I’ve spent a long time trying to get this Maggie Duwe article right. It’s been hard to find something new to say. Duwe didn’t respond to my email requests to participate in an interview; I’ve been hard on her voting record in the past. Those two things are probably related. But you can’t commit to writing candidate profiles and then go 5 for 6! I committed to this thing! So, we go again:
I still don’t have much against Duwe other than that record. In short, Duwe joined council member Luetzow in voting “no” on three proposals to give Kirkwood a few more homes. No on the Madison, no on the Barclay, no on the liberalization of the downtown zoning code. I have also heard that Duwe made her opposition to the 48-unit Big Bend apartment proposal known before the project was ultimately pulled. So, yeah, it’s just three votes, possibly four oppositions. But when the whole point of your blog is to advocate for more housing and more walkable communities, those three votes count for a lot. And unfortunately there’s not much else in her track record to redeem them. The only non-unanimous vote I have Duwe on the “correct” side of is the approval of tattoo studios as a special use and even that was near unanimous passing 6-1 with just Mark Zimmer in dissent.
On the question of safe streets, however, Duwe does a little better. The council member and avid cyclist has chaired the Council Subcommittee for Vision Zero and Complete Streets since 2019. Holding the position for such a short time, it’s unclear which projects should be attributed to her and which should not (West Essex would be a feather in her cap while the preliminary Manchester plans in conjunction with MODOT are disappointing), but the council member has at least demonstrated an understanding of the stakes. In an article discussing Kirkwood’s entry into a complete streets consortium, Duwe commented “I think we’re all just tired of people dying on the streets.” It was a statement that showed passion and didn’t pull any punches. It was impressive.
But even in an area in which Duwe does well, there persists a lack of idealism and too narrow of a vision for what’s possible. Where on the question of housing Duwe so often seems to let perfect be the enemy of good, when it comes to safer streets, Duwe seems to make the opposite mistake: she’s not idealistic enough. “Can we stop all of it?” Duwe asked (regarding traffic deaths and pedestrian fatalities) later in the same interview, “We cannot. Can we stop a lot of it? I think we can.” To chair the council’s Vision Zero subcommittee and then to state that you think its goals unachievable, is, at the end of the day, a fundamental failure of imagination. Sure Vision Zero would take a lot of work. Sure, it would require lane diets on Manchester, Kirkwood Road and Big Bend. And sure, those changes would most definitely get some complaints. But it is most definitely possible, if only we had some urgency.
So when I take a step back and look at the big picture, I find myself in largely the same place as when I wrote that critical article last summer: It’s not that I dislike Maggie Duwe, even if she dislikes me. It’s just that I want her to dream bigger or to get someone else in there who can.
Well, there you have. Your six candidate profiles. Not always perfect, not always on time, but complete nonetheless. So what comes next? Well, at some point tonight or tomorrow (hopefully tonight), I’ll publish one final story looking at the candidates, this time in comparison to one another. In that piece I’ll also take a look at the strategy involved in Kirkwood’s strange city council electoral system and then wrap it all up by letting you know which three candidates I have decided I will be voting for. Thanks so much for reading, I’ll talk to you soon.