Our own “Citizen Harry” Gatjens has been doing his best to round up candidates for Edmonds City Council and Mayor for a series of informal “Coffee with Harry” meetings. So far, he has received commitments from both candidates in the race for Position 5 — incumbent DJ Wilson and challenger Joan Bloom. The coffee will be today, Tuesday afternoon, at 2:30 p.m. at Chanterelle Restaurant. They will stay for 90 minutes to meet citizens and answer questions.
Here are Citizen Harry’s ground rules:
– This is not a debate, but rather an opportunity to meet the candidates one-on-one and ask them about issues and their views on the future of the City.
– Questions need to be issue-oriented and we will not talk about who contributed to whom, where yard signs come from or other divisive issues.
– Supporters of either candidate are welcome but bear in mind, the purpose is to allow citizens to be exposed to the candidates, not to be a rally of support.
The format will be the same as previous Coffees. Regular coffee is provided for free by Chanterelle, while food and fancy coffee is on your own dime. Everyone is free to agree and or disagree with others at Coffee, but you need to be respectful and let each other make their own points.
Most of the rest of the candidates have agreed to come to coffees between now and Election Day, so look forward to more meetings in the near future.
Anyone who shows up for this is likely to become a bit more knowledgeable about something – maybe quite a few things. These two candidates are both thoughtful, intelligent, and transparent in their thinking. They are both respectful and tend to avoid cliches. If you can only make to one of these coffees, I think this is the one to see.
Thank you Harry for hosting this. I plan to be there.
The unemployed and unemployable will make informed choices, while the employed will have to vote for the prettiest yard signs.