Wright, Thompson, Phillips, Resha headed for victories in Lake Forest Park council races
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
By Evan Smith
Incumbent Lake Forest Park City Councilman John Wright and newcomers Hilda Thompson, Mark Phillips and John Resha were headed for victories in the Tuesday election for LFP council positions.
Thompson led opponent Jason Colberg 61.38 percent to 38.63 percent with at least half of expected King County votes counted Wednesday night.
Phillips led opponent Edgar Escandar 71.93 percent to 27.99 percent, and Resha led former Councilman Alan Kiest 59.20 percent to 40.64 percent.
Wright, who ran unopposed, took nearly 98 percent of the vote.
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10 comments:
Are congratulations in order? Clearly the slate-Democrats in this line-up (Phillips, Resha and Thompson) and their consultants didn't mind making a non-partisan race a partisan race. I am holding off on my assessment of this being good for Lake Forest Park until I see some positive results on their part.
~ Jason Colberg
2013 Lake Forest Park City Council candidate
Mr. Colberg, your continued aggressive paranoid ravings to no one in particular are undignified and at the risk of sounding unkind are frankly representative of the reason most voters by a wide margin considered you a less worthy candidate than your opponent.
Anonymous (3:56pm):
Now that I have someone specific to address (???), it certainly looks like my observation is accurate. Maybe you are not aware of how news reports and blogs work? It's pretty simple. News is reported. People can respond. That is what I have done here with a pretty clear assessment of the results of this election. You are the one presenting yourself as undignified and aggressive. Your statement is a negative attack on me. Your assessment of the results of this race are that I am aggressive and paranoid, that the general public made this same observation and they deemed this as the reason that my opponent was a better candidate. I really doubt that. Good try though.
~ Jason
Christ on a cracker Jason!
Grow up. Instead of admitting you failed to sway voters with your message (as thin as it was) and pledging to do what you can to be a fellow steward to your city, you come here to have a pit party.
The better candidate (whether you agree or not) won this election. She had a message and style that clearly resonated with the voters in LFP. It had far less to do with politics or the general grumpiness that GovWatch puts out. It had far more to do that she had the message edge on you. And with that, she won.
Go. Learn from your mistake. Become a positive influence in LFP. Be an adult of character.
Anonymous (8:22am):
I love this. Blind attacks from people not willing to associate their names with their statements. That is the first thing lacking character.
In the meantime, please provide even a scant detail of the message my opponent brought to the table. Was it the sidewalk-thingy? Admittedly, she did have Federal money to spend on that - the sidewalk that is going to go from my house to Brookside Elementary. What about sidewalks for the remainder of the city? Probably not in the remainder of what will be her really long life-time. It certainly sounds good though. Who doesn't want sidewalks? Well, actually the one going from my house to Brookside isn't really a necessity. Sure the section of trail just north of Brookside. That could use improvement. But, not all the way up to 33rd. And to pay $1.4 million dollars??? Excuse me.
Maybe it wasn't the sidewalks??? Maybe her message was more about splitting our community in to groups. She could represent the fresh, I mean young like she originally communicated. Or, as she changed her message she could represent women. What about just representing everyone in the community?
There is more that she communicated, but not much. Certainly not much of substance, or based on experience. Her whole campaign is what I said it was, based on presenting her ill-received endorsements and running creating a partisan race.
My original comment was meant to be a response to a news report with my name included. I do know the details of what happened. It is important for our community to know the same. Your efforts are just to distract and deter.
~ Jason
Jason, you seem focused on what you perceive as undeserved positive qualities of your opponent. I suggest you consider the notion that she has shortcomings but all she needed was to get more votes than you, and you were your own worst enemy as it pertains to giving undecided voters reasons to favor you.
For example, by heavily aligning yourself and continuing to advocate for GovWatch you have pigeonholed yourself into acceptance of a broad agenda. It's quite possible that LFP voters prefer someone who can thoughtfully consider all topics individually on their own merits, not a person who would run everything through the GovWatch filter in meat-axe fashion. Food for thought.
