

8:17 PM: The first results are in – as you see at the top of this post – huge cheers as Constantine is in second place (top 2 advance to November). Fred Jarrett is a distant third. Constantine is scheduled to speak in about half an hour.

8:44 PM UPDATE: Constantine entered a few minutes ago to a hero’s welcome. He says the early results are positive but the “campaign has just begun.” He says King County residents deserve a government “as innovative as they are.” He says the message is stand up for what’s right, persevere and good things are going to happen. He says he got this far because of “grass-roots momentum … 2,000 volunteers .. a small army of volunteers that broke all records” for voter contact. “We are headed for the general election!” he just shouted exuberantly. And he thanked people including his girlfriend Shirley, “who has been my rock.” He also says he wants to thank the other candidates – “the ones who showed up at every debate” in a clear jab at the person it appears he will face in the general, Susan Hutchison, who drew fire for not showing up at early campaign forums. “Tomorrow we begin Phase 2 of this campaign,” he says, “bringing our vision, our ideas, our passion to the hundreds of thousands of King County voters who did not vote in this election – who need to know the stark choice they face over the future of King County .. Susan Hutchison is too conservative, too out of step with the mainstream values of King County.” He adds, “This election is about who is best qualified. I have a track record of public service … I understand the enormity of the challenges … We must do what it takes to make government work better. My opponent has not had to make the tough choices, has not had to stand up and be counted, and has offered little of substance during this campaign.”

8:56 PM UPDATE: Constantine has just wrapped up his speech, saying he’s giving his supporters 12 hours to celebrate, and then it’s time to start work on the general election campaign. His last dig at likely general-election opponent Susan Hutchison: “You are nothing but platitudes … Celebrity is not a qualification for King County Executive.” (We will link to coverage from her party once we have it.)

9:39 PM UPDATE: Here’s the Publicola report from Susan Hutchison’s party, where she is reported to have vowed to win the support of those who voted for Larry Phillips, Ross Hunter and Fred Jarrett, with what she promised would be a “nonpartisan” campaign. (Voters decided last year to make the County Executive and County Council positions officially nonpartisan.)

9:59 PM UPDATE: The second and final vote-count update of the night is now posted. Nothing’s changed – 37 percent Hutchison, 22 percent Constantine, 12 percent Jarrett, 11.7 percent Phillips, 10 percent Hunter. (Though the candidate himself seems to have moved on, or at least isn’t in the main room right now, his parents are still here – dad John just came and looked over our shoulder at those new results.)