2003 Candidate Questionnaire

 

SECTION I               

 

BASIC CANDIDATE INFORMATION

 

1.      Name as it will appear on the ballot

 

First Name

Middle Initial or Nick Name

Last Name

Michael

A.

Taylor

 

2.   Office sought (include office, jurisdiction, position/district number):

 

Board Member, Position 9, Seattle Popular Monorail Authority

 

3.   Are you the incumbent?                            No

 

 

4.   How long have you resided in this district/city?

 

Since 1998

 

5.   How long have you resided in King County?

 

Since 1998

 

6.   Is the office sought partisan or nonpartisan?         Nonpartisan         

                                                                                                                       

7.   If partisan, please indicate party:       

 

CAMPAIGN CONTACTS

 

Campaign Name:

VoteTaylor.org

 

Address:

 

515 Summit Ave E #201

 

City/State/Zip:

 

Seattle, WA 98102-6712

 

Campaign Phone:

 

(206) 914-0564

 

 

Campaign Fax:

 

     

 

 

Campaign E-mail:

 

Michael@VoteTaylor.org

 

 

Campaign Website:

 

www.VoteTaylor.org

 

 

POLITICAL BACKGROUND

 

1.   Beginning with the most recent position, please list public offices which you have held.  Include positions on appointive Boards or Commissions.

 

Public Office

Elective or Appointive?

Dates Held

Leadership Role (if any)

     

 

     

 

     

 

     

 

     

 

     

 

     

 

     

 

     

 

     

 

     

 

     

 

 

2.   If you ran for public office but were not elected, please list those races below:

 

Office Title

Year of Run

     

 

     

 

     

 

     

 

     

 

     

 


 


SECTION III

 

In this section, we are seeking responses that reflect the four ratings criteria: involvement, effectiveness, character, and knowledge.  These are defined as follows:

 

  • Involvement: What has the candidate done previously in family, neighborhood, community, volunteer work, employment or public life to suggest readiness to accomplish challenging objectives? How do these activities demonstrate readiness for the challenges unique to the office sought?

 

  • Effectiveness: Has the candidate demonstrated promise of being productive in the office sought?  Has the candidate shown the ability to work with other people?

 

  • Character: Do the candidate's personal traits show the ability to take on the responsibilities of campaigning for and holding the public office she or he is seeking? Is the candidate a leader, participant or observer?  Is the candidate trustworthy, reliable and candid?

 

  • Knowledge: Has the candidate demonstrated the willingness and ability to learn and adapt?  Does the candidate understand the duties and challenges of the office sought?  Does the candidate have a firm grasp of the issues important to his or her constituency and their potential effects?

 

 

1.      In a page or less, why are you running for this office?  (Note: the interview committee will be given a copy of this statement before your interview; at the beginning of your interview you will have the opportunity to expand on this statement in any way you wish.)

 

The Seattle Popular Monorail Authority is not the creation of a city transit bureaucracy. It is the creation of community activists who educated their neighbors, gathered signatures, and led not one, not two, but three campaigns to show that We know what we want – MONORAIL – and we know when we want it – NOW!

 

I have been involved in this movement ever since coming to Seattle. It has been my privilege to speak to hundreds of Seattleites by phone, by e-mail, and face-to-face about the pluses and minuses of building a monorail system for this city and of bringing the Green Line to their neighborhoods.

 

I care passionately about communicating with the public and educating people about the issues that affect their homes, their families, and the nieghborhoods they live in.

 

It has been a pleasure to be involved with this movement because it has been a grassroots movement that simply did its work differently than any other public agency in recent memory.

 

I am running for Monorail Board because I want to ensure that this new public agency we have created maintains that grassroots character and continues to place Transparency, Accountability, and Public Involvement at the top of its list of goals.

 


 

2.      Describe your most important personal characteristics or traits as they relate to the office you seek.

 

Simply put, I am passionate about working to improve my community. I love to talk with my neighbors, friends, colleagues -- and sometimes even perfect strangers -- about ways we can make life better for everyone.

 

I am committed to the values of youth and diversity, and I particularly support issues related to education and health.

 

3.      Please describe in sufficient detail, one to three accomplishments or contributions of which you are most proud.  These examples should illustrate effective skills and capabilities you think apply to the office you are seeking.  These accomplishments may have occurred at any time in your personal, professional, or public life. 

 

I can easily say that my most significant accomplishment on a personal level has been coming out as a gay man, and learning to overcome all of the ignorance, biases, and intolerance that society tosses my way. I think it's significant to who I am as a person and a leader because it has caused me to take extensive time to really meditate on who I am and how I interact with people, it has offered me a tiny glimpse (as a white man) of some of the stresses and discrimination that minority groups face every day in this country, and it has taught me to be far more willing to challenge the basic assumptions that our society feeds us every day.

 

I have gained similar insights in my professional life by teaching overseas. Although I have since followed my more political and ccommunity-oriented interests, I trained to be a teacher in college, and briefly taught overseas in both Japan and Ireland. The opportunity to live and work in cultures very different from the ones I have grown up is invaluable experience for working with diverse communities professionally. To be an effective communicator, one needs to understand that people from different backgrounds may have different values, different beliefs, and even different ways of thinking and speaking that differ greatly from our own "traditional" one in white, middle class America.


