a
Good afternoon, friends, compatriots.
What a pleasure it is to greet you here in the Plaza Room of the Anderson Center, formerly the school where I attended grades one through eight from 1946 to 1953. These walls speak to me of a town where people once lived lives of quiet self-determination,
free of excessive restrictions. They practiced good manners, unburdened by the constraints of political correctness. Free of virtue-signaling restrictions, of gasping at straws, they tossed their used plastic forks and Styrofoam cartons into their
metal garbage cans. They decided for themselves how and where to store their firearms. If they had a tree on their property, they cut it down or left it standing, as they saw fit. The City Council sought to meet the needs and interests of the residents,
not the tourists or the mercantile elites. People knew their neighbors, helped their neighbors when asked, but respected their individual freedoms, and the town grew organically, from the bottom up, as everyone exercised those freedoms. The Council
was accountable and transparent; it listened to the people. It was not bent on manipulative, top-down social engineering. Those were halcyon days. I loved that old town. But now, looking at the Council's misguided attempt in recent
years to control our minds, I fear that the old Edmonds is slip-sliding away. Oh, I don't doubt that the Council means well. All do-gooders do. As far as their ideals go, I come to praise, not to bury. Equality, fraternity--these 18th
century revolutionary words stand for honorable principles. The Housing Strategy Task Force, the Climate Change Goals project, Indigenous People's Day, the Safe City designation--these are all, all honorable inventions. 'Twere best no one speak
ill of them here! But, friends, let us not forget that they come at a cost--that cost being the loss of that other--and the single most important-- revolutionary ideal: liberty. Today's City Council, even as it enshrines equality and condemns paternalism,
paternalistically seeks to manufacture what it envisions as utopia, when in fact there is much disagreement among its electorate as to what constitutes utopia. Its zeal, its Messianic belief that it knows best, leads it to treat its constituents as children.
But we are not children, and we don't need to accept the Council's paternalism. We can and must call upon the Council to demonstrate a more nuanced understanding of the complex issues before it.
For example, is the so-called need for affordable
housing in Edmonds a real thing? Do we need to subsidize affordable housing with jacked-up property taxes and kickbacks to construction companies? Is everyone entitled to live here? How crammed do we want to get? Already traffic in
the Bowl backs up at intersections, the sidewalks are jam-packed, we can't find a place to park. And increased numbers are bound to mean increased crime--it's a statistical inevitability. Do we really want more condos displacing houses, more drab
low-cost apartment buildings, more mother-in-law apartments, more ADUs? Do we want to erase single-family zoning? Single-family zoning is responsible for so much of the Bowl's charm. Do we want to become Kirkland? Or Ballard?
What's wrong with having a single-family house on a lot, a bit of space for a lawn and a couple of flower beds? Must density be our destiny? If we wanted density, we'd move to Manhattan. Why should we bear the burden of paying to make room
for more people who have no stake in Edmonds and who might not love it the way we do? Now, friends, this is not in any way an argument in favor of segregation by age, race, income, or any other means by which people can be categorized. I say "No"
to discrimination, "No" to redlining, "No" to affirmative action, "No" to special treatment of any kind. I argue in favor of a free market, one that grows organically. Ideally, perhaps, the Bowl would reflect the demographic makeup of America;
realistically, it cannot. Let the market work its magic without manipulation by the Council. If gentrification is the result, so be it. Everyone is welcome here, but no one is entitled to live here. The utopian dream of a racially
and economically diverse community should not be implemented artificially by diktat. If Bowl residents in particular, and Edmonds residents in general, skew older, whiter, and richer, that's the way the market works.
I ask you also, how
much should our little town's Council concern itself with reversing climate change? How much can we affect the big picture with our local actions? Climate change is a matter for nations to deal with, not tiny communities like ours. Only a
concerted national effort led by Congress--an imposition of carbon taxes so severe that they would cripple our economy and restrict our mobility--can hope to make a difference. Even so, without an alliance of many nations working on the problem,
there is little hope. Think locally but act globally. And even then, is that what we really want? Do we want to revamp our whole way of life? Do we want to be unable to drive to Seattle to watch the Seahawks play or fly to Arizona
to visit our dying mother undergoing hospice care in her senior community? Do we want to bundle up in parkas inside our homes during the winter? How much are we saving the environment from degradation by banning plastic utensils and plastic bags?
Is it even measureable? How cost-effective is recycling? These are all feel-good nostrums that mostly succeed only in restricting our freedom. And not only that, but isn't it possible that some of our climate change is due to the vicissitudes
of our solar system--solar flares, for example, or variations in the earth's tilt--that have been occurring since it clumped into being and that we can do nothing about? Isn't it at least conceivable that we should use our human ingenuity more to adapt
to the effects of climate change than to try to reverse it?
