Tugs at the Port of Seattle

Good evening from Shore­line and wel­come to NPI’s live cov­er­age of Wash­ing­ton’s 2015 Top Two Elec­tion! After work­ing around some ini­tial tech­ni­cal dif­fi­cul­ties, King Coun­ty Elec­tions has man­aged to get its first batch of results post­ed, and they show that two can­di­dates in the crowd­ed, nine-per­son field for Seat­tle Port Com­mis­sion Posi­tion #5 have pulled away to claim the top two spots.

They are Fred Felle­man and Mar­i­on Yoshi­no.

Felle­man, an effec­tive envi­ron­men­tal advo­cate with Friends of the Earth who enjoys strong back­ing from the King Coun­ty Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty and many pro­gres­sive lead­ers, is in the lead with 21.73% of the vote.

Yoshi­no, a for­mer Nor­mandy Park city coun­cil mem­ber and small busi­ness own­er with eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment expe­ri­ence, has 18.77% of the vote.

In third place is peren­ni­al can­di­date Richard Pope, who has run for Port Com­mis­sion (and many oth­er offices) before. He’s get­ting 16.30% of the vote, no doubt thanks in part to the name recog­ni­tion he’s built over the years.

For­mer Delta pilot Ken Rogers is in fourth place with 11.96% of the vote, while for­mer Clip­per Nav­i­ga­tion CEO Dar­rell Bryan is in fifth place with 10.82%. Both would seem to be out of the run­ning for Novem­ber based on this showing.

This is a great out­come for pro­gres­sives. Both Fred and Mar­i­on are high-cal­iber can­di­dates who would bring valu­able expe­ri­ence and per­spec­tive to the Com­mis­sion. No mat­ter which one wins in Novem­ber, we are bound to end up with a replace­ment who is far more pro­gres­sive than depart­ing incum­bent Bill Bryant.

About the author

Andrew Villeneuve is the founder and executive director of the Northwest Progressive Institute, as well as the founder of NPI's sibling, the Northwest Progressive Foundation. He has worked to advance progressive causes for over two decades as a strategist, speaker, author, and organizer. Andrew is also a cybersecurity expert, a veteran facilitator, a delegate to the Washington State Democratic Central Committee, and a member of the Climate Reality Leadership Corps.

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