 

4.      Please list or describe your current and past activities in the community in which you have acquired skills that relate to the office you seek.  Include your role in the activity and the year(s) in which you were involved.  Involvement consists of many areas such as family, neighborhood, community, employment, or public life.

 

The activities that most relate to my seeking office on the Monorail Board would have to be my involvement in community support groups such as Friends of the Monorail and Rise Above It All and my Staff work for the Elevated Transportation Company (2001-2002), the planning agency that created the Seattle Popular Monorail Plan that was approved by voters last year.

 

In my time in Seattle I have been extensively involved with groups and activities primarily based in my neighborhood of Capitol Hill. I have been an effective leader for program s with Gay City Health Project for four years now. In that same time, I have also volunteered with Lambert House, a drop-in center for at-risk queer youth, serving as a facilitator of a young men's group there. This past year, I have become a Board member with the Legal Marriage Alliance of WA, advocating for same-sex civil marriage here in our state.

 

I am a graduate of the Institute for a Democratic Future's Class of 2002. IDF is an organization started by young Democratic Party leaders in our state which runs annual programs for new leaders and professionals. It encourages Democratic Party support and leadership development by taking us around the state to meet with electeds at all levels, Party officials, and agency staff members in order to become educated on the crucial issues facing Washington residents today from health to the environment to transportation to taxes and more. It culminates in a trip to the "other Washington" and a look at the similarities and differences between state and national politics.

 

Finally, I volunteer extensively with local festivals and organizations from the Summer Microbrew Festival to One Reel's Bumbershoot Music and Arts Festival because I love to give back to the community I am in and to help others have safe, fun activities to be involved in.

 

 

  1. Please describe the duties of the office you seek.  Which are the most important duties and why?

 

In accordance with the Plan approved by Seattle voters, the Board of the Seattle Popular Monorail Authority consists of nine members selected through direct election and appointment by the board, city council and mayor. This board is charged by voters to build, own, operate and maintain a citywide monorail system.

 

That is a pretty extensive charge to follow. The current Board members have adopted six goals for the project:

• On time.

• Under budget.

• Break even on operations

• Excellent design

• True to grassroots history

• Transparency and accountability to public

 

My concerns -- which led me to run for this office -- are that the agency is beginning to forget the last two goals as it slowly builds a brand new transportation government here in the city.


EDUCATION BACKGROUND SUMMARY

FOR PUBLICATION IN CANDIDATE EVALUATION REPORT

 

The Municipal League’s Candidate Evaluation Report is distributed to voters in print and/or on our website.  It includes a summary of the candidate’s education.  Please summarize your education in 120 characters (letters, punctuation, and space all combined).  The League will delete material that exceeds the space limit by beginning with the last entry.  Suggested order is (degree)  (subject)  (school)  (year, if desired). 

 

Note: If this question is left blank the League will not include education information in your candidate profile.

 

B.A. in History, Vassar College, 1996

 

CIVIC INVOLVEMENT SUMMARY

FOR PUBLICATION IN CANDIDATE EVALUATION REPORT

 

The Municipal League’s Candidate Evaluation Report also includes a summary of each candidate’s civic involvement.  Please summarize your civic involvement in the space below.  We will make every attempt to include the information in the Candidate Evaluation Report as submitted.  Due to space restrictions in the Report, your response is limited to 500 characters (letters, punctuation, and spaces all combined).  It is important that you list your involvement beginning with the most important and ending with the least important.  If you exceed the length of response permitted, or if the League should find it necessary to shorten responses for publication purposes,  deletions will be made beginning with the last item listed. 

 

Note: This information will appear verbatim on the League’s Candidate Evaluation Report.  If this question is left blank, the Municipal League will not include information on your civic involvement in the Report.

 

  Check here if you would like the Municipal League to copy the first 500 characters from Question 4 to paste into this section.

 

It has been my privilege to interact by phone, e-mail, and face-to-face with hundreds of Seattleites in an attempt to answer their questions, record public comments, and help them to be involved in this effort to build a monorail system in that will help citizens rise above traffic and move around the city. I have been actively involved as a community activist, trying to ensure that the agency remains faithful to its grassroots base and maintains its goals of transparency and accountability.

 

 

Finished!

If at all possible, send your response to the Municipal League electronically as an attachment, or insert it into an e-mail message (rebecca@munileague.org).  Mail and fax numbers are listed below.  If the League has not contacted you to schedule an interview, please call the League office at your earliest convenience.

 

Don’t forget to send the following to the Municipal League:  a resume, a photo, campaign literature, and, if you are an incumbent, constituent newsletters and other materials.  Please use the check-off list on the cover sheet of this packet to indicate which items you have sent.

 

THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION AND GOOD LUCK IN YOUR CAMPAIGN!

 

THE MUNICIPAL LEAGUE OF KING COUNTY

 

Candidate Evaluation Coordinator:  Rebecca Cooper

 

810 Third Avenue, Suite 224                  Phone: 206-622-8333                Email: rebecca@munileague.org

Seattle, WA 98104-1614                        Fax: 425-671-0506                        Website: www.munileague.org