Weighing the temperaments and tactics of King County executive candidates

I admire the six candidates vying for King County executive. They are running for a position that will come with a crushing and thankless workload.

Whoever wins will head a government that needs more than retooling. King County is due for an overhaul, made all the more pressing because of the recession.

The timing of the executive race says something about the candidates, because they are people willing to lead in bad times. Being an executive when the economy is flying and the coffers are full is easy. Voters will quickly know what their new executive is made of.

Wednesday, we held our editorial board endorsement interview for county executive. The meeting included state Sen. Fred Jarrett; state Rep. Ross Hunter; Susan Hutchison, Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences executive director and former KIRO TV anchor; Alan Lobdell, engineer and business owner; Metropolitan King County Council Chairman Dow Constantine and County Councilmember Larry Phillips.

The next day, the editorial page co-hosted a debate with CityClub in Bellevue that included everybody but Lobdell. I decided to have Lobdell at the editorial board meeting because, on the issues, he is a credible candidate. When we and CityClub were formulating whom to invite to the debate we agreed to extend invitations only to candidates that had made a serious attempt at raising money.

Like it or not, money matters in elections. As interesting a candidate as Lobdell is, he does not have a chance unless he can gain name recognition. That can't happen without marketing, which costs money.

The two forums illuminated the quality this rarely open race has attracted. Some are insiders, some are outsiders. There is some agreement, mostly around the need for change, but a lot of disagreement on how that should be done.

There is a range of temperaments, from intense to calm. Some voters might be turned on by a candidate ready to blow things up, others comforted by a more steady approach. Regardless of who wins, real work needs to be done.

The first task will be plugging the projected $46 million gaping hole in the 2010 general fund. No easy feat. To fill the hole, everybody — the executive staff, the unions and citizens — will have to contribute in ways never imagined.

Then there is transportation. Metro needs to become more efficient and useful, and the passenger-ferry program should be sunk.

Any executive can't consider transportation without dealing with development and density. Living in the urban-growth boundary has become crowded. Smart growth will push density into urban centers that are served by affordable, efficient transportation.

Population growth brings issues of environmental degradation and civility to the desk of the county's leader. King County has to figure out its environmental impact on the region and make sure that it is a safe place for its residents.

On top of all that, the county executive has to act regionally by bridging the gap between Seattle, the suburbs, rural King County and the state.

None of this will work unless the public trusts the county. The next executive must also make county government more open. King County has embarrassed itself and wasted taxpayer money in recent years by fighting perfectly reasonable public-records requests. If the county continually fights basics like the public's right to know how its money is being spent or how elections are conducted, it calls into question everything coming out of the county's downtown Seattle office.

These are among the issues the editorial board is considering when deciding which two candidates to endorse for the general election. That decision will be made this week and the endorsement will run a week from today.

My best to the candidates, but keep in mind, winning this job is going to be the easy part.

Ryan Blethen's column appears Sundays on the editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is: rblethen@seattletimes.com