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

Maggie

M.

Fimia

 

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

 

Shoreline City Council, Position 4

 

3.   Are you the incumbent?                               No

 

 

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

 

16 years

 

5.   How long have you resided in King County?

 

20 years

 

6.   Is the office sought partisan or nonpartisan?               Nonpartisan         

                                                                                                                       

7.   If partisan, please indicate party:       

 

CAMPAIGN CONTACTS

 

Campaign Name:

People to Elect Maggie Fimia

 

Address:

 

P.O. Box 65258

 

City/State/Zip:

 

Shoreline, WA 98155

 

Campaign Phone:

 

206 306-2473

 

 

Campaign Fax:

 

same

 

 

Campaign E-mail:

 

info@maggiefimia.com

 

 

Campaign Website:

 

www.maggiefimia.com

 

 

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)

Metropolitan King County Council

 

Elected

 

1994 to 2001

 

Chaired Regional Transit Committee and the Transportation Committee

 

Metro Council

 

Appointed

 

1992 to 1994

 

     

 

Puget Sound Regional Council

    - Transportation Policy Board

 

    - Executive Board

 

    -Operations

 

    -Transportation Pricing Task       Force

 

 

State Commute Trip Reduction Task Force

 

Shoreline Governance Committee

 

 

Appointed to represent King County Council

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appointed by Governor

 

Appointed by County Council

 

- 1994 - 2001

 

- 2000 - 2001 (2yrs)

 

--2000 - 2001

 

- 1996 -2001

 

 

- 1994 -1996

 

 

- 1990 - 1991

 

     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- Chair first year

 

 

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.)

 

I am running because Shoreline needs people on the Council who can bring the community back together to tackle common goals, make financial decisions that keep us solvent and constructively plan for the future with the community.

 

 


 

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

 

I enjoy the detail work that is demanded of someone who is responsible for large public budgets and complex policy - the County's Budget was $3 Billion.  The City of Shoreline's - $44 Million.

 

I seek out information and other points of view and I can, usually, quickly  understand  complicated information.  This is important, because there are numerous issues an elected official has to deal with on a daily basis. 

 

I have the ability to bring very different people to the table- in order to reach consensus and move forward.

 

I believe in people, enjoy people and respect them.

 

I have a very strong sense of public service - have spent most of my adult life, starting at 16, volunteering for community.  My least favorite expression is, "someone should do something about that."

 

I have a sense of humor

 

I am persistant and patient

 

I enjoy working with all different kinds of people- I don't need to "like" them or agree with them to respect what they are saying or to want to include them in the process or even adopt their proposal if it makes sense.

 

I am a team player, but also think independently- I value having different voices on the team-

 

 

 

 

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. 

 

1.  As a newly appointed Metro Councilmember I took on a two year effort to convince the Council that we should purchase clean diesel buses instead of ones fueled by natural gas.  A political land mind.  Even though I was not successful in convincing the Metro Council, because of the policy and political groundwork I had done, after one year of implementing the NG fuel policy, the decision was reversed by Exec. Locke and the County Council because of the enourmous costs and minimal benefit of NG over clean diesel.  The $100 million saved was put into operating and capital improvements which garnered significant ridership increases over three years.  Ridership increased so much that we are seventh in the nation for percentage of commuters who take transit to work-  we were able to not only maintain ridership but grow that percentage even in the face of significant growth between 1990 and 2000.  Despite strong political pressure to "go along," and despite the fact that this was a very complicated and uphill challenge, I never gave up hope that I could learn enough, teach enough and convince enough people that we had a much better alternative.  Fortunately, Exec. Locke agreed with me;  the project was actually worse than expected and we reprogrammed the money to really boost service.

 

2.  One of my first priorities as a Councilmember was to reduce neighborhood traffic speed and cut through.  It was adversly affecting people throughout the County and was one of the first things people talked about when I doorbelled.  I took the lead to bring together an interagency team at the County to identify the reasons we had this problem, potential solutions and successful programs around the world.  In cooperation with the Road Engineers, the police, the the one neighborhood traffic coordinator and many others we created an expanded King County Neighborhood Traffic Program and increased the budget 10 x.  We are now able to offer neighborhoods a comprehensive, inclusive, effective package of alternatives to reducing traffic in their neighborhoods.

 

3. When I first took office, 70 % of my district was unincorportated.  People came to our office when they were not getting resolution of the problems that our common to local government- water run-off, neighborhood traffic, code violations, land-use disputes and zoning changes needed, or lack of maintenance of roads and parks.  They also came to our office with suggestions of how to improve their neighborhoods and communities.

