Who should I vote for for at large council member?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DC can't levy a commuter tax on MD and VA residents, alas. Congress won't allow it. I wish.

It can't tax their income either like NYC can. That's why I wrote that it would require statehood or similar status.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, Grosso hasn't done a damn thing. So anyone would be better.

Have you even remotely been paying attention? I would say he was one of the more productive and constructive members of the Council!

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:To tell you the truth, there is not a whole lot of choice. Luckily, among the choices are two very good candidates: Robert White and David Grosso.

Remember that you get two votes.

I will never vote for Grosso again. He has been feckless as councilmember. He, nor his staff, ever returns constituents emails or telephone calls. What has he done?

[Anonymous]

My issue is he is not independent in any sense of the word. He is an extremely liberal democrat who did not think he could win in the primary. So the only real issues on the council become are we going to give our tax dollars away via corruption or expensive social programs with no mechanism to stop the corruption?

[Anonymous]

Vote Republican. At least you know what you're getting. There's a woman running. Carol Schwarz was great back in the day -I'm sure this one will be too. Vote for the one with the R next to her name. Send a message to our feckless council that take all of us for granted. I'm voting Republican for DC city Council tomorrow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are there specific reasons you're choosing cellnik? Those reasons don't seem compelling to me.

I'm not happy with the direction of DC Council..the transparency is a problem for me as well as the extreme tilt. A Republican would be a good counterweight - a good bridge for the SF liberal faction and the historical DC constituencies. Think of it as a voice for the rest of us,one voice. A needed voice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are there specific reasons you're choosing cellnik? Those reasons don't seem compelling to me.

I'm not happy with the direction of DC Council..the transparency is a problem for me as well as the extreme tilt. A Republican would be a good counterweight - a good bridge for the SF liberal faction and the historical DC constituencies. Think of it as a voice for the rest of us,one voice. A needed voice.

If there was someone like Catania, who was reasonable, I'd be happy to. But I saw no one worth it on the tickets. You need better candidates.

I think there are a lot of liberal independents who only register Democrat so we can vote in the primaries.

[Anonymous]

Vote to dump Grosso. Either that or give him a different committee. He's not helping schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Vote to dump Grosso. Either that or give him a different committee. He's not helping schools.

Who would do a better job?

Evans? He doesn't care about kids.
Todd? May? Hahaha.
Silverman? Bonds?

White might be good, but I'm not sure he's interested.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My issue is he is not independent in any sense of the word. He is an extremely liberal democrat who did not think he could win in the primary. So the only real issues on the council become are we going to give our tax dollars away via corruption or expensive social programs with no mechanism to stop the corruption?

I would agree with this. Both independents on the Council are simply Democratic party members without the name. Heck some candidates have run both as Democrats and independents as it suited them. But some of us don't think that is such a bad thing...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Vote to dump Grosso. Either that or give him a different committee. He's not helping schools.

I actually think he is doing an admirable job as Education Chair. He took over from Catania where he left off, but has a much softer style and a more liberal bent. The latest example of that was his push to stop the Department of Health from dumping nursing services on school staff. He stepped up when no one else looked they would -- including on the Health Committee where the issue technically resides.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My issue is he is not independent in any sense of the word. He is an extremely liberal democrat who did not think he could win in the primary. So the only real issues on the council become are we going to give our tax dollars away via corruption or expensive social programs with no mechanism to stop the corruption?

I would agree with this. Both independents on the Council are simply Democratic party members without the name. Heck some candidates have run both as Democrats and independents as it suited them. But some of us don't think that is such a bad thing...

I would argue that total domination of a government body by one party or the other is not a good thing for the people overall. Why even have independent seats if they are not truly independent?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My issue is he is not independent in any sense of the word. He is an extremely liberal democrat who did not think he could win in the primary. So the only real issues on the council become are we going to give our tax dollars away via corruption or expensive social programs with no mechanism to stop the corruption?

I would agree with this. Both independents on the Council are simply Democratic party members without the name. Heck some candidates have run both as Democrats and independents as it suited them. But some of us don't think that is such a bad thing...

I would argue that total domination of a government body by one party or the other is not a good thing for the people overall. Why even have independent seats if they are not truly independent?

Why force people to vote for parties or policies that they don't want to vote for? The law that requires the at-large seats to be held by different parties is not a creation of DC...

[Anonymous]

Just dump Grosso.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My issue is he is not independent in any sense of the word. He is an extremely liberal democrat who did not think he could win in the primary. So the only real issues on the council become are we going to give our tax dollars away via corruption or expensive social programs with no mechanism to stop the corruption?

I would agree with this. Both independents on the Council are simply Democratic party members without the name. Heck some candidates have run both as Democrats and independents as it suited them. But some of us don't think that is such a bad thing...

I would argue that total domination of a government body by one party or the other is not a good thing for the people overall. Why even have independent seats if they are not truly independent?

There is a pretty big split between the progressives such as Grosso, Silverman, Allen, etc., and the establishment CMs such as Evans, Todd, Bonds and so on. That is probably more representative of DC than would be obtained by artificially adding a Republican with little support in either DC or the party at large.