Now certainly it is fitting that the Council has instituted Indigenous People's Day in October. The Coast Salish people who inhabited our land before we did deserve our recognition
and respect. But Indigenous People's Day should not be a replacement for Columbus Day. Both holidays are important and both should be celebrated in the same month. Columbus is the symbolic representative of the Europeans who came to this
land and turned it into a prosperous democracy that--in spite of its flaws--has been and continues to be a beacon of hope to the oppressed throughout the world.
And we are, and should be, proud to call ourselves a Safe City, a city where legal residents
of all races, ethnicities, creeds, and sexualities are made to feel welcome and secure. A place where hate crimes and hate speech are punishable to the full extent of the law. But by the same token, let us always make sure that we honor that most
sacred freedom enshrined in the Bill of Rights, freedom of speech. Let us respect the uttering of unpopular views even though we might condemn the view itself. And let us never take the further step of becoming a Sanctuary City that violates federal
immigration laws. Such law-breaking would not only be wrong but would add to our overcrowding and also run the very real political risk of our being denied federal grants to improve our local infrastructure.
Now that word "infrastructure" brings
me to one last concern: the Council's proposed $27 million environmental excrescence called the Waterfront Connector, a concrete bridge supported by concrete pillars stretching over the railroad tracks from the intersection of Sunset and Edmonds streets and
extending through Brackett's Landing Marine Park to Main, blighting our landscape and our seascape. A fiscal, ecological, and esthetically brutal monstrosity, a scene stealer that would dismay residents and repel tourists. There have been promises
of state and federal grants to help with the exorbitant costs, but those will not come close to covering the total bill, and you know what that means: higher local taxes for you and me. The irony is that a bridge is not even necessary. Emergency fire
and medical aid for the beachfront can be provided much more efficiently and cheaply. We already have a fireboat, Marine One, to deal with our very rare waterfront fires, and for a fraction of the bridge's cost we could build a small triage health facility
on the beach side of the tracks to deal with the very few waterfront medical emergencies that occur when stopped trains have blocked the access roads at Main and Dayton. We could even put a heliport on its roof to facilitate medical evacuations.
Among all the possible ways to tear the gown of our charming little town, the Waterfront Connector would be the most unkindest cut of all. It would forever be our expensive, ugly, soul-sucking albatross, its erection the thin edge of a wedge that insinuates
itself into our community and leads to zoning changes that would result in both tacky accessory dwellings and high-rise buildings, destroying the unique character of our place . I for one say that we should not try to become a diamond as big as the Ritz,
we should be content simply to remain this sparkling little gem.
b
Good afternoon, sisters and brothers and others. I greet you here in the Edmonds Convention Center, but what I have to say is not conventional. We are in a time of crisis, both local and global. I grew up in our
pretty little town in the '40s and '50s, oblivious to the very real existence of oppression and inequality. Naively, I believed that all men--yes, men!--were equal and that all could rise, socially and economically, as far as their characters and abilities
would take them. I believed that all women were equal to each other, although not equal to men, and that all could rise, socially and economically, as far as their looks and personalities would take them. I thought that was the natural order of
things. I was unaware that inequality--racial, sexual, economic-- is systemic. White male privilege was so taken for granted in our culture as to be invisible. I had no idea that the system was rigged. Nor did I see that the system
had been built upon the destruction of indigenous peoples and their cultures. Decades later, after I became a cardiac surgeon at Virginia Mason Hospital on Pill Hill in Seattle, I gradually woke up. I began to see how money and skin color affected
one's ability to get quality health care. I began to see how gender affected one's professional opportunities for responsibilities and advancement. And there, as I gazed down occasionally at the perpetual chokepoint where I-5 narrows
to worm its way through Seattle, I became increasingly aware of humankind's responsibility for climate change.
Today, I would not say that I am 'woke'--but I am more awake than I used to be, and in my wakefulness here is the Edmonds that I daydream
of: a town that rediscovers its soul, a town that values inclusiveness, a town that offers diversity and density and affordable housing, a town where people are civil, yes, but not at the expense of fighting for what is right, not a town where a plea for civility
(a foolish civility is the god hobblin' little minds!) is a weapon used by the patriarchy in defense of the status quo, and a sentimental plea to preserve quaint picturesque charm through single-family zoning serves actually as a NIMBYist Trumpian
wall to screen out the "declassé," a town that not only accepts but warmly embraces and enthusiastically encourages cultural and demographic changes (to paraphrase Shakespeare, sweet are the uses of diversity), a town that provides a safe space
for undocumented immigrants, a town that celebrates indigenous peoples, a town that cherishes the environment and battles climate change, a town that realizes that for each species lost a piece of our soul is washed away, a town where every child has a roof
over their heads, a town where senior citizens can age in place, a town that treats the homeless and the addicted with compassion, a town where every street is safe for pedestrians, a town that is working to improve the infrastructure and housing options in
its International District.