We provided excellent service to those people by dedicating a staff position and opening a District Office and really following through on their concerns and questions.  We worked together with the community and the County staff to resolve problems rather than blame people, pass the buck or put a band-aid on the problem.  The staff person responsible for the majority of this work had a great tracking system so we could keep ourselves and the department and the citizens all accountable for promises made.

 

As an extension of that service, and as a personal desire to make sure there was a smooth transition, my staff and I worked very hard and devoted a tremendous amount of time to training, staffing and providing information for the people of Shoreline and Kenmore before and after they voted to become cities.   Consequently, their transitions were unremarkable and smooth - people did not see any gaps in their services.  Also, the residents of both cities continue to be  actively engaged in their governments.


 

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.

 

VISTA volunteer and Head Start Parent Coordinator in Toccoa Georgia - 1971-1972 -

gained tremendous experience with community organizing, especially with populations that traditionally are difficult to engage in government.  Shoreline has many new immigrants and about 7% of the total population  live in poverty.

 

Founding member of the Westminter Triangle Neighborhood Network - 1988 to present-

We have over 400 homes and about 100 business in the Triange.  Our activities include:

block watches, neighborhood clean-ups, beautification project, monthly newletter, summer picnic, lost and found pet hot line and new neighbor packet.  I chaired it for the first four years and help set up the structure.

 

Board Member, Center for Human Services 1993 till elected to office in 1994.  This gave me an opportunity to understand the individual and family mental health, support and counselling needs of the community. 

 

As an appointee to the Shoreline Governance Committee in 1990, I worked with others to understand what the governance options were for Shoreline- incorporation, annexation or staying unincorporated.  I wanted to learn about local government- how it functioned, how it was funded, how it interfaced with other governments, so that I could better serve people in this area.

 

I was a member and then Vice Chair of the 1st District Democrats, (now 32nd) and campaign worker for many of the candidates- starting back in 1988.  I learned additional organizing skills, how to coordinate volunteers, and how to "poll with your feet."  There is no substitute for knocking on doors and talking with people on  their own turf.

 

My work on the Metro Council 1992-1994 (volunteered about 20 hours/week) and County Council - 1994 to 2001  gave me the opportunity to work on an immense variety and scope of projects.  I will enclose a list of accomplishments from that work.

 

I have spent the last 18 months with a coalition of people from around the region, including Shoreline, to try and offer an alternative to the Sound Transit light rail project. As Co-Chair, I have led our group through a process to identify services and projects that we can all support- even though the group is comprised of people from all different geographic, political and mode spectrums.

 

 

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

 

1) Set or amend the policies for governing  the City of Shoreline

 

2) Pass a budget that is fiscally responsible and reflects the priorities of the people of Shoreline.

 

3) Represent the interests of the people of Shoreline at the Regional table - transportation, social services, housing, land use, water resources, wastewater management, criminal justice, economic development, historic and cultural resources.

 

4) Keep the public informed about and involved in their city, not just as passive participants but actively engaged and setting the priorities with a good knowledge base of the costs and benefits of services and projects.

 

5) Recruit and train others to take our place

 

6) Hold the staff harmless from the politics - allow them to do and present their objective

analysis before decisions are made.

 

7) Be a role model for others - staff and constituents and the young people of our city.

 

8) Be the referee and consensus builder when their are disputes between/among constituents.


All are important, but if you are not passing a budget that is fiscally sound or reflects the will of the people, you are not doing what people elected you to do - manage their public dollars wisely.


 

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.

 

-Masters in Public Administration, Graduate School of Public Affairs, University of Washington, 1992

-Bachelors in Speech Communication, University of Washington, 1989

-Associate of Applied Science, Registered Nursing Degree, Nassau Community College, NY. 1970

 

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.

 

-King County Councilmember, District One, 1994-2001

-Metro Councilmember Appointee, 1992-1994

-Member of the Washington State Association of Counties Legislative Steering Committee, 1996-1999

-Co-Chair and Founder of Northwest Integrated Medicine 2010 Coalition 1998 -2001

-Co-Chair and Founder of the Livable Communities Fair, November 1998

-Center for Human Services Board member 1993-1994

-Member of the Shoreline Governance Committee1990 - 1991

-Founding member of the Westminster Triangle Neighborhood Network 1988 to present

-Active member (Vice Chair, PCO) of the1st District (now 32nd) Democrats - 1988 - 2000

 

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