Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jay Inslee talks with Burien Mayor Joan McGilton Tuesday before his walking tour through B-Town Tuesday, Sept. 27th.

Story, Photos & Audio by Scott Schaefer

Even though the Washington State gubernatorial election is more than a year away, Democratic candidate Jay Inslee dropped in to Burien on Tuesday (Sept. 27), and somehow his handlers decided to invite me to participate in a ‘walk and talk’ around town with him and several others.

If you saw a group of nine people walking along SW 152nd Street, starting at City Hall then moving west, all gathered around a tall man who looked like a candidate, that was us – this Reporter, Mayor Joan McGilton, Deputy Mayor Brian Bennett, Mauricio Ayon from Para Los Niños, Gina Bourdage of Discover Burien (who put the entire tour together), two of Jay’s handlers and another reporter.

Inslee, who grew up nearby on 116th SW in what used to be White Center but is now part of Burien’s most-recently annexed area, is a fifth-generation native Washingtonian. He even painted houses in the Burien area with his Father, Frank Inslee, a teacher and coach at Seattle’s Franklin High School. Jay raised his family in Yakima, and currently lives on Bainbridge Island.

He is currently a congressman for the 1st District (which does not include the Burien area, currently in the 7th District), and is running for Washington State Governor in 2012.

I recorded audio of our walk & talk, and have broken it down into several edited segments below.

Questions asked include:

• As we passed a mostly-empty Burien Town Square development, I asked Jay “How can we bring back the housing market?”
• At the new Electric Train Shop, Jay talked to owner Scott Law. He also bought a train toy for a grandson, as well as a Union Pacific logo hat. He asked Scott what he could do as governor to help small businesses.
• At Carniceria Zacatecas, Jay spoke with Owner Maria Vidrio.
• 909 Coffee and Wine was our final stop, where we all sat down and had some great coffee and pastries. Jay spoke with Owner Kelly Ricci about “how to bring more private enterprise efficiency to government.”
• And finally, I asked Jay who his role models were…

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And finally, as we sat at 909, Mayor McGilton spontaneously offered her endorsement of Inslee.

Here are photos of the campaign stop as shot by Scott Schaefer:

Inlsee was all smiles once he entered new B-Town biz Electric Train Shop.

Electric Train Shop owner Scott Law talks trains, both models and 'big ones' with Inslee.

Mauricio Ayon, left, walks and talks with Inslee in downtown Burien Tuesday.

Maria Vidrio, owner of Carniceria Zacetecas, talks with Inslee about the economy.

909 employees Emily and Stephanie talk with Inslee.

by Jack Mayne

A first-time candidate from a family with a well-known political name, Mike Heavey, 30, lives on Alki in West Seattle where he grew up.

“I think a lot of people thought I would spend all my time invoking my family name, but I haven’t,” he says, but his mannerisms and the way he cautiously answers questions shows his political upbringing.

Heavey is running for state representative in open position 2 of the 34th district to replace Rep. Sharon Nelson, who is unopposed for the district’s state Senate seat.

He comes from a political family. His father represented parts of the area in the Washington Legislature for 14 years, and now is a King County Superior Court Judge. Earlier, his great uncle represented Burien in the Legislature and was also named a King County Superior Court judge, and is now retired.

The younger Heavey attended college in Alabama, then returned to the state. He worked in fraud detection at a private company, and currently is director of outreach for the King County Council, focusing on public safety, crime and youth violence.

He says he decided he wanted to “make the place I grew up in better” by running for state legislative seat.

But why now when the Legislature is facing such a forbidding task during the financial crisis?

“Now, more than ever, we need people who are smart and motivated to do this – folks like myself who have the experience and the skill sets necessary,” Heavey says. “We do have to cut lots to balance the budget, we can’t float debt (like Congress can do).

“What has been missing in Olympia has been share sacrifice, that we are all in this together. We have to expect that the state, like families, have to cut their budget. It is going to be tough, but it is something we have to do.”

What about the unpopularity of cutting the budget, where one person’s waste or over expenditure is another person’s perceived necessity?

“In this district we need to cut, but cut in a way that is consistent to our values. There are certain values that are inherent to Seattle and King County. Fundamentally, I believe that society is judged on the way we treat our most vulnerable, from people who are incarcerated to people on general assistance, (those) who are mentally ill or in the child welfare system and the education system.”

Mike Heavey

Heavey says those are areas where people here draw the line on serious cutting.

“When it comes to transportation or the environment, I think people realize if we don’t have the money for that we shouldn’t be kicking people off their medication to finance those things,” he says.

Environment and transportation should be cut to ensure we have money for social services, he stressed.

