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With a May 15 filing deadline just over a month away, four people have filed to run for three open seats on the Burien City Council so far:

  • Austin Bell
  • Holli Giffin
  • Lucy Krakowiak*
  • Joey Martinez

*incumbent for Position No. 2 (also current council-selected Mayor) Aside from Krakowiak’s Position No. 2, other seats up for grabs in the Nov. 3, 2015 General Election include:

  • Position No. 4 (incumbent: Bob Edgar)
  • Position No. 6 (incumbent: Jerry Robison)

Of the four candidates filed so far, only Bell has reported raising any money, with a current total of $6,969.00.

The only candidate to publicly proclaim her candidacy is Krakowiak, who announced her intention for re-election on the blog on Dec. 22, 2014.

We have not yet received any information on the other candidates, and a “no comment at this time” was the response from Martinez.

According to the Washington state Secretary of State website, the deadline to file will be May 15.

“For the best possible service, file online at www.vote.wa.gov,” reads the state’s website.

“Online filing starts May 11 at 9 a.m. and ends May 15 at 4 p.m. All you need is an email address and a credit card.”

The deadline for candidates to withdraw is the close of business the Monday following the close of candidate filing on Monday, May 18 at 4:30 p.m. The cost to file to run for a council seat in Burien is $72.00. King County Elections will be holding some candidate workshops:

For more info, read King County Elections 2015 Candidate Manual for details about becoming a candidate for office.

So…who else will run? Stay tuned to the blog, or email your inside info to [email protected], and get ready as we’ll surely hold public candidate forums over the summer…

Since 2007, The B-Town Blog is Burien’s multiple award-winning hyperlocal news/events website dedicated to independent journalism.

13 replies on “4 candidates have filed for 3 available Burien City Council seats, so far…”

  1. Joey Martinez is running again and we would have known sooner but he filled out his filling form C-1 incorrectly.His first filling claimed he was running for election in 2013 instead of 2015 and he claimed to be banking with an non-existent bank. Jeff Upthegrove was a campign consultant to him in 2013. Martinez liked every comment Lauren Berkowitz ever posted on her Facebook and Twitter page and sometimes he was the only one who liked the comments.
    Also Austin Bell who is a student at the UW in City Planning and is running for Council. Bell has a campaign treasurer/Stephan Yhann who is tightly affiliated with the student union, the 15NOW campaign, the UW Law school and most probably with Berkowitz and Jeff Upthegrove (treasurer for the 15NOW campaign).
    Holli Griffin is an attorney who worked as a Pubic Defender for criminals, DUI cases and .juvenile criminal cases. She owns a property business that by its name appears to be like others in the country that develop low income housing, housing for the homeless and homimg for those most recently released from incarceration. Her legal sympathies and political positions are most likely with Lauren Berkowitz’s. Holli will let us know what she really stands for soon.

    1. There’s a few PETA posts I didn’t “Like”… Get it right Fred/Jackie/Buck/certain spouse of a certain elected official!!!
      Also, who is “we”? Sounds like a Political Action Committee has been formed to support Krakowiak and Edgar. In the shadows like every other time.

      1. If they are running against you Joey then put me down for a campaign donation to their political action committee!

  2. First off, Holli Giffin us not nor ever has been in the business of “developing low income housing.
    2nd- Austin Bell comes from a long established local family, and just the fact he is a student does not mean he isn’t well qualified to be on council
    3rd- Again, since Scott Schaeffer leaves the ability for anonymity on comments on this blog, You trolls all come out with out a brain in your head.

    1. Thanks for the credit Rob 🙂 but the truth of our commenting policy is a bit more complex…
      We tested using Facebook commenting for over two months around election time in 2012, and guess what? Nobody commented. At all.
      And during that time, we received numerous emails, phone calls, messages – and complaints – asking us to go back to the “old way.” After much discussion amongst our staff and freelancers, we decided to add the vote up/down option, which we think works just fine.
      One reason we decided to allow anonymous commenting was to protect “whistleblowers,” as well as others who might be in jeopardy if their identity was revealed. Of course, trolls are seemingly everywhere now…
      Of course we can always do better, and like thousands of other websites that allow commenting, we’re trying to figure out a system that works for everyone. We’ve even considered turning them off altogether…
      thanks,
      scott

      1. Way to pat yourself on the back, Scott! I notice that your own recent posts are missing the thumbs up/down feature.
        Hiding opinion that is unpopular is just wrong and has nothing to do with policing incivility. In fact it is precisely those who are most often the targets of incivility and ad hominem attacks whose comments wind up being hidden. And your voting system rewards those who have no scruples about using the many ways to vote multiple times in order to shut down opposing opinion.
        Don’t believe me? Both recent school bonds received votes indicating majority though less than 60% support. One finds it curious then, that in case after case, blog comments in support of the bonds were overwhelmingly voted down while those of opponents were widely supported.

        1. Thanks Terry for the comment (I gave you a thumbs up!).
          No matter what I/we do or try here, somebody somewhere doesn’t like it. And apparently allowing our Readers to vote up/down isn’t liked by you, and most likely others…? BTW, each I.P. address is allowed only one up/down vote per comment, so to “game the system” would require using multiple devices with different I.P. addresses. Do you think that happens?
          We don’t control who reads us, what their political beliefs are, whether they are racist/sexist/etc. or where they stand on schools, etc. but we do make an effort to police comments. Those that are uncivil don’t get approved, and we have a Trash folder bursting full of ugly comments that are amazingly bad/mean spirited (again these never got approved and never will).
          Also, you believe that our up/down voting system “rewards those who have no scruples about using the many ways to vote multiple times in order to shut down opposing opinion” – what is your evidence for this? You’re claiming that Readers with no scruples are somehow hacking our system and voting multiple times?
          So then…what should we do?
          Close Commenting altogether? (several websites have…)
          Use a new system? (we’d require it work on our Servers and not an outside commenting system like Disqus, which is unreliable)
          Force Commenters to use their real, full names? (again, this would require a new system…Facebook?)
          I await your brilliant thoughts/ideas! Oh, and we use WordPress so it’d have to work with that.
          thanks,
          scott
          PS: As Moderator my comments are excluded from up/down voting…

          1. I recommend you REMOVE THE INCENTIVE TO CHEAT by not hiding unpopular comments and not even voting at all (since you have already identified and removed all comments you consider uncivil, so what’s the point). In cases where a poll is desired you already have a feature for that and we can all take the results with a grain of salt.
            As to whether cheating is possible in the first place. I believe one person can vote mutliple times by
            1) using multiple accounts/logons on the same computer,
            2) using anonymizing software, or
            3) using multiple computers at the library or a business one has access to.
            I am also curious about what standards you use to determine what is uncivil and would appreciate if you would post them.
            Thank you.

        2. Terry if you don’t like the system then go make your own blog and see the stuff the editor has to deal with everyday. I know that I have had plenty of comments unapproved but most of them about 99% of time I completely understand why some times I get a little upset at times. I tend to say some thing that is a little out of line. Then there is voting system yes when it first came out there were some issues. But those have been fixed. The problem that your having terry is that when a political group gets together they talk and e-mail each other. I am pretty sure they tell there members hey I have comment on b-townblog that needs some votes. So then there groups go and vote up what ever side there for and vote down the other side.Unfortunately there’s nothing the editor can do about this. This why you make sure to do your own research on all political groups and sides and not fully trust what you read in the comments. Until you have significant proof. Some political groups can act childish at times and do and say things that well extend the truth to get a vote.

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