White Center Now: The blog about White Center

(Top, moderator Jerry Robison, during the forum, with Joe McDermott and Diana Toledo; bottom, Joe Fitzgibbon and Mike Heavey right before it began)
It’ll take some time to write the full report since the candidates’ forum presented by the North Highline Unincorporated Area Council tonight ran almost two and a half hours, but here’s a really quick summary: NHUAC’s Barbara Dobkin told your editor here (covering on behalf of both White Center Now and West Seattle Blog) afterward that they’re “thrilled” they drew such a huge turnout for the forum – the room at the Greenbridge YWCA Education Center was packed. NHUAC’s Pat Price gave a short introduction, and longtime community leader Jerry Robison moderated the forum expertly. A collection of pre-prepared questions – NHUAC had solicited e-mailed inquiries – and “live” audience questions ranged across a wide variety of topics, from White Center annexation to abortion rights. The first audience question came from the White Center/West Seattle entrepreneur who ran in one of the spotlighted races:

Mac’s Triangle Pub owner Geoffrey “Mac” McElroy would have asked the last question too, but he yielded to a man who hadn’t asked anything yet. (He was the third-place finisher in the 34th District House #2 race.) Other questioners included people from White Center and West Seattle, including several who identified themselves as Greenbridge residents (the development itself was the topic of several questions). Moderator Robison sat at a desk between one containing the 34th District State House Position 2 candidates, Joe Fitzgibbon and Mike Heavey, and one containing the King County Council District 8 candidates, Joe McDermott and Diana Toledo. Though the state race was the closest in the primary between its “top two,” those two candidates clashed on virtually nothing, while the county candidates jabbed at each other several times, over items from factual errors to mischaracterizations.

We have the entirety of the forum on video which we will publish as soon as it’s uploaded, both here and on partner site WSB, and we’ll be writing a longer article with overall highlights, too. While Election Day is officially November 2nd, you should have your ballot by now, and that’s the deadline to send it in or drop it off if you haven’t done so already. More to come!

10:38 PM UPDATE: Here’s part 1 of the video:

11 PM: And part 2:

12:50 AM: Part 3:

Again, separate article to come.

Tags: Candidates' Forum

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