Holcomb's husband owns the bar Witness on Broadway.

Bingo.

Holcomb (presumably) posted on one of last night's threads that she is not opposed to the $15 minimum wage law, but that sure came across as non-committal legalese. She didn't say that she does support it, for one thing, and she didn't say what, if any, kind of minimum wage law she would consider better. She's probably smart enough not to be directly involved with Forward Seattle, but I wouldn't be surprised if she supports their goals.

Stick a fork in Holcomb, she's done ...

Unless she runs for a general seat

@2: Yes, because a woman can't be an independent thinker. She obviously takes marching orders from her husband. Way to prejudge someone based on one sliver of information.

Holcomb: "You don't effect change without a broad coalition,"

Earth to Holcomb: $15/hr passed = change . . . effected.

District elections suck balls.

What has this to do with district elections, DOUG? Is there no residency requirement?

So without a primary or runoffs, the council election is just plurality rules, right? If a significant progressive challenger enters as well as a pro-business challenger, could the vote be split for a Jesse Ventura style situation?

@10: Council seats are non-partisan (officially), so the top two finishers in the primary go on to the final election.

@9: Because I live in District 4, where Jean Godden (who is the Worst Councilmember in the History of Councilmembers™) has threatened to run again in 2015. I'd rather have Holcomb run against Godden, but she can't.

@11: For some reason I didn't think there was a primary. Thanks for the correction.

@4
Are you being purposefully or accidentally stupid? In my English language usage, there's nothing I said about Holcomb taking marching orders from her husband; the very transparent implication I am making is that she's a de facto co-owner of the bar, so keeping wages down is a financial incentive for her. In other words, her business would benefit if she could defeat Sawant.

Yes, that terrible, terrible rhetoric...which compelled both Mayoral candidates to endorse the call, the Mayor to follow up, and the entire city council to vote in favor of raising the wage.

Who's out of touch? Holcomb. By a mile

Thank God Anna Minard wrote this article.

Business hint #1-- if you sell nothing but $12 cocktails and ridiculous meat dishes, it's not the minimum wage's fault you're shortly going out of business.

Business hint #2-- If one drink for one person is more expensive than you're willing to pay for an hour of your worker's time, you're immoral and a terrible businessperson. Not Kshama Sawant's fault.

Believe it or not, city council members actually have jobs and responsibilities. We don't hire them to lead campaigns or to promote a single agenda. We hire them to pass laws, write budgets and chair committees.

Sawant is a great cheerleader for the working class. She led an incredible campaign but ultimately got played by the Mayor and the business people she refused to compromise with.

Anyone with a poor an attendance record or achievement rate as low as Sawant's deserves to be replaced. Ex-Mayor McGinn has done a terrible job as Seattle's mascot. Maybe we should hire Holcomb for the council and let Sawant debate Republicans on Fox News.

@17

Business hint #1-- if you sell nothing but $12 cocktails and ridiculous meat dishes, it's not the minimum wage's fault you're shortly going out of business.

Yeah. You're a reeeeal business expert. Because vegan restaurants with $5 cocktails are such a successful business model, why there are thousands of them everywhere! Oh... Wait.

Let's see. Meat dishes. And cocktails. Wow. There are literally no successful restaurants anywhere with that model! Except for ALL OF THEM.

Think for five seconds before you vomit your torrent of delusional nonsense.

#19: My point is that businesses like Witness have an obscene amount of money flowing in and out and have no positive social value. It's rich people selling rich things to other rich people, and if you design that business to fail if you can't keep your workers as poor as possible, it is not surprising or a loss to society if it fails.

Also, sorry, I was not sober at the time and it was not my best Slog comment.

@20 how do you know how much money Witness has flowing in? Cafés and restaurants have the lowest profit margins of nearly ANY type of business.

Besides. You've never even been there. You don't even know what they serve or how much it costs. Christ. You could've gone to thier website and checked.

They serve "ridiculous meat dishes" like $13 chicken and waffles. Or $13 shrimp and grits. OMG. THE DECADENCE! And they have $6 drinks during happy hour. NO! THOSE EVIL OLIGARCHS!

And you know if you want people to be paid fairly, guess what? Shit is going to cost YOU more. That's how it works. Your mythical non-existent cheap vegan cafe is going to have to raise their prices too. You want organic quality food produced by NOT exploitIng people AND live in a major city? It costs more.

You entitled whiners are all the same. Teabaggers. Fringe Extremists. All the same. You all want somebody else to pay for your absurd delusional Utopias. You want the true costs of your childish world views to be totally externalized. And you won't even take the time to look up facts.

@22
What we should really do to help the Latin Americans, who need serious help, is set up a two-tier wage structure.

Vet people who want to work here for 2 years. Pay them $6/hour. House them in dorms, including great food from a professional kitchen. Give them health care = to armed forces quality which I think is quite good.

Then put them to work on public works which we can't afford to do because of cost and WHICH DOES NOT GET DONE.

Is that a good idea? Yes. Win-win for all.
Is it possible? No. We are too prissy.

Socialist Alternative would increase its chances of gaining and maintaining elected offices by simply fronting candidates in as many electoral races as is possible. --- http://www.rangevoting.org , http://www.fairvote.org , http://www.broadleft.org (L).

I have to say, I'm not impressed by Sawant thus far. She's sort of a goofball, only without the charm most goofballs have.

And that's a shame, because I was really hoping for a reasonable voice to counter the Rainier Club council. Instead, we may have gotten a bumbler who will have poisoned the well for progressive thought on the council for a generation.