City Council Districts Charter Amendment Petition

(I'm doggedly neutral on this, but wanted to pass on the information for you to decide. Here's their website and here's Councilmember Burgess's view on the idea)


A friend is currently working to give citizens of Seattle representation by district at our City Council.You might consider signing the attached petition to: Give Seattle voters a chance to vote on changing the structure of our City Council by adding your signature to the DISTRICTS NOW Charter Amendment. Your signature helps put this Charter Amendment on the November 2009 ballot.

The goal of this Charter Amendment is to change our City Council from 9 all at-large Council positions to 5 districted and 4 at-large positions. Everyone will still get to vote for 5 of the 9 City Council positions – their district representative and the 4 at-large positions.

Some of the reasons Seattle voters have been supporting this Amendment are:

• To give a stronger voice to neighborhoods.
• To strengthen our ability to hold our elected Councilmembers accountable with our vote.
• Enables the districted positions to do grassroots campaigning within their community to get to know the local issues.
• 90% of all U.S. cities (population of 350,000+) have either all districts or a hybrid with a majority of districted positions.
• Only 5 of the 52 largest U.S. cities have all at-large Councils, with Detroit being the largest at-large city in the Nation.
• Seattle’s Council structure was put into place in 1910 and no longer serves a city that has more than doubled in size.
• Save a tree – 5 candidates won’t be mailing or dropping pamphlets throughout the entire city.

If you haven’t already signed the DISTRICTS NOW Charter Amendment, you could take just a few minutes to download, print both pages (on regular 8.5” x 11” paper), staple together, sign and mail to the address at the bottom of the petition. Call the sponsor, Action Seattle, if you have any questions at: 206.774.9146. The deadline to submit signatures has been extended to July 7th.