The Contrast In This Race
If you haven’t been following my race closely, you may not know the stark contrasts between me and my opponent. I’ll help fill you in below but in sum, my opponent, Dionne Foster, will make Seattle less affordable and erode our quality of life.
Who’s Dionne Foster?
Dionne was recruited to run against me by UFCW and SEIU, two unions (1) that want me out of office for raising concern about their campaigns to regulate the gig economy so heavily that the cost of home deliveries sharply increased. The law passed by the old Council resulted in lower demand which drastically reduced drivers’ income and small businesses’ revenue. Of her professional experience, Dionne boasts of creating the state capital gains tax (2) while Director of Washington Progress Alliance and serving as a “policy advisor” (3) for the City of Seattle.
What’s her platform?
Unknown. My opponent makes a lot of sound-bite promises but has no specific policy plans. In fact, she hasn’t articulated what she’d do on our major challenges that’s any different from or better than what we’re already doing. She has, however, stated her opposition to many of my efforts and policy positions. For example:
Given our housing crisis, I took on business-as-usual politics to bring workforce housing to the Stadium District. My opponent would have opposed.
I’ve launched a major new initiative on drug treatment and recovery services. My opponent has no plan to address the fentanyl crisis.
I pushed hiring bonuses through a majority-defund Council to build back SPD staffing levels. My opponent would have opposed.
Council provided legislative tools to disrupt open air drug and sex trafficking markets. My opponent would have opposed.
I support keeping our parks clean, safe, and accessible. My opponent will not remove encampments from parks.
That’s the contrast in this race. And that’s why the Seattle Times Editorial Board says in their endorsement of me: “Foster too easily fits the mold of a Seattle council member circa 2020 — a return to an era voters ought to want to avoid.”
We’ve been there before — let’s not go back!
UFCW and SEIU are the bread-and-butter clients of Dionne’s campaign consultant, Christian Sinderman, who was written up in two Seattle Times articles for conflict-of-interest (see here and here). Sinderman is in all the rooms because he gets contracts for strategic advising and running ballot measures like the Transportation Levy. He’s also currently the campaign consultant for Bruce Harrell, Alexis Mercedes Rinck, Erika Evans, and Adonis Duckworth – in case you were wondering why their endorsements of each other as featured on mailers sound so gushingly similar in syntax and tone.
Conversations with Olympia insiders and exhaustive internet searches revealed no evidence of her providing any testimony at bill hearings and there is no reference to her involvement in the public record.
She’s probably borrowing from the official designation of “strategic advisor” which applies to the majority of middle management positions across city departments. Our research indicated no contributions of high-level strategic advice.