This week, we enjoy some election round-ups as The Urbanist Elections Committee member Jazmine Smith joins Ray Dubicki to talk about the surprises and squeakers of Election Night 2022. From the local initiatives to the state legislature races, we discuss the purpose of advisory notes (none), the problem of having two good candidates in a race (not really a problem), and whether tough-on-crime suddenly became tough-to-elect (hilariously so).
You can also enjoy some of our other election coverage, including the endorsements and five initial takeaways from the fizzled red wave.
And just to clarify one thing we mention in the pod, the three options the city council has when considering how to proceed with an initiative are: put it on the ballot as is, to put an alternative initiative on the ballot with it, or to simply pass it as an ordinance without putting it on the ballot. I may have been too zippy with my democracy joke to let that be clear.
We want to know your thoughts, opinions, and predictions for 2024. Reach out to us at podcast [at] theurbanist.org.
As always, you can find The Urbanist podcast on iTunes, Spotify, and other major platforms. And if you are enjoying the podcast, be sure to offer a “like” or “thumbs up” on your favorite platform. It’s a great way to spread the word to new listeners.
Ray Dubicki is a stay-at-home dad and parent-on-call for taking care of general school and neighborhood tasks around Ballard. This lets him see how urbanism works (or doesn’t) during the hours most people are locked in their office. He is an attorney and urbanist by training, with soup-to-nuts planning experience from code enforcement to university development to writing zoning ordinances. He enjoys using PowerPoint, but only because it’s no longer a weekly obligation.