While he said he was not proposing a tax increase, he says he is not uncomfortable with “short-term levies” on such items as bottled water and candy. The extension of the sales tax to items ruled to be soda pop and candy is of “short duration” and could be repealed by an initiative on the Nov. 2 ballot.

“We now have an opportunity to redefine government and find out what our opportunities and best practices are,” he says. “I am going to be going (to Olympia) to find the best way to engage our (state) employees and for what is best for our state.

“Talking about this idea of shared sacrifice, certain groups are expecting raises and cost of living adjustments. Part of shared sacrifice is to say, ‘Look, no on else is getting raises so it is time for you to chip in your share’,” he says. He wants to accomplish the same sort of compromises that Executive Dow Constantine has been able to negotiate with county employees.

“I don’t want to see people lose their jobs,” but for them to have more reasonable expectations on the amounts they are paid.

A major push for Heavey would be to reform the state’s initiative process.

“The system of voter initiated laws is very popular in this state, (intended) to keep the fat cats in Olympia under check,” he says. “But the system we have today is grossly perverted from what the framers of our constitution set up. Essentially now, if you have $2 million or $3 million, you can get whatever you want on the ballot.”

He notes the filing fee for an initiative is $5 and he says people like initiative promoter Tim Eyman file “30 initiatives and the research on these is on the state’s dime” so the best one is finally submitted to the ballot for voters to decide upon. Heavey would increase the filing fee, maybe as high at the $421 he had to pay to run for the Legislature.

He also would have the system more transparent. Currently there is no penalty assigned to those who collect bogus signatures, he says, and he would have a fine for “knowingly submitting forged signatures.” He would also require registration of companies who hire paid signature gatherers so “we can find them to collect fines” for falsifications.

“Those are some the ways we can strengthen the initiative process.”

In addition, he says he supports no requirement that signatures be kept private.

“Signing a petition is using freedom of speech and there is nothing that says if it is controversial, that it should be anonymous,” Heavey said. “You have the right to have the freedom to say anything you want but not to keep it secret.”

On education, he says he agrees with a judge that ruled the Legislature was not fulfilling its constitutional mandate to fully support public schools.

“But it is not just about funding, it is also about the expectation of excellence which we do not have now,” Heavey says. We should align “what it takes to get out of high school with what it takes to get into college” or to get a job.

He says the public should be expecting more from teachers and administrators.

“We haven’t had the courage to raise the bar in 25 years.”

The big thing is to get the best teachers into the classrooms, he says, and one way is to pay the good teachers better than the average teachers.

“I want to be able to take the best teachers (from wherever) and get them to come to Washington and be paid more than other teachers,” he says. “We can’t do that now.”

He quickly adds that 98 percent of teachers “are amazing” but we need to get rid of that 2 percent that are not and we have to “stop shuffling them around.”

Heavey calls Initiative 1053 “a tyranny of the minority.” The initiative on the Nov. 2 ballot would require all tax increases be passed by a two-thirds majority of each house of the Legislature. Such a measure has passed twice before by the people, but later set aside by the Legislature by a simple majority vote, permitted when an initiative is two years old.

“If the Legislature wanted to, say, increase the charge of 911 calls, 17 senators could block it,” he says. “I would be for it if it took two-thirds of the people voting on it to pass it as a law. To have a simple majority invoke a super-majority just doesn’t work for me.”

Some have said that Heavey’s opponent is too young and lacks experience, but the two are only six years apart in age, and both have packed a lot of experience in a short working life.

by Jack Mayne

Joe Fitzgibbon’s statement in the state voter’s pamphlet says that he “will bring a fresh perspective and a strong voice to change Olympia.”

That sounds like a big ambition for a 24-year old with limited real-world experience, and some say he hasn’t enough experience to be in the Legislature. But he does have some interesting experience, including being a member and chair of the Burien City Planning Commission, and working in county government and the Legislature for Rep. Sharon Nelson, who is creating the vacancy by moving from state representative to state senator in the 34th district.

“We have a Legislature that has not always taken a long-term view of the problems faced by our state and we will be dealing with those consequences for a long period to come. I’d like to go down there (to Olympia) to deal with these problems in a long-term way. That includes our transportation problems and not jus delaying and delaying until there is a crisis mode like the South Park bridge,” he says, adding that his view of the Legislature up close (on Nelson’s staff) that views of problems in Puget Sound are not taken “very seriously”.

Fitzgibbon also says the Legislature should have a diversity reflective of the make-up of the state, noting there are not very many “young voices” in its makeup. He says he would bring a voice for “younger folk” to the table.

He suggests he wants to help get a dialogue going amongst members of the Legislature. Something he says surprised him in Olympia was that legislators on both sides of the aisle often were “dismissing out of hand any idea that came from the other side – there is ‘no way I would vote for that because the sponsor is a Republican,’ or a Democrat.”

