These Seattle Candidates Disagreed On Everything, Then Drove Off Together

The candidates in District 7 are both dog people.

Sally Bagshaw, the incumbent, used to have golden retrievers. Deborah Zech Artis has a blind bichon frise named Thomas Jefferson.

The third president of the United States is also her political hero, Zech Artis told KUOW’s Ross Reynolds. “He was really smart,” she said. “I like him so much I even named my dog after him.”

“Owned slaves,” Reynolds replied.

“Well, that was the time,” she said. “We don’t have that anymore, but his intelligence was phenomenal and he did a lot to help build this country.”

(Later, when Zech Artis told Reynolds she felt his reply was unfair, Reynolds agreed that the founding father was much admired.)

Sally Bagshaw named her late boss, prosecutor Norm Maleng, and Mother Teresa, “because she helps people one person at a time.”

Bagshaw and Zech Artis are vying to represent Seattle’s downtown district. It also includes Belltown, Queen Anne and Magnolia. Bagshaw lives downtown; Zech Artis lives on Queen Anne. Both agreed that traffic is miserable in their part of the city.

But on the broader issues, they differ in substantial ways. Zech Artis said she doesn’t support Move Seattle, the $930 million levy that’s on the November ballot. She said she doesn’t believe the city has specified enough where the money would go.

“I don’t see line items,” she said. “We can’t have $100 million with no direction to it,” she said.

Bagshaw, a City Council member who received 76 percent of the vote in the August primary, supports the levy and noted there have been more than 9,000 public comments.

“If you look at the over 100-page program itself, there are very specific line items, things like seven new bus RapidRide transit lines,” she said. “The 150 blocks of sidewalks – those are identified.”

When we took Bagshaw and Zech Artis outside to have their photos taken, we were impressed by how cordial they were.

Bagshaw was reserving a car2go, and she showed Zech Artis the app. Zech Artis talked about how, eight years ago, she drove an electric truck to sell ice cream. That was after she was laid off temporarily from Boeing.

After we had taken their photos, Bagshaw offered Zech Artis a ride in her car2go, and off they went.

Listen to the full debate moderated by KUOW's Ross Reynolds: