Edmonds City Councilmember Lora Petso is hosting a campaign event this Thursday, Sept. 8, from 5-7 p.m. at the shelter at Hickman Park, 23700 – 104th Ave. W.
Petso was appointed to the Edmonds City Council to fill the seat left vacant by Councilmember Dave Orvis’s resignation last year. Before being appointed, she had been an elected member of the Council but lost to the late Councilwoman Peggy Pritchard Olson in 2003.
Petso is being challenged by Darlene Stern, a newcomer to city politics.
Ms. Petso is certainly not a newcomer, and thus contrasts greatly with Ms. Stern. Lora has been active in most issues involving budgeting, land use issues, and parks for years. She knows and more importantly fully understands the working of our city goverment. Hickman Park would probably be part of a huge PRD project without her efforts, along with the efforts of many south end citizens.
Lora Petso is a consistent, persistent, steady performer who is logical, loves her city and public service. Her common sense and ability to work with others is well known and appreciated by her many admirers. She leads and gets things done.
You gentlemen obviously know a different Lora Petso than is known by a majority of Edmonds voters. Ms. Petso has been a candidate for city council in 1999, 2003, 2005 and 2009. In those 4 elections she won the first time and was rejected by the voters the last 3 times.
Ms. Petso had nothing to do with the city’s decision to place a park – Hickman Park – on the site of the Old Woodway Elementary School. Ms. Petso was a strong advocate, she was not a council member at the time, for wanting the city to purchase the entire 11-acre site.The city council in its wisdom decided to purchase one-half of the site for the park – which is larger than the previous park that was there .Ms. Petso’s position was that the city should spend an additional $4 million to $5 million that the city really couldn’t afford. And with what’s happened in the economy the past few years, had she prevailed our city’s finances would be in even worse shape. And its scary to think that she may have prevailed had she been on the city council!
Darlene Stern, who is challenging Ms. Petso, doesn’t have the city council experience possessed by Ms. Petso, but she has many other relevant qualities that will make her the better choice. I have met with Ms. Stern several times and have learned that she’s able to get up to speed on complex issues very quickly; she has the intellect and is willing to put in the time to make that happen.
I urge voters to make Darlene Stern their choice.
Ron B:
Let’s keep this discussion to Ms .Petso and Ms. Stern.
Your concern about the possibility of a double-dip recession re-enforces the need to have Ms. Petso replaced. Fortunately for our city Peggy Pritchard-Olson beat Ms. Petso in the 2003 election. If that had not happened, Ms. Petso would have joined with Plunkett, Orvis, and Moore in 2006 to spend $4M to $5M more on an even bigger park immediately in her neighborhood. How would you like us to now have that amount of additional liability? And that’s not speculation.
And that’s not the end of it. Two weeks ago Ms. Petso voted to spend $110,000 on the 2,000 sq.ft. strip park area at Old Milltown. There’s apparently no end to how much of our money Ms. Petso would spend on parks.
Next month we’ll see how well Ms. Stern does in the Candidate’s Forum. Hopefully Ms. Petso will show up for this one, as she didn’t two years ago.
Ron B. It seems your comments have more to do with the ex mayor than the subject at hand which is this election. By the way this current council authorized increases to the union and non union employees over one to four years. they are small put add to our budjet problems. So why not stick to what do we do now, not spend our time rehashing the past . I have found that all canidates recieve money from special interests even if it is from just those individual citizens who believe in there canadates special or not so special objectives
Ron B. By your reasoning I should not vote for any canadate you support if I disagree with you instead of lookng into what the canidate is really about on the issues that effect the city to day . I think I will leave it at that.