Wash. party runs 11 for local office

The Green Party of Washington State is campaigning to place 11 Greens in local offices in this fall’s elections.
by Paula Reynolds-Eblacas & Jody Haug, Green Party of Washington State†

Wed 10/01/03†
GreenPages, Vol 7, No.3

The Green Party of Washington State is campaigning to place 11 Greens in local offices in this fall’s elections.

Green Party of Seattle members are running in five contests: Brita Butler-Wall and Sally Soriano for school board, Brent McMillan for monorail board, Angel Bolanos for city council and Chris Cain for the Port of Seattle.

Members of the Kittitas Green Party have filed for three of four Ellensburg city council seats up for election. Vying are Diane Bedwell, Clint Coppernoll and Andrew Cottonwood.

Sharon Crozier is running for mayor of Bellingham; Julie Young is running for Vancouver city council; and Steve Hotchkiss is running for Duvall city council.

A number of the candidates and their supporters attended the Pacific Northwest Campaign School Sept. 5-7 in Portland, Ore. The school allowed current and future candidates, campaign workers and others to receive both training from national Green leaders.

The party has endorsed State Initiative 297 to ban new imports of hazardous and radioactive nuclear waste to the Hanford Nuclear Reservation and require that waste currently stored at the site and contaminated groundwater be cleaned up.

The initiative comes in response to a Bush Administration plan to move more than 70,000 truckloads of highly radioactive and hazardous waste from out-of-state nuclear weapons production sites to Hanford, more than doubling the amount of waste stored there already.

The party is one of a number of organizations actively involved in collecting 250,000 signatures (190,000 valid) by Dec. 31 to get this measure on the ballot in November 2004.