Before malls, warehouse stores, and numerous discount department stores, a small-city downtown could be your main shopping center, with trips to the mall reserved for jeans that fit just right, a pair of shoes, or a dress for a special occasion. In 1985, when we moved to the Edmonds bowl, we bought everything, from drug prescriptions to Halloween costumes, faucet-repair parts and lawn seeds, had our shoes resoled and our lawnmower sharpened, without leaving our downtown. If you’ve lived here a while, you saw most of these downtown shops disappear over the years.

I’m grateful for, and believe that Edmonds can sustain, most of the high-quality shops we’ve retained. However, unless or until (take your pick) the price of gas doubles or triples, the variety of shops that Edmonds and other small towns once enjoyed isn’t returning, and it would be futile to try to expect that.

If you’re a typical shopper, you want good prices and lots of choices. Where do you find lots of choices? The Mall — anchor stores, Nordstrom and Macys, surrounded by bunches of fashion shops. Want cheaper but nice clothing, or housewares and sporting equipment? Pennys, Target, Big 5, Ross, Costco, and many others. Hate to fight traffic, bad weather, and other shoppers? Amazon. How does Edmonds retail compete with choice and price? Not easily. Does that mean that small retail is doomed in Edmonds? That all retail storefronts must eventually be taken over by services? I hope not and don’t think so.

Drive down the northern Edmonds portion of Highway 99. You’ll see numerous auto dealers, new and used, which have survived the economic disaster of these last few years. These dealers are clustered, giving shoppers choice, competition, and convenience. Farther south on 99, you can shop at a cluster of Asian-themed markets. In better economic times, Edmonds was the destination for antiques, with shops all over town.

Clusters of similar shops don’t suffer from competition, they thrive on it, by being a destination for non-locals. That’s why stores pay big rents at malls or busy big-city downtowns. Rather than trying to fill vacant Edmonds storefronts with one of everything, why not develop Edmonds’s identity as the place to go for what’s already selling? As mentioned, on 99 it’s cars and Asian goods. Downtown, it’s women’s fashion, jewelry, housewares, travel (thanks, Rick!), art, and artistic crafts.

Leaving aside professional services (which don’t thrive on competition), what other cluster of products sells in Edmonds? Sports bars and small restaurants with happy hours (I think we’re close to saturation), and prepared food accompanied by entertainment, sold in a public marketplace — the Taste, the Father’s Day Arts Fair, and the Summer Market. I can’t think of anything that could get started quicker, and bring in steady revenue, than a year-around market — indoors, during the bad-weather months.

Edmonds needs increased revenue now, not just in 10 to 15 years, when a mega-project could get completed. If anything is the near answer, the evidence points to clustering similar retail, and a year-around market based on fresh and prepared food and causal entertainment.

More here and here.

In high school, when taking a math test, our teachers required us to show our work. It wasn’t enough to arrive at a conclusion, we had to map our thought process and calculations that demonstrated how we got to that conclusion. As City Council Members, we should do no less.

To a large degree, the Tuesday-scheduled Council meetings fulfill the requirements to show our work, but executive sessions, which are held behind closed doors, not so much. The State of Washington code allows city councils to hold executive sessions for only specific issues — mostly those related to real estate purchase, potential litigation, and personnel. Furthermore, city councils are required to make what needed to be private, but no longer does (such as a settled lawsuit), open to public-records requests.

Currently, our City Council, the Mayor, and City Attorney, are grappling with the details of moving once-private discussions to public scrutiny. In 1996, the Edmonds City Council voted (City Resolution 853) to require the taking of minutes at executive sessions. At the Council retreat on February 2, 2012, we had a contentious discussion about whether or not we should continue to take minutes. We were advised by our city attorney that, if we chose to continue to take minutes, we should also record the sessions, and Council should approve the final version of the minutes. Another option was to stop all documentation of the sessions.

I strongly support the taking of minutes, and the recording of the executive sessions. Citizens must be able to trust that Council is holding executive sessions for only the reasons stated in Washington State Code. They must also be able to trust that, should they have questions in the future about a particular executive session and wish to make a public records request, there will be documentation of the sessions (subject to limitations of the law) available for their review.

Council will be discussing executive sessions in a March Council meeting. I would love to hear your thoughts. Also, consider expressing your opinion on this issue to all your council members by sending an email to Spellman@ci.edmonds.wa.gov. Ask us to show our work.

A discussion of the issues can be found following Harry Gatjen’s article on the Council retreat.

