Who Do You Represent?
Lefty Alice Woldt, Candidate #87, just identified the following prerequisite for the job: “Someone from the N.W. quadrant of the city.”
This whole “Compton Seat” vacancy highlights the fact that no one knows what this seat represents. (Without districts, the 9 council seats lack real democratic meaning.)
By bringing up geography—a geography that’s unrepresented by the current makeup of the council—Woldt hit on exactly what’s so maddening about all of this.
1) No one even noticed how absent Compton had been for the last two years, except a few of his colleagues, who—off-the-record—were not at all surprised at his resignation. The public didn’t notice because, well, he didn’t have a constituency. He didn’t represent anyone.
2) There are no real requirements for his replacement other than “from Seattle” and “18-years-old.”
Compton’s resignation, this vague vacancy, highlights that we should go to a district system.
I’m glad Woldt hit on geography as a prerequisite.
The only thing that's keeping me from hunting Compton down and grinding his head off with a rotary sander for just up and quitting in the middle of his term is this fact, that he was a non-entity of a councilmember. Good riddance. But now we have to watch the parade of freaks. Where's Richard Lee, the archetypical Seattlite?