McGinn and Mallahan should stick to main issues

While the two Seattle mayoral candidates say they are eager to discuss racial and social issues [“Minority leaders eye ‘complete strangers,’.” page one, Sept. 21], for most citizens it is more important job proficiency and managerial skill become the primary considerations for all city staff regardless of station, sex, color or creed.

The city is not a charity; it needs to be run as a business for once.

Last winter’s snow debacle, misaligned new street curbs and the rush to adopt a deep-bore tunnel replacement for Alaskan Way should be among the top priorities that need to be sorted out. Also, a multimillion dollar Mercer Street makeover, and spending half of a million dollars on outside attorneys to iron out employment squabbles in Seattle Department of Transportation’s street division ought to be the main issues here.

To paraphrase Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” something is rotten in the state of Seattle.

As for racial and social justice, most citizens are fed up with rising taxes that are continuously diverted from the real issues that impact them.

If someone has a problem with racial and social justice, let them handle it on their own. There are lots of warm and fuzzy outfits that will help them if it is a genuine problem.

— Christopher Brown, Seattle

Write-in ballots this November

I’m terrifically concerned about the fact the fair city of Seattle will be Nickels-less by the end of the year.

It shocks me our fine metropolis will have a mayor with a surname beginning with the letter M in just a few short months.

What if there were some folks who didn’t bother to vote in the mayor’s race last month because they figured they could wait until November to vote for Mayor Nickels to get a third term? Tough luck if they went camping or fishing last August instead, right? Their fault, right?

So, what if we want to write in Greg Nickels’ name on the November ballot? Not going to work because the state Legislature created a rule making it impossible for a primary-election loser to run a write-in campaign during the general election. It’s referred to as the sore-loser law.

Tough luck for Seattleites who are scratching their heads wondering how to choose between two political neophytes in the mayor’s race less than two months from now.

Whatever happened to the all’s-fair-in-politics game? We should be able to vote for whomever we choose, even if the person lost in the primary.

Let’s encourage King County Elections to hire some temporary help right now to hand count the write-ins.

— Tom Hundley, Seattle