Six candidates for three spots. This week I focused on the six. I tried my hardest to sort through the six candidates for Tuesday’s city council election; to get them to say the quiet part out loud. If you haven’t done so already, I encourage you to go back and read those profiles and interviews here: Liz Gibbons, Joseph Fuchs, Bob Sears, Sandy Washington, Ellen Edman, and Maggie Duwe. Now though, I want to focus on the three. You are all old enough to make your own decisions, but just incase you haven’t paid super close attention, or you find that your preferences line up pretty close to mine, I thought I’d state the three candidates I’m voting for explicitly (yes this whole thing is just one big ego trip on my part). Skip to near the bottom for the list, read the stuff in-between if you (somehow) want to read even more about Kirkwood politics this week!
Voting Strategically
The way Kirkwood’s city council election works is sort of dumb. This year there are three spots and six candidates. The top three vote-getters get those three spots. Now this might sound pretty good so far, but stay with me. Say you really like Joe Fuchs. You sorta like Liz Gibbons and Maggie Duwe too, but if they both lost, eh, you’d be fine with it, so long as it meant Joe Fuchs won. But you have three votes and only one of them is allowed to go to Fuchs so, what the hell, you toss Gibbons and Duwe your other two votes because, hey you can’t take ’em with ya. Here’s the problem though: If Fuchs and Gibbons are battling it out for the third and final spot and Gibbons edges Fuchs at the line, say by just one vote, by tossing Gibbons your extra vote, you essentially helped her beat the guy you actually wanted. You would have been way happier if you would’ve voted for Fuchs and just not used the other two, it would have meant your guy would’ve won! So yes, Kirkwood should allow you to use all three votes on the same guy if you wanted to, but also this is just a reminder to think hard about all the implications of your three votes.
Term Limits
The other thing to take into consideration is that Kirkwood has term limits. (As a short aside, term limits are bad and we should get rid of them. Here’s an article arguing against congressional term limits but all the points listed hold for local government as well). You are allowed to be a city council member for two consecutive four-year terms and then you have to sit out a cycle (unless you decide to run for mayor). So if Ellen Edman or Maggie Duwe win on Tuesday, they will for sure (barring a run for the mayor) be out in 2024. I’m not really sure what the upshot of any of this is but I essentially just wanted to say it’s not like you’re putting any of these people in office for life. On Kirkwood City Council, with the exception of Tim Griffin (who is an institution), there tends to be quite a bit of turnover. One day a YIMBY poster-boy will run and we’ll all be happy. Until then let’s do what we can at the margins.
Who I’m Voting For
This year I will be casting my three votes for Joseph Fuchs, Ellen Edman, and Sandy Washington. Yes, I admit that these three are likely the three underdogs and that there is probably a decent chance I go 0 for 3, but hey, you can’t know unless you try!
So why these three? Well some of it is pseudo-science, some of it is reading between the lines and some of it is stated pretty unequivocally but mostly it comes down to the fact that these three seem to have the most progressive views towards housing based on the information I have available. Edman has the voting record to back it up, Fuchs talked explicitly about adding to our housing stock to make it more affordable for first time home owners, recent college graduates and senior citizens and Washington has demonstrated a willingness to consider a broader variety of community stakeholders mixed with an experience in the field of finance that I think could be valuable in zoning reform discussions (Washington might have seen through the problem of forcing ADUs to be owner occupied).
I suppose the biggest question is with regards to Bob Sears. Where as Gibbons and Duwe seem to run pretty explicitly on more restrictive development platforms, Sears seems to be more open to the idea. So why is he off the list? Well I don’t know if he actually believes it. Sears throughout his responses kept all his options open. Most damn of all though, I think was Sears standing by his vote to bulldoze part of Downtown Kirkwood in favor of parking. Sears defended this vote by stating the theoretical value of that land was a huge boon to the City of Kirkwood’s fiscal standing. That may be true on the surface, but it ignores the negative walkability externalities of replacing urban buildings with parking, fails to account for the tax revenue that would be gained from businesses and residences being there (if we had issued a request for development proposals instead of sitting on the property) and finally, does not acknowledge that parking lots are expensive to construct and maintain, a reality the drastically cuts into that supposed fiscal boon. Read more about the real cost of parking here.
Ranking
I also know local politics is the business of personal relationships. Some of you know probably know some of these candidates or like some idiosyncratic part of their platform or just have different preferences than I do. Fair enough. If you don’t have all three votes to spare but do have one, consider tossing it these candidates way in this order (based on a combination of who I think is the best and who has the best shot at winning):
- Ellen Edman
- Joseph Fuchs
- Sandy Washington
- Bob Sears
- Maggie Duwe
- Liz Gibbons
By having a ranking (based on a combination of who has the best shot at winning and who I think to be the best), we should be able to avoid some of the vote splitting problems I mentioned earlier.
Some Practical Info:
Remember that voting sites have been condensed due to COVID-19 so 1) look up where yours is before you go (mine got switched) and 2) wear a mask. If you already registered for and received a mail-in ballot remember that those must be turned in to the St. Louis election office (725 Northwest Plaza Dr. St. Ann, MO 63074) by you (or a relative within the 2nd degree) by Tuesday at 7pm.
That’s all I have for now! I’ll be back in a week or so to debrief (I’m counting on you to vote in such a way that it makes the debrief a fun one). But until then, let the swarm buzz on and thanks so much for reading. Now go vote!