Note to future candidates: Cindi Laws, the campaign manager for mayoral wannabe James Donaldson and City Attorney Tom Carr… I think she may be crazy.
But then, all us Jews do stick together, so don’t listen to me.
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Cindi Laws and Cleve Stockmeyer, the two elected members of the Monorail Board, single handedly (or double-handedly) drove the Monorail project into the ground with a unique head-in-the-sand approach to dealing with adversity.
Actually, Laws wasn’t just reality-adverse…she pointed her finger at everybody else when the project tanked. Which seems to be a trend.
Why anybody would hire this woman to manage their campaign is beyond me. She must be the Consultant of Last Resort. As in, when no other consultant will take on your long-shot campaign, Cindi is there to scrounge up your business.
Tom Carr obviously hired her out of pity. He was a key member of the Monorail Cult, afterall. Will in Seattle can tell you all about those guys….
Crazy? Probably not.
Did you catch this on Laws? http://publicola.net/?p=9371
Carr’s strategy seems fairly simple: by whatever means possible, try and keep attention focused on Pete Holmes, who is a real threat, so that the debate doesn’t turn to substantive issues where the truth will hurt.
In that case, Laws is a perfect choice by Tom.
how many times has cindi been the lead in stories about her candidates? i thought the idea of being a campaign manager was to get your candidate good press, not bad press for yourself.
but what do i know????
I ran for monorail board in 2003. Everyone knew then there was a 30% revenue shortfall. It was the talk of the town. Everyone looked to the ST struggles and asked in 2003: (a) are you in favor of moving forward anyway; (b) what if there isn’t enough money? and (c) if there isn’t enough, will you build a shorter segment without voter approval? My answers were: (a) yes, move forward till we get a contract and a finance plan to evaluate; (b) if it’s not financeable, we must not build it; and (c) No, I would NOT build a shorter segment without voter approval — but I would work to bring the shorter plan or revised plan back to voters for approval.
That’s what I did. The voters rejected the shorter line in 2005, and it was not built.
Now, four years later, we are facing a proposed autos oriented megaproject for the same corridor. The same folks who had finance concerns about the green line, are okay with building a two mile tunnel for autos at a higher cost and without any finance plan. Indeed, the legislation for it says any overruns are on the backs of city residents alone!
I’d like to see a new discussion that looks forward & centers on a plan to finally hook up that West Seattle and Ballard coridor and link it to light rail. Metro’s being cut, climate change concerns are at the fore, we’re lacking in dollars, and the plan is to have no plan for rapid transit in this corridor? The plan is to build an autos only tunnel with no exits downtown and not even a bus stop in it? That’s irresponsible.
Whether we link this corridor with light rail, skytrain, monorail, gondolas, bus rapid ride that really works (current proposals are delayed!), or insisting any tunnel have a rail line — the discussion has to begin again, now. We need a full rapid transit system covering all of the city. How are we going to hok up the half the city that would have been served by the green line? How do we get the financing? Can we afford an autos only tunnel and take the burden of all overruns at the same time, or does that preclude EVER hooking up West Seattle and Ballard to our light rail lines?
Btw in curent races I support Pete Holmes and Mike McGinn.