Home Washington Cities City of Seatac Attacked for supporting Trump and owning guns, outspent 6 to 1, this...

Attacked for supporting Trump and owning guns, outspent 6 to 1, this Mayor easily won re-election near Seattle

November 13, 2019

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SeaTac election - Leftist attack on Erin Sitterley Failed - crop — Mayor Erin Sitterley wins re-election despite well-funded attacks by unions, Leftists, the Democratic Party, and local media

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The City of SeaTac is located just south of the City of Seattle in Washington State and encompasses the SeaTac International Airport. The 2019 elections had surprising outcomes and foiled the well-funded and orchestrated plans by the aggressive Left. Two of the three long-serving incumbents were reelected despite being attacked, outspent, harassed, and called “racists” by every Leftist group in the region. This is particularly worth noting because the Left Blitz of this city included outspending the incumbents by an 6-1 margin, using paid Seattle canvassers to flood the city for months, and it appears they were able to influence employees at the US Post Office to delay (until after the election) a mailer which was sent to support the incumbents. Despite this, the Left failed to unseat two of the incumbents.

SeaTac is one of the poorest cities in Washington State with the majority of its population considered ethnic minorities (according to the Census data) and the home of the $15 minimum wage in Washington State. This city should be politically owned by Leftists – at least according to the Left. Yet, once again, the Left has failed to control this council and force it fall in line behind Seattle’s political demands and control.

Four City Council seats were up for election this year , including the SeaTac Mayor seat, currently held by Mayor Erin Sitterley. Three of these seats had incumbents running for re-election, and one seat was open. Two of these seats were from the original council of newcomers elected in 2015 in a shocking election upset of the established political order. An orchestrated, organized smear campaign was launched at all the incumbents including particular venom directed at Mayor Sitterley along with a widely distributed photo reportedly from her Facebook account showing her holding a rifle with an “Infidel” hat. The opponents coordinated with local leftist journal “The Stranger” and produced headlines like this:

The weird opposition and calling everyone a “racist”

Months of stories labelling every council member a “racist” (of course) including Peter Kwon, just because these elected folk disagreed politically with the Leftist agenda. This was used to soften the political ground in SeaTac. It appears that a variety of challengers were recruited and moved into the city to run against the incumbents. These challengers had multiple unions including SEIU and FUSE helping with imported paid activists from Seattle to repeatedly doorbell the city. The Leftist challengers were flooded with cash (usually about six times more cash for the imported challengers than used to support the incumbents according to reports filed with the Public Disclosure Commission).

**Democratic State Legislator Mia Gregerson lost her SeaTac Mayor position in 2015 with 60% rejecting her leadership**

Additionally, a weird, local PAC supported by local state legislator Mia Gregerson (who was the Mayor of SeaTac until Erin Sitterley defeated Gregerson with 58% voter support in 2015) was mobilized and funded. While Gregerson is still a legislator, she has been angry and furious about losing her seat as SeaTac Mayor to Erin Sitterley, who was a total newcomer at the time. Revenge was in the air, and with Gergerson’s live-in weird campaign manager (and co-owner of multiple properties with Gregerson – see PDC complaint linked here) John Wyble, they went on the attack. Wyble had a lot of problems with his PAC, which also forced me to file a few complaints with the PDC about his various violations of the statute (linked here, and here). Based on his inability to follow the law, it seems more complaints will be forthcoming. However, in addition to breaking the law frequently (normal for this crew), they were able to corral the same, tired group of paid, bored Seattle activists to come and door bell the city residents, multiple times. Many locals told me these people were obnoxious and annoying, but this is the playbook the opposition has written and follows religiously.

Two incumbents win, despite the onslaught

Elections are never really over in Washington State on election night due to the drawn out mail in ballot process. This is particularly true in King County where convenient discoveries of mystery ballots are common, mailing multiple ballots to targeted voters is policy, and where somehow Socialists always get the benefit of last minute ballot discoveries. However, there are not enough ballots left to “discover” in King County to change the election outcome in SeaTac. Both incumbents Mayor Erin Sitterley and Councilmember Peter Kwon handily won their respective races despite the coordinated smear attacks against them.

