Based entirely on my perception of the applause level, Campos would have won a straw vote easily. Which suggests that he’s got the upper hand with the tenant vote – and if there’s a ballot measure in November (something like an anti-speculation tax, which would have real estate industry up in arms and drive a huge tenant turnout), the Campos campaign will have a chance to work with what could be a big winner – and could send votes his way.
Chiu, on the other hand, avoided what would have been a serious setback Saturday when the local Democratic Party narrowly decided not to endorse anyone in the primary. Campos was close to the almost unreachable 70 percent threshold, but when his team realized they were still a couple of votes shy, they went for the “no endorsement” option.
I’m told by usually reliable sources that the Mayor’s Office was making calls in support of Chiu.
To the surprise of almost nobody, Tony Kelly has told the Potrero View that he’s going to run against Sup. Malia Cohen in District 10. Kelly had more first-place votes than Cohen in 2010, but Cohen emerged as the winner through ranked-choice voting in a race with 21 candidates.
This time around, it’s likely Kelly will be either the only serious challenger or one of just two or three, making the dynamics of the race a lot different. And the district lines have changed.
The 2010 race was something of a free-for-all scrum, with endorsements all over the map and no clear front-runner. Kelly v. Cohen would be in part a referendum on the incumbent and in part a vote on whether residents are happy with the direction the city, and their neighborhoods, are going. At this point, if Kelly can raise money, it will be a close election.
Cohen knows that, and knows that progressive support will matter: Despite the fact that the majority of the district is homeowners, she made a point of showing up at the tenant convention.
Seattle not only won a Super Bowl title that was rightfully ours – the folks up North are catching up (sorta) to our Google Bus-type protests. The main target is Microsoft, but the Stranger reports a blocked streetcar to denounce Amazon’s connections with the CIA. Go team.
And since we’re all talking about housing costs, there’s a place in the world (and not some crazy commie paradise) where housing prices are supposed to come DOWN on a regular basis. A healthy housing market in Germany is one where people can afford the rent. And no less a Capitalist Tool than Forbes thinks this is a good thing:
Although conventional wisdom in the English-speaking world holds that bureaucratic intervention in prices makes for subpar outcomes, the fact is that the German economy is by any standards one of the world’s most successful.
The German government strictly controls both rents and purchase prices – along with making sure the supply meets the demand. So when market lovers tell us that we just need to build more and more until the prices come down, share the story of what Forbes calls “The World’s Best-Run Economy,” where more construction is only part of the solution. Fierce government intervention is the other half of the equation – and it works.
