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Posts published in “Day: May 19, 2007”

First in and self-propelled

May 19, 2007
Sue Madsen

Sue Lani Madsen

Via the Olympia dispatch by the Tri-City Herald's Chris Mulick, word about a prospective 2008 legislator who enters the field with three assets.

The entry is occasioned by the pending retirement of Representative Bob Sump, R-Republic, a nearly unbeatable (61.2% last year, 64.1% before that, in a solidly Republican district) six-termer who has said he will opt out next year.

Sue Lani Madsen ran for the other House seat in District 7 in 2004, finishing last in a three-way primary (the winner being Joel Kretz, R-Wauconda). She pulled 25.8% of the vote, and won just one of the district's six counties (Lincoln).

On the other hand. Sump's will be an open seat (Kretz was an incumbent). Madsen is getting in very early - hardly anyone has announced regionally for a legislative seat this early, more than a year before the region's first primary election anywhere. She now has some name ID and some campaign experience.

Her entry becomes an irresistible mention here, though, for what ought to be her campaign slogan. Madsen is an architect by profession but also has ownership in an Edwall company that controls weeds and other unwanted plants using goats and sheep. The web site for Healing Hooves LCC calls its service "Self-propelled weed control with an attitude."

If we've heard a better slogan for a legislative candidate in a district like this, we can't recall it.

Annexation and the alternative

May 19, 2007

You find some thought-provoking stuff in the comment sections. In this case, Sound Politics blogger Jim Miller gives a shout-out to a just-discovered local newspaper, the Eastside Sun, which appears to focus on the Kirkland area.

That drew an appreciative comment from John Gilday, the editor, who added: "We believe Kirkland is a GREAT little community that should seek to stay both, great and little. There's no reason we need to annex everything around us and become the 7th largest city in the state. There's no reason the Kirkland City planners should operate with no oversight and total impunity, stealing in the form of 'fines' and have neither checks nor balances. There's no reason Kirkland Police should break laws to help their friends."

Hmm. He picked up some support from near-Kirkland resident Piper Scott St. Clair, who added a further list of horribles about the city and its management: Fearing annexation, "So far, I fear for my life, liberty, and property!"

However, form Deb Eddy, there was also this: "Oh, dear. I haven't read the Eastside Sun, and I will. But Gilday's post, alleging that there's "no reason we need to annex everything around us" can't stand unchallenged. King County presently assesses taxes, county-wide, which end up not in regional services that benefit us all (courts, public health, etc.), but end up providing local services to unincorporated areas like those needing annexed to cities like Kirkland. Please read the Growth Management Act and the King County County-wide Planning Policies, plus various reports on the Urban Subsidy (there are real dollars involved here) before weighing in on annexation issues. No, it isn't easy to understand, but if you want government to be efficient and to spend dollars effectively, you have to do some real economic study."