And, in order to turn this dream into reality, here is what I think we need to do: remove height restrictions for condos and apartment buildings--but not for single-family McMansions--and allow the building of multiplexes
and ADUs on single-family sites, subsidize contractors who are willing to build less expensive apartments, provide property tax relief for seniors and the disabled, build a homeless shelter, maintain our green spaces and our tree canopy, reconstruct the Bowl's
dilapidated and dangerous sidewalks, improve disability access to sidewalks and buildings, establish a parking area outside the Bowl and run shuttle buses downtown to reduce congestion and shrink our carbon footprint, encourage the establishment of bike-sharing
and scooter-sharing businesses in the Bowl, encourage additional businesses to join the environmentally-conscious EnviroStars program, support the proposed ban on plasticware and Styrofoam, encourage recycling, provide funds to fully restore the Edmonds Marsh
and improve salmon habitat, support the building of the Waterfront Connector because every life is precious and we must never disdain those who find themselves on the "wrong" side of the tracks, move Council meetings to the neighborhoods-- Firdale, Five Corners,
Perrinville, the International District-- subsidize low-cost multiple-unit housing along Highway 99, reduce the speed limit there, and add median barriers and sidewalks and crosswalks, and last, but not least, preface every Council meeting with a statement
recognizing and honoring the indigenous peoples from whom we took this land. Let us repay our debt to them by striving to achieve true equality. Let our future atone for our past.
c
Hi, everyone. It's wonderful to see you all here in the foyer of the Edmonds Center for the Arts, this beautiful Art Deco building where I once attended high school. The contest for Position 8 is remarkable in that it
features three candidates who are 80 years of age, longtime residents, and old friends and classmates. What are the odds? Each remains physically active and mentally alert, each is energetic, each still cares about what Edmonds was, is, and will
become. I am proud to be in this race with such good people as Char and Monk, and I am confident that whoever wins will represent our townspeople (and octogenarians everywhere) with distinction. There are, however, some important differences among
the three of us. Here at the old EHS, where I was senior-class president and a co-captain of the football, basketball and baseball teams, I learned the values not only of leadership and competition but of cooperation and compromise. And these values
were reinforced by my professional experiences. After graduating from CPS in Tacoma, I went to OTS and served four years in the Army, then came back to Edmonds to work as an electrical engineer and project manager for Boeing, helping build 747s at the
Mukilteo plant. I was all about team-building. The deterioration of civility in public discourse today, both nationally and locally, hurts me deeply. It tears at the heart and soul of our relationships. I am an independent who cares
about people, not politics. I am not tied to any special interests or factions. I am neither progressive nor conservative. The positions I take are based not on ideology but on a genuine concern for the happiness of all. I want to bring
all voices to the table, make sure that all points of view are heard, and make decisions that will satisfy a majority. I am not taking a stance in advance on issues such as the Waterfront Connector, affordable housing, climate change, Indigenous Peoples'
Day, and so on. I'm about remaining calm, putting politics aside, and working out agreeable solutions to agreed-upon problems. All opinions are valid. There are no absolute rights and wrongs. It's true that Edmonds is more than just
the Bowl, but it's also true that the Bowl is the heart of Edmonds. Yes, we must preserve our history, but we must also adapt to the present and anticipate the future. Yes, we must change--but not precipitously. Our town's identity and character
are indeed very special, but they cannot be preserved in amber. My goal will be to elicit full and frank discussions of the issues and then vote on the basis of what I think a majority wants. My opinions, my druthers, are not worthier than anyone
else's. We're all equals. If it were practical, I'd refer all Council motions to popular vote, but since it isn't, I intend to vote for what I think will make the most people happy. That's as close to democracy as we can get.
[Monk's
got my vote. Charlotte scares the bejeezus out of me! Maloney]
[I'll hold my nose and vote for Char. Liz Ann]
[I won't hold my nose--I'll inhale deeply and vote for Char! Sylvia]
[I suspect that Edmonds isn't as
liberal as the 2016 Presidential polls indicated. Monk is going to win. Solveig]