Wednesday, February 02, 2022

The Political Desk: Quick Shot Edition

 Wait, its not November! Why are you talking politics? I cry shenanigans! 

Nope, that's the way things go. New ballots have shown up at Grubb Street, and they may or may not be at your address as well in King County. If it has shown up, it is most likely a ballot with one thing on it.

For us, that single thing is the most localized of local elections - School Funding. Yep, boring, exhausting, eat-you-vegetables school funding. For our locality the measure is Kent School District No. 415 Proposition No. 1 Replacement of Expiring Educations Programs and Operations Levy. Yeah, try saying that in one breath. It puts a rate of a buck-eighty-eight per thousand dollars of assessment for 2023, and $1.86 for 2024. There is no raise in the rates here - it is just a replacement for funding that will help fund the schools.

And, to no one's surprise, I say YES on the matter. Check your local listings for your own neighborhood's funding. Deadline date for getting in the ballots is 8 February.

But wait, there' more. There is an entire OTHER election that you don't know about. The King County Conservation District is filling a position, and because of the way these elections are set up, does not share the regular ballot operation. But you can vote electronically, so go HERE to get a ballot. The candidate statements are here. The Stranger leaves its urban bubble to comment on it here. The candidates all seem like rational, reasonable human beings with concerns about our wild spaces, I recommend the incumbent, Kirstin Haugen, based on record and her attempts to actually get people to vote on this. But that's just me.

One last thing. Our state legislature is a part-time job, and is currently in session. There are matters great and small snaking their way through committees and approvals and, hopefully, votes. Here is a list, and their status. 

Even though the state legislature works of a short schedule, politics (and elections) is a full-time thing. 

More later,