McGinn

Note: I’ve edited this post to include a more direct route to the mayor-elect’s ear. Thanks, Brice!

Want to help Mayor-elect Michael McGinn get off on the right foot? Have some ideas for him on what he should do first, who should help him do it, and how he can build the public trust? Tell him.

McGinn wants help getting his homework done before he moves into city hall at the end of the month. He’s asked community leaders to help gather public responses to three key questions.

Here are McGinn’s questions:

• How do we build the strongest possible team to achieve the policy objectives and values set forth during Mike’s campaign?

• How do we build public trust in the new administration?

• What do you view as the incoming administration and the city’s greatest challenge - what should we do first out of the gate?

Great City has a handy-dandy form online where you can submit your answers directly.

McGinn said at a CityClub panel in March (before officially announcing his candidacy for mayor) that he thinks the recession provides Seattle with a few years of breathing space, not only to prepare for the next wave of growth, but to make sure the city remains a place people want to live.

“The problem of people wanting to live here is a good one,” he said. “I think we’re smart enough to build smart places, we just need to do it.”

Forget it!

A national survey shows that people strongly favor the development of communities with lots of sidewalks. But ask voters — and especially motorists — to actually pay to make that happen, and you get a very different answer.

Such was the case in Burien where, earlier this month, residents voted on whether vehicle owners should pay an extra $25 car-tab fee to fund the construction of sidewalks and bike lanes. It was the first time a Washington city has voted on taxing cars to pay for such amenities, according to a Seattle Times article.

In a survey of 1,000 U.S. adults by the National Association of Realtors and Smart Growth America, more than 80 percent of respondents favored building more walkable communities. Based on these results, which were published in the January 2008 issue of Realtor magazine, you’d think that Burien voters would have delivered a slam-dunk win for the suburb’s bicyclists and pedestrians.

But you’d be wrong. A whopping 74 percent of voters rejected the proposition.

Members of the City Council could have OK’d a $20 fee without going to the voters, but asked for $25. “We need to know what our community wants to do,” Mayor Joan McGilton told the Times.

City Hall clearly found out.

Marc Stiles covers transportation for the DJC.

As of 11:50 p.m. election night, most Seattle and King County votes haven’t been counted yet.

But some people don’t know that, and are already proclaiming McGinn over Mallahan. Way too early, guys. Those were the ballots that arrived early. Historically, later ballots trend differently, often in ways hard to predict. Sometimes the later votes are younger or more liberal. In this case, McGinn’s switcharoo on the tunnel might have hurt him, at least according to polling. But the damage would only show for people who voted after the 20th, when his announcement made the papers (ballots have to be mailed out 18 days in advance).

Conversely, there are undoubtedly a lot of people who voted for McGinn specifically because he mellowed out on the tunnel, allowing them to make their vote about other issues, where he had some good ideas in areas like density, sustainability and transit. This might have helped him after the shock wore off. If he wins, I hope he’ll do exactly as he said on his central issue: be a good watchdog, but not get in the way of the tunnel.

Personally I think Mallahan has at least a 50 percent chance right now…purely based on public and newspaper Web site info. My guess is McGinn lost some true believers due to the tunnel switch, without gaining the same number to replace them. More results come out at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, according to the King County voter site.

Constantine vs. Hutchison is a wee bit more clear…she got trounced, currently by 14 points, worse than any poll. It’s an odd trend in this state, with votes frequently going significantly further left than polls suggested, with Rossi and McGavick being other examples. Theories will abound, like R-71 (drawing young voters more than conservatives perhaps?), cell phones (hard to poll and not properly accounted for by pollsters), late ads, etc. Also, the left has a volunteer advantage that helps get voters to vote. Hutchison’s idea of not talking about major aspects of her political beliefs didn’t appear to work, as we voters tend to care about our politicians’ political beliefs. Looking forward, this race has implications for many urban issues, such as Constantine’s greater support for saving bus service and building light rail.

Miraculously, voters seem to be figuring out Tim Eyman. Initiative 1033, designed to employ Tim Eyman, while also gutting state and local government services long-term and hopefully engendering political maneuvering that would continue to employ Tim Eyman, is down almost 11 points right now. At minimum, voters seem to be looking past the apple-pie ballot titles and thinking twice, perhaps remembering past initiatives. Eyman’s initiatives tend to poll well early but tail off as people learn more, and lately they’ve been tailing off into “landslide loss” territory.

And how about the housing levy currently winning by 17 points? Seattle’s housing programs are one of the great prides of this city. Aided by these levies, the Seattle Housing Authority and Seattle’s array of outstanding non-profits build and maintain significant amounts of housing, and manage to improve neighborhoods in the process through attractive, long-life design and construction.