My opponent, DJ Wilson, wrote a gracious statement that he has conceded. I want to thank DJ Wilson for his years of service to Edmonds. My campaign committee, friends, family, supporters and, most of all, the Edmonds citizens who voted for me, have won. I hope those who did not vote for me will evenutally decide that they won too. Thanks for your faith in me. Yay Edmonds!

I want to congratulate new Council Member, Frank Yamamoto, retained Council Members, Diane Buckshnis and Lora Petso, and our new mayor, Dave Earling. I look forward to working with all of you to serve the citizens of Edmonds. That’s what it’s all about.

“Tonight’s the night.”
-Neil Young

Last night, I heard that my opponent has spent $35,000 on this election. Couple that with his (I’m told) at least 1500 campaign signs. DJ had several mass mailings, while I had one. DJ’s campaign literature was professionally done. Aside from my mailing, my literature (a brochure) was printed on our personal monochrome laser printer. I’m also sure that DJ put in many more hours doorbelling. In running for office, DJ’s a pro, I’m an amateur.

For comparison, I spent about $4500 of the $4995 (cash and in-kind), that I raised ($5 short of my self-imposed limit), and I have about 50 campaign signs. So I spent 1/8th of DJ’s total, and had 1/30th of the signs.

If money spent, incumbency, name recognition, and doorbelling are the only means to win even a small-town (40,000 people) election, I’m going to get somewhere between 1/8th and 1/30th of DJ’s total votes.

On the other hand, I have an edge in local endorsements from individuals, groups, and the major local newspaper (Everett Herald), I seemed to get a better response (though there’s no objective measure) from political forum events, and have been informed of strong under-the-radar support from many networks. I have also been told that my many opinions posted on EdmondsForum.com have been convincing.

Last, I need to mention that DJ was censured by his fellow Council members in last week’s City Council meeting. I’ve written elsewhere that I do not agree with how that happened, and I wish the election was not tainted with the censuring. When doorbelling after the censuring, not a single person mentioned it (and neither did I).

When I declared my candidacy last June, it never occurred to me that I had a chance to win — given my opponents edge in every conventional campaign area. My purpose in running was to bring out issues to voters — issues that I had hoped DJ would embrace during our discussions over the last four years. He did not, to my satisfaction, so I declared my candidacy. As the campaign went on, and people began to support me with encouragement, ideas, and financial contributions, I began to think of my campaign as an experiment in winning votes without spending a lot of money. I think I’ve managed that, and we’ll see to what degree I have.

I want to thank everyone for their support and encouragement, which kept me going throughout this campaign. Tonight’s the night.

The Everett Herald, Snohomish County’s largest newspaper, has endorsed my candidacy.

Former Edmonds Mayor, Harve Harrison, has also endorsed my candidacy.

The following were my remarks at last night’s League of Women Voters Forum:

You can read about me in my brochure. I’m going to talk about Edmonds.

Although it’s important to discuss what we want for our city 10-15 years from now, huge projects, such as an urban village on the Port property, won’t be happening soon, because the current economic climate does not support large, expensive projects. Right now, Edmonds would be better served by a focus on filling our empty store fronts and offices, such as those in Perrinville and the former Old Milltown.

So, how do we fill these empty commercial buildings? We start by looking at what’s been working.

A few examples of successful projects that have enhanced Edmonds are the Summer Market, the Third Thursday Art Walk, the Murals, and the Pentaque courts. Michael Burdett’s Edmonds Sports Academy brought families into Edmonds all summer to participate in competitions at the ECA gym. These projects are from the ground up ideas — community experiments that have been successful. I call these “agile designed projects.”

Agile design is from the ground up. An individual or small group tries an idea. If it works, you do more of it. If the project falls flat, no big deal, because you didn’t spend a lot of money or create something so expensive that you can’t easily move on. Some will take, some won’t. Let the community decide. Even agile projects that don’t immediately use an empty building, such as the summer market, could develop into ones that do. No doubt, successful businesses bring more businesses.

The role of the City should be to support these experiments in agile business projects — to make it easy for people to start their projects in our city. We can preserve what works for us, while using our imagination to create new economic opportunities. I know that there are many creative ideas out there. Edmonds can build on the success of these agile projects by creating an identity as the place to come for community-created businesses. An earned identity is the best brand of all.

Thank you for being here.
For more on agile design.

My opponent, D.J. Wilson, is attempting to embarrass me by posting, on his web site, my endorsement of him for City Council, four years ago. This doesn’t embarrass me: after four years of having him in office, I changed my mind sufficiently enough to choose to run against him. Show me a voter who’s never changed his or her mind about any political office holder and I’ll show you someone who doesn’t learn from experience.

In the current election, I’m endorsing, and will be voting for, me. You may post that, DJ.