“That is not the perspective I will be starting from,” he says. “I think we should not be asking if we can get political advantage from something, but is it good for the state.”

He suggests he can say both sides should be heard from in order find solutions.

When he worked for Nelson in the last session, Fitzgibbon says she worked with legislators from Pend Oreille County over mitigation paid for a dam there, owned by the City of Seattle. “Legislators from very different perspectives came together “and got something accomplished.”

That, says Fitzgibbon, is the kind of thing he would do to solve difficult state problems.

He says he supports, in general, the tunnel to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct but worries about the lack of access from the Viaduct to downtown Seattle.

“I have real concerns about what that will mean for people from Burien and West Seattle to get into downtown,” Fitzgibbon says. “That is going to be one of my top priorities will be how are we going to maintain access to downtown from people in this region with the tunnel going forward.”

He says he would also vote to remove the present “ill-conceived” requirement that Seattle must pay any cost overruns that the tunnel construction may incur. Even if the requirement is no voted away by the Legislature, Fitzgibbon says it is unlikely to ever be enforced.

Joe Fitzgibbon and friends at his primary election victory party in August.

The candidate says he opposes Initiative 1053 on the ballot next week that would reestablish the requirement that any tax increase be passed by two-thirds vote of both houses of the Legislature. Fees can be increased with by a majority vote of the Legislature.

But if it passes, he says we “can still get things done,” probably by sending any transportation financing plan to a vote of the people whether 1053 passes or not.

“If the voters say no way, then that is what we have the initiative process for.”

He says there could be ways of decreasing incidents of fraud in the initiative process.

“The initiative process is an important check on government, but I think we can have better rules.”

On transportation, Fitzgibbon says he would support legislation keeping gas tax monies in the area from which it is collected. He adds that the Legislature can give local governments more financial tools so that badly deteriorated roads in city and county areas can be better repaired and maintained.

One project that needs attention is completion of the interchange between Highway 518 and Memorial Drive.

“That is a long-standing project that the City of Burien has been interested in for a number of years and would really open up redevelopment of northeastern Burien where auto dealers are relocating,” Fitzgibbon says. “That is a huge opportunity for generating economic activity” and even though it is in the 11th district, he says it is important for his constituents.

Because the governor cut equal amounts from all state agencies, that can cause more to need to be spent later, and he says his focus would be to find ways to get people back to work and getting them off more expensive programs. He is worried that cuts now made or to be made will do long-term damage to the state.

He is not happy about it, but the Legislature is likely to be looking at areas where there are no mandate preventing cuts. One area would be voter approved increases in teacher salaries and even class size reduction programs, not protected as mandated basic education programs is, he says.

Fitzgibbon would look to perhaps cutting “large costs associated with pensions for retired state employees” who “game the pension system to earn more than the system was intended to pay.” For example, he notes that some have retired, gotten their pensions, than have gone back to work, sometimes doing the same job as before they retired.

“I would be looking at that area for cuts,” he says.

If the income tax on high earners is approved by voters (Initiative 1098), Fitzgibbon says he would not vote for any changes extending it to other income earners without referring it to the voters for approval.

REMINDER: The B-Town Blog is hosting our fourth Candidates Debate Tuesday, Oct. 12th, from 7pm – 8:10pm, featuring the two candidates running for the State House of Representatives, 34th District, Position 2 – Joe Fitzgibbon vs Mike Heavey.

Will each have a bone to pick with the other?

The seat is currently held by Sharon Nelson, who is running unopposed for the State Senate.

The 34th District covers West Seattle, White Center, Burien, and Maury and Vashon Islands.

This race represents one of the few times in recent history where a 34th District general election race for the State Legislature does not include an incumbent.

Fitzgibbon garnered about 500 more votes than did Heavey in the August primary, out of approx. 27,000 votes cast for the four candidates running at the time.

The event will be moderated by Dr. T.M. Sell, who teaches Political Science and Journalism at nearby Highline Community College. One of the panelists will be Susan Kelleher, Pulitzer Prize-winning Reporter for The Seattle Times.

The debate will be held at the ERAC, a Highline School District Building located at 15675 Ambaum Blvd SW, across from the Azteca Restaurant on Ambaum Blvd. in Burien.

This is the fourth Candidates Forum/Debate to be sponsored by The B-Town Blog this campaign season. Two of them, featuring candidates for the State House of Representatives and King County Council, were moderated by John Carlson of KOMO-AM and Dave Ross of KIRO-FM.

The debate format will consist of three Journalists asking questions for the first half or so with questions then coming from the public. There is no cover charge and anyone and everyone is welcome to attend.

