Candidates voice opinions

With less than two weeks to go before the Sept. 20 primary, contenders for three Seattle City Council positions clashed this week in debates where arguments about the monorail, Alaskan Way Viaduct and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina took center stage.

At a mostly civil City Club debate yesterday, as well as a rowdier debate the night before sponsored by an alternative weekly newspaper, candidates stressed the main themes of their campaigns.

Challengers Dwight Pelz and Robert Rosencrantz argued they'd be more energetic and effective than incumbent Richard McIver, who stressed his experience and advocacy for minorities.

In what's shaping up as the most antagonistic contest, incumbent Jan Drago faced a barrage of criticism from challenger Casey Corr over her fervent support for the monorail, while she dismissed him as a political opportunist.

And challenger Paige Miller accused incumbent Richard Conlin of weak leadership as the council's transportation chairman, while he portrayed himself as a gutsy monorail skeptic.

Some of the most striking moments at both debates came when candidates had to hold up "yes or no" placards in response to rapid-fire questions.

During yesterday's City Club debate, the placards revealed the candidates as in agreement on four big questions.

All were dissatisfied with the Seattle Monorail Project's recent announcement that the project cost could be reduced to $7 billion, down from the original $11 billion. They all opposed Initiative 912 to repeal an increase in the gas tax. They all agreed Seattle was not ready for a Katrina-like disaster. And they all supported Mayor Greg Nickels' proposal to allow taller buildings downtown.

Differences emerged on other issues. Asked whether they supported a tunnel to replace the viaduct, two candidates said no: Rosencrantz and Darlene Madenwald, who is stressing public-health issues in her challenge to Conlin.

Criticizing the tunnel option as too expensive, Rosencrantz said "if we continue to ratchet up the cost of living here" the middle class would be endangered.

Four candidates — Conlin, Madenwald, McIver and Pelz — said they wanted the Legislature to repeal the monorail's taxing authority and kill the project.

Two of Drago's challengers were excluded from yesterday's debate, held at Plymouth Congregational Church in downtown Seattle.

One of the excluded candidates, Ángel Bolaños, showed up anyway and berated sponsors for leaving him out "because I do not have $150,000 in my bank account."

Bolaños and socialist Linda Averill, another Drago challenger, did get to participate in the previous night's debate, a provocative affair sponsored by The Stranger newspaper.

Candidates were scolded by a stripper, asked whether President Bush cares about African Americans and invited to hold up placards depicting cow manure when they thought their opponents were lying.

All but two candidates held up signs indicating they agreed with rapper Kanye West's recent high-profile assertion that Bush "doesn't care about black people."

Only Rosencrantz and Corr disagreed, an unpopular stance with the crowd of 200.

Asked later about the anti-Bush statement, McIver, the only African-American candidate, said he didn't think the president was racist, but didn't believe he cared about people in general.

The Stranger invited a stripper — fully clothed — to implore the candidates to reconsider a proposed "four-foot rule" that would in effect ban erotic lap dances, and, she said, close strip clubs.

Rosencrantz, Averill and Bolaños were the only candidates to oppose the rule. Even after the stripper's emotional speech, the rest of the field remained unmoved. Jim Brunner: 206-515-5628 Seattle Times staff reporter Bob Young contributed to this report.