Absentee ballots for the April 28th special King County election — what? You didn’t know there was one? — started arriving this week.
But that election has only one issue for Seattle residents: Replacing police and fire radios that date back to the 1990s.
(The total is $246 million. Estimated cost is $2 monthly for the median homeowner. The levy lasts nine years. Today’s Seattle Times editorial in support is here. The only opponents appear to be rural folks worried about levy lids. Why it takes a special property tax levy to buy emergency radios is … complicated. But it’s worth noting the radio system spans 39 cities plus the county and lets their first responders talk to one another.)
The election of major interest comes this fall, when Seattle City Council members will be elected by districts. The filing deadline for that contest is May 15.
Since we last wrote about the Fifth Council District, which includes almost all of Maple Leaf, one additional candidate has filed – Debadutta Dash. The latest filings are here.
That election is generating mounting interest. Mian Rice (son of former mayor Norm Rice) stopped by Maple Leaf Life South recently while out doorbelling. A supporter of Sandy Brown (“transit investment and sidewalks”) showed up with fliers last week. And David Toledo commented on our previous post, introducing himself (sidewalks!).
I don’t think subscriber radios are the issue. An XTS 5000 isn’t terribly expensive. The issue lies more with the controllers which have much more complex issues than blown caps.
Also, at some point it’s more economical to replace than to repair.
Most radios work fine when they are 40 years old, I’m surprised they need replacing. Anyone can do basic electronics repair on them and replace the commonly failed stuff like capacitors.
Yes, the current system is made by Motorola.
According to this page the current system was implemented some time after 1992. I think it’s reasonable that Motorola doesn’t want to support a system that is 23 years old. Also, just because it’s not vendor supported doesn’t mean it will catastrophically fail.
I’m less than thrilled that we’ve chosen Motorolla to be the vendor for the aged system we have to replace because our current no good vendor won’t support the equipment. What’s that? our current vendor IS motorolla?
Our campaign manager, Alyson, was happy to stop by your house, Maple Leaf Life! With both Sandy and our volunteers we’ve now surpassed the 3000 doors canvassed milestone — not to mention the 300 businesses in D5 we’ve stopped by. That’s hundreds and hundreds of conversations about our top priorities of public safety, transportation and livability. Please check out recent news at: https://sandy4seattle.wordpress.com/2015/04/12/sandy-brown-for-city-council-campaign-tops-3000-door-milestone/
I note only one item on this ballot. If by saving millions of dollars by going to a vote by mail system, why are they putting only one item on this ballot? Can it not wait until a full slate of election items are accumulated? How much does putting out a single item ballot cost? Seems a shameful squandering of money.
MLL: It’s a countywide ballot. A number of other cities have measures on it within their jurisdictions.
The ballots that are arriving in the mail are not ‘Absentee’ ballots. Washington State has used VOTE BY MAIL since October 2007.
It has saved the state over 2 million dollars.
It should be done all over the USA primarily due to fact that you can’t tell the race of the voter via an envelope in the mail and it would help those who are being hassled at precincts to vote.
(AND you don’t have to take time off work, lose a days pay waiting in line for 7 hours to vote!)
I am broke. Sorry, at least one of us should live within our means.
Thats only 2 dollars a month median but how many 2 dollars can we be expected to carry with the waste that goes on with those tasked with it. Bertha is still stuck and they constantly are asking for more and more money to waste.
Its only tax dollars.