Ballots start arriving in voters’ mailboxes later this week.

The state Supreme Court has lifted a stay of execution for Cal Coburn Brown, who was convicted of torturing and killing Holly Washa, 22, a Burien woman, in 1991.

He could be executed as early as September for Washa’s murder.

The court unanimously ruled Thursday (July 29) that Brown’s claims that the state’s execution process is unconstitutional was invalid because of a recent change made by the state Department of Corrections.

Brown carjacked Washa, then held her against her will for two days in a SeaTac motel, raping and torturing her before slashing her throat and leaving her body in the trunk of her car.

Brown was scheduled to be put down March 13th at the state Penitentiary at Walla Walla, but Washington State Supreme Court judges voted 5-4 to grant his 11th-hour appeal against the state’s lethal injection system.

If Brown’s execution happens, he will be the first King County prisoner put to death since 1993, with the state of Washington reinstated the death penalty.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE:

• Burien Woman’s Killer Granted Stay Of Execution
• Dead Man Walking Has A Bad Burien Connection

The wet weather didn’t put much a damper on the Father’s Day Car Show or the live entertainment. It surely made the chili cook-off a popular feature of this year’s event!

Photographer Michael Brunk was on location and put together this slideshow of images from the closing day of the festival.

Click to Play Michael Brunk’s Photo Slideshow

Congratulations Burien Little Theater!

Wayne Miller and Friends will relax you with great music while you sip wine and nibble on noshes. And if you want more than just a sample of wine, a full glass can be purchased for $5 cash.

The door opens at 5:30 with wine and snacks, and there’s music from 6 pm – 8 pm. You can get tickets in advance by visiting the winery at 127 SW 153rd, calling the winery at 206-242-3852, or on the Current Releases page of the website.

Day two is shaping up to be another wet one, but we’re braving the weather to staff the B-Town Booth here at the heart of the festival. If you visit to take in a little free entertainment or to browse through the Father’s Day car show today, be sure to swing by and say “Howdy!”

Photographer Michael Brunk is at the festival and put together this slideshow featuring some of the sights from Saturday.

Click to Play Michael Brunk’s Photo Slideshow

Rep. Dave Upthegrove will be holding “drop-in hours” at various area locations once a month through August, starting Tuesday, June 22nd in Burien.

Upthegrove, who serves the 33rd District and lives in Des Moines, is doing this so he can “meet informally with Highline-area constituents.”

“I’m always happy to meet one-on-one with people, and they can call my legislative office to make an appointment,” Upthegrove said in a statement. “But in addition, I wanted to give constituents from the Highline area a chance to simply drop by and talk to me about legislative issues and concerns.”

He’ll be available to meet on each fourth Tuesday during June (the 22nd), July (the 27th) and August (24th), and will hang out at the recently-opened Infusion Tea & Coffee Shop at 15607 First Ave South in Burien, from 1:30pm – 2:30pm.

Additional “drop-in” hours will be held June 14, July 12, and August 9 (second Tuesday of each month) at the following South King County locations and times:

• 11:00 a.m. to Noon
  Kent City Hall lobby
  220 4th Avenue South, Kent
• 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m.
  Highline Community College Student Union Building – second floor information table
  2400 S. 240th Street, Des Moines (at Pacific Highway South)

Appointments are not necessary, which will allow for area residents to just “drop-in” and speak with him.

Upthegrove notes that these “drop-in hours” are in addition to his standing offer to meet with constituents at a time and location of their convenience.

Here’s a press release with more details:

With the 2010 Legislative Session now concluded, Rep. Dave Upthegrove (D – Des Moines) has returned home to Des Moines and has set aside specific dates and times to meet informally with Highline-area constituents.

On each fourth Tuesday during June, July, and August (June 22, July 27, and August 24), Upthegrove will be available at the newly-opened Infusion Tea & Coffee shop at 15607 1st Avenue South in Burien (corner of 156th and 1st Avenue South) from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. This will enable people to meet with him without having to schedule an appointment in advance.

Upthegrove notes that these “drop-in hours” are in addition to his standing offer to meet with constituents at a time and location of their convenience.

“I’m always happy to meet one-on-one with people, and they can call my legislative office to make an appointment. But in addition, I wanted to give constituents from the Highline area a chance to simply drop by and talk to me about legislative issues and concerns,” Upthegrove said.

Additional “drop-in” hours will be held June 14, July 12, and August 9 (second Tuesday of each month) at the following South King County locations and times:

11:00 a.m. to Noon
Kent City Hall lobby
220 4th Avenue South, Kent

1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m.
Highline Community College Student Union Building – second floor information table
2400 S. 240th Street, Des Moines (at Pacific Highway South)