I was not a proponent of your opponent and will maintain a wait-and-see attitude toward her. In the meantime, I imagine you may continue these passive-aggressive, sarcastic commentaries about others and act like YOU are being "personally attacked" when others suggest your utterances contain hooey. LFP does not need on City Council GovWatch sycophants who seem eager to butt heads with everyone. If you had more experience with the history of LFP politics, an accusation you ironically lay at the feet of your opponent, you would see this is true.
Oh, and one more thing, Jason...clearly the only thing you know about the proposed NE 178th Street project is that it's near your house, then with a wave of your hand you dismiss as a waste of money this important project that residents have long sought and for which the City has secured considerable state and federal funding. Since you're such a man of the people and all, why don't you attend a Brookside PTA meeting and tell that group that sidewalks on NE 178th Street are a bad idea?
The more you shoot off your mouth the more lucky I feel that LFP dodged a bullet by your failed candidacy, the extreme inaccuracy of said bullet notwithstanding.
Anonymous 4:17/5:18:
I would be more than glad to address the Brookside PTA re: the 178th street sidewalk. Our boys walk that way regularly. They are perfectly safe. I like the fact that there is road along the ravine as opposed to sidewalk. It is part of the character of that stretch of street. As I said before, adding sidewalk to the stretch of worn trail just north of Brookside itself could be good. It is just not needed from there up to 33rd.
One of the reasons we moved from the 184th street Forest Spring cul-de-sac to our current home was to make it easier for our children to get to the Towne Center. I am intimately familiar with this whole area. I do see how making that whole stretch safer for children, walkers, runners, bikers and families should be considered. That is not what is being discussed. I have never been opposed to raising taxes for specific reasons. If doing such for the specific purpose of creating a corridor from the upper Forest Spring/CedarBrook fringe to the Towne Center was wanted by the residents of the area and could feasibly be implemented, I would be supportive of some sort of tax increase targeted for this purpose. Again, that is not what is being discussed. My opponent was not talking about this as a part of her message. She never presented any dialogue I heard about specific sidewalk or corridor plans AND how to fund them. She was just generalizing, and that is not sufficient.
You and Anonymous 8:22 also seem to find it necessary to demonize GOVWatch using terms like grumpy, old and sychophant to express your associations. GOVWatch has been a boon to Lake Forest Park and, yes, I am proud to have received their endorsement. It is the only endorsement that serves as some measure of support from ALL residents of Lake Forest Park who are interested in responsible governance. You have stated that GOVWatch has a broad agenda. I don't know that GOVWatch has a broad agenda. Their specific goal is to ensure that we have effective/efficient city governance and that residents are included in the decision making process. While that is open-ended in nature and they are not defining how the goal is achieved, it is still a fairly focused goal. And the better part of GOVWatch is that the group has successfully achieved this goal via defeat of Prop 1 (the largest property tax slush fund proposal in LFP history) and promoting government transparency. If you had been to any of the recent city council meetings you may have observed that city council candidates are now vying for "the most transparent" award. This is a great thing for the city of Lake Forest Park and the change in the environment because of the success and continued presence of GOVWatch is something that should be celebrated not demonized. ~ Jason
Jason, if you characterize recent results as exhibiting the "success and continued presence of GovWatch" then you are clearly out of touch with reality. But gosh darnit, your mind is made up, right?
You continue to point out flaws in your opponent's campaign and message, then wring your hands as if YOUR message was better but people couldn't see this somehow.
It's amusing to see you and your doppelganger Jon Friesch use pejorative terms to describe an informally organized group of likeminded folks who according to you were promoting a "slate" of candidates, as if this type of organization is only allowable for groups YOU favor like GovWatch. You come across as petulant and combative, qualities the general public do not like in politicians generally.
It may be you never intended to win but just wanted to rant about stuff. You wouldn't be the first person to do that.
Lastly, GovWatch DOES have a specific agenda. Perhaps someone can dig up the GovWatch mailers from the previous campaign for you to review. After all, it looks like you're finally getting interested in this whole politics thing. Better late than never, maybe.
Perhaps you can prove your point yourself.
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