Clyde Hill News: Candidates answer resident questions, call for debate
Also: Medina Days ahead; local PETA protest at wrong house
This week, candidates running for city council responded to resident questions ahead of the August 1 ballot deadline. Their answers, and some puzzling resident accusations, below.
Also: Medina’s annual community celebration, Medina Days, starts August 8th. Clyde Hill and Yarrow Point residents are welcome, according to a former Medina Days organizer.
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Disclaimer: while I am a councilmember on the Clyde Hill City Council, I write this newsletter in my capacity as an individual resident. Any opinions expressed are my own and not necessarily the position of the City. City information and references here are from public sources. I welcome email responses — and if the topic is about City business I will respond from my City email account.
Asking the candidates directly
Three residents are currently in a primary race for city council position 2. The two with the most votes in the primary will advance to the general election in November. Ballots have been delivered and are due August 1.
To inform their decisions, some residents are doing their own research and sending questions directly to the candidates.
I think this is commendable! In addition to critically looking at what other people think (including this newsletter or other ones), asking the candidates directly for yourself is responsible.
One resident’s point of view
Brad Andonian — long-time resident, local business owner, and one-time write-in candidate for Clyde Hill mayor — sent all the candidates questions to help inform the four voters in his household.
He shared his opinion on the candidates in an email to some members of the community. You can read the full text of his recommendation below, along with his email exchanges with the candidates here: Eckel (link); Hamlin (link); Sinwell (link).
As with any third-party reading, supplementing any one opinion with other points of view (and ideally your own investigation) will help avoid problems with mis- and dis-information.
Another resident’s point of view
Spencer Nurse, another long-time resident and a local financial advisor with Oppenheimer & Co. Inc., also sent email to residents based on what he heard back from the candidates.
Nurse, writing as “The Coalition,” asked the candidates questions focusing on motivations.
Two candidates — Hamlin and Sinwell — wrote back to arrange an in person meeting and debate on the issues. Nurse then sent out Eckel’s responses, claiming that Hamlin and Sinwell had “abstained.”
“Perplexing”
Nurse has not responded to the candidates, according to an update on Hamlin’s website yesterday: “Still have yet to hear back from Spencer Nurse and Ashley Eckel about my request to meet and debate the issues.”
Sinwell sent email noting that he answered Nurse’s questions on his own website (link), and calling the lack of response from Nurse “perplexing” and Nurse’s claims “factually incorrect.”
Criticisms
An additional email from Nurse to residents with criticism of one of the candidates followed. It claimed that “Hamlin is running for the benefit of himself, not the community,” on the basis of Hamlin’s descriptions of his personal experiences with city administration.
This additional email is similar to other claims Nurse made about the candidate for mayor: “Councilmember Friedman tried to limit residents’ ability to fly the American Flag.”
Both these claims (about Hamlin and Friedman) are specious.
Your point of view
An advantage of living in a small city like Clyde Hill is that you can email or call the candidates directly. You can find their contact information here (link).
Ballots are due August 1st. As of this morning, King County Elections showed only 186 ballots from Clyde Hill returned out of ~2200, or about 8%:
PETA protests at wrong address
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) held a protest in Clyde Hill this week at what they believed to be the home of Starbucks’ CEO.
PETA’s concern involved Starbucks’ policy of charging more for non-dairy milk. According to the Facebook post for the protest (link): “soy, oat, and nut milks shouldn’t cost a cent more than their dairy counterparts, which are cruel to cows, contribute to climate change, and are indigestible to many humans.”
According to a municipal official, protesters were in front of the wrong house.
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Dean Hachamovitch