Incumbent councilmember Stan Tombs lost his race to Takele Gobena who was a Leftist controlled guy, but to be fair, Tombs was appointed earlier this year to fill a vacancy on the council, and he had little time to establish himself on the council. This was a tragic vacancy caused by the sudden death in a car accident of local activist Amina Ahmed who had been appointed by the council to fill a vacancy. The rote “racist” tropes from the weird PACs, unions, Mia Gregerson, and Seattle based organizations never could explain why this supposedly “racist” council appointed this local Muslim woman to the council as their first choice, so that fact was conveniently memory-holed by the Orwellian campaign against them.

The only other “success” that the Seattle dominated campaign can claim is the election of Senayet Negusse to the council, which was a narrow victory over former councilmember Tony Anderson. This was an open seat on the council. I wrote about this race before the primary this last August (see here), and I still stand behind my contention that it is better to try a new face on the council than to install one you already know is terrible. However, there still appears to be some controversy in this race because, unfortunately, she did not live in SeaTac until very recently, and may have violated state law (RCW 35A.12.030) or just committed vote fraud when she voted from her Seattle address in February and November when she was supposed to be living in SeaTac. Regardless of how this controversy sorts itself out, the council will still have a majority who will be fiscally prudent and focused on helping improve the community’s future prospects. Had the Left succeeded in their efforts, this would no longer have been the case.

The Secretary of State’s Database shows Senayet Negusse voted while living in Seattle, not in SeaTac as recently as February. This is a problem because either she committed vote fraud or wasn’t living in SeaTac for the required year before she ran for office.

Corruption at the US Post Office?

**Supposedly, it is illegal for USPS employees to tamper with the mail**

One of the most disturbing aspects of this local race is the potential insider sabotage of a political mailer at the US Post office, which, if proven to be true, really needs to be investigated vigorously. While the incumbents ran underfunded campaigns, there was at least one outside Political Action Committee which attempted to support them. This PAC called “The Rental Association PAC” apparently printed and delivered a mailer to the Seattle Post Office supporting the incumbents the week before the election. Despite the fact other mailers and mail went through on time, this one was delayed and delivered AFTER election day. This apparent political sabotage is currently being investigated.

Corruption in government is usually camouflaged by pervasive incompetence, which is common in almost every function of government. It is unclear if the US Post office really wants to find out it has Seattle based employees who will actively sabotage political mailers with which they disagree. However, this case looks pretty solid as the vendor is experienced, the mailer is typical of 1^st class campaign mailers like this, and the receipt from the post office shown to me clearly shows it was delivered on time. If it turns out that political activists are working inside the US Post Office in Seattle and they are willing to sabotage or delay political mailers with which they disagree, it should be a concern for any local activists or organizations who are not part of Seattle’s political hive mind culture. Mailings may be getting diverted or sabotaged (and not as easy to document as this one), so some planning to avoid using the Seattle US Post Office facility might be necessary.

A proposed new logo for the Washington State Democratic Party

Regardless of the corruption, incompetence, or just weirdness of the Left in SeaTac, they are not going away. Their palpable frustration at losing the SeaTac City Council in 2015 and 2017 and now with only partial success in 2019, despite all the money, outside support, Seattle-based ground teams, and possibly corrupt employees at the US Post Office must be frustrating for them. They thought the “Trump” card and “Racist” card would flip the council, but it failed. Again. In the meantime, the current SeaTac City Council can continue to do the right thing, keep taxes low, keep prioritizing public safety, and improve their local community. Regardless of how badly Seattle is governed next door, the City of SeaTac can remain an oasis of financial prudence and stability.

Hopefully, the SeaTac story will influence others around the state to step up and confront the entrenched special interests who appear to control everything in local government today. Change can be achieved. Regular people can run for office and make a difference once elected. Mistakes can and will be made, and even the best laid plans can fall apart, but nobody promised that civic engagement would be easy. If they can do this in SeaTac, it is likely that you can do this where you live as well.

**You can if you are willing to do the hard work**

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