Seattle voters will certainly get their fair share of change no matter whom they vote for in the November general election — even if it’s mayoral incumbent Mike McGinn, whose first term has been defined by the word “change.”
Results as of last Friday, Aug. 9, show Suzanne Dale Estey with 9,337 votes (47.18 percent) to Sue Peters’ 8,390 votes (42.4 percent) — fewer than 950 votes separate them — for the Seattle School Board District 4 seat being vacated by Michael DeBell. The position covers Queen Anne, Magnolia and part of Ballard.
Sen. Ed Murray led the mayoral race, with 41,175 votes (29.92 percent), over McGinn’s 39,060 votes (28.39 percent) — a difference of more than 2,100 votes.
All four propose change for Seattle — whether it’s Dale Estey’s public-policy or Peters’ public-education-advocacy takes on the school board, McGinn’s uniting of formerly fringe communities under his progressive umbrella or Murray’s liberal, macro experience being brought to a micro level.
In the school-board race, Dale Estey is focusing on increasing state funding and ensuring that students are heading to school ready to learn and retain 21st-century skills; Peters wants to connect the district more with the community and move resources from testing to classroom curriculum.
The respective mayoral candidates are focusing on “change.” McGinn intends to continue to mainstream the “outsider” groups like the environmentalists and social-justice advocates and bring their issues to the front. Murray says he will eliminate the divisiveness McGinn caused with his first-term stances, as well as install new leadership in the Seattle Police Department, which McGinn has yet to address after the Department of Justice investigation.
The two close, hard-fought and well-funded races have similar views on what they hope to accomplish with their wins. But it will be the wider city vote on Nov. 5 — with hundreds of thousands more votes expected to be cast than the recent lackluster summer primary — that will determine whose approach the city will take toward education and the larger city issues.
As McGinn told The Seattle Times — and it can be applied to all four candidates — “You know where I stand; you know who I stand with. Now we’re going into the general election, and the question will be, ‘What does the city stand for?’”
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