Somerville city council election endorsements (better late than never)
Sep. 16th, 2025 11:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
totientPreliminary elections today in Somerville.
The PDS do a questionnaire every year but are bad about linking to it from the front page of their web site. This year is no exception and the info I used for research is here. I also looked at some other surveys and candidate web sites.
City council is 12 candidates running for 8 slots on the final ballot. Voters pick four.
Three candidates are assured of advancing: incumbents Kristen Strezo and Will Mbah; and Justin Klekota who is the strongest non-incumbent candidate. I like all three of these but will be leaving Strezo and Mbah off my ballot for the preliminary because they will advance without my vote this time.
Three others are running strong campaigns and will likely advance: Christopher Spicer, Marianne Walles, and Ben Wheeler. Of these I endorse Spicer and Wheeler, and will not be voting for Walles. The main impact of these two votes, and the one for Klekota, is so that we collectively can gauge support when voting tactically in November. That's worth doing even though it's unlikely to actually change anything on the preliminary.
Three are running middling campaigns but have a reasonable shot at advancing anyway because there are eight slots: Ari Iaccarino, Jon Link, Jack Perenick. I am not particularly impressed with any of these candidates.
Three are, in my mind, running behind, and I don't think any of them have done a good job making an impression with Somerville voters: Scott Istvan, Holly Simione, and Tuesday Thomas. I rather like Scott Istvan, who appears to be able to listen and to pick his battles. He's well informed, has thoughtful and actionable positions, and has experience getting involved in the kinds of issues that the council will face. I don't think he has a chance in November, and I'm not even sure I'll give him my vote then, but I'll be voting for him this time because I'd rather see him on the November ballot than any of the folks he has any chance of finishing ahead of.
It's rare that I endorse an all-male slate and I would not do so if I thought Strezo had even the tiniest chance of missing the cut. But she does not, and will most likely be getting my vote in the general.
The PDS do a questionnaire every year but are bad about linking to it from the front page of their web site. This year is no exception and the info I used for research is here. I also looked at some other surveys and candidate web sites.
City council is 12 candidates running for 8 slots on the final ballot. Voters pick four.
Three candidates are assured of advancing: incumbents Kristen Strezo and Will Mbah; and Justin Klekota who is the strongest non-incumbent candidate. I like all three of these but will be leaving Strezo and Mbah off my ballot for the preliminary because they will advance without my vote this time.
Three others are running strong campaigns and will likely advance: Christopher Spicer, Marianne Walles, and Ben Wheeler. Of these I endorse Spicer and Wheeler, and will not be voting for Walles. The main impact of these two votes, and the one for Klekota, is so that we collectively can gauge support when voting tactically in November. That's worth doing even though it's unlikely to actually change anything on the preliminary.
Three are running middling campaigns but have a reasonable shot at advancing anyway because there are eight slots: Ari Iaccarino, Jon Link, Jack Perenick. I am not particularly impressed with any of these candidates.
Three are, in my mind, running behind, and I don't think any of them have done a good job making an impression with Somerville voters: Scott Istvan, Holly Simione, and Tuesday Thomas. I rather like Scott Istvan, who appears to be able to listen and to pick his battles. He's well informed, has thoughtful and actionable positions, and has experience getting involved in the kinds of issues that the council will face. I don't think he has a chance in November, and I'm not even sure I'll give him my vote then, but I'll be voting for him this time because I'd rather see him on the November ballot than any of the folks he has any chance of finishing ahead of.
It's rare that I endorse an all-male slate and I would not do so if I thought Strezo had even the tiniest chance of missing the cut. But she does not, and will most likely be getting my vote in the general.
Marking another
Sep. 14th, 2025 04:48 amvvalkyriI'm struck by how bad I seem to be at making one-on-one plans nowadays. So reliant on being in the same place at the same time with people when I'm much more likely to have an evening free and not know what to do with it.
Tara and Liam are off to Amsterdam or close to it. I hadn't seen them in ages and hadn't been all that much in touch. I haven't been going to the physical therapist in columbia.
I feel like I have much less excuse with pluckedkiwi and Girlinpink. It was only 23 minutes to get home. They leave to move to New Zealand in the extremely near future. Or open house today and I'm only ended at 9:00 but they told me to still show up. I kept noting that they were yawning and they kept saying it was good to see me. I left 2 hours ago but somehow I'm still up.
Others who have left or cathy and Gary to Scotland and my high school friend Faisal and his wife to Portugal.
I spent a bunch of time the other night talking with a lifeguard in Spanish who was from ecuador, which reminds me that Dan is moving to ecuador. But he was planning that long before this election.
(Trying to explain trumpism and Reaganomics in Spanish was an experience. I eventually had to leave to English.)
I find myself wondering how stupid I am that I'm not looking to get out.
Unfortunately it's not particularly any better for Jews anywhere else.
In other news, it was really really good to see people at Simon's party, which is part of why I got there so late to p&g. So it would have been good to catch up with barchan once he got there but I was on my way out
I have to be at Glen Echo in less than 12 hours for a wedding
And I'm still wide awake and I still don't know what I'm wearing. And I would have liked to have time to go swimming beforehand especially since I won't be going to Acro first
Speaking of acro, I fell yesterday, and many kudos to my partner who managed to keep me safe. No biscuit to either of us for not making sure a specific person was identified to spot..
Tara and Liam are off to Amsterdam or close to it. I hadn't seen them in ages and hadn't been all that much in touch. I haven't been going to the physical therapist in columbia.
I feel like I have much less excuse with pluckedkiwi and Girlinpink. It was only 23 minutes to get home. They leave to move to New Zealand in the extremely near future. Or open house today and I'm only ended at 9:00 but they told me to still show up. I kept noting that they were yawning and they kept saying it was good to see me. I left 2 hours ago but somehow I'm still up.
Others who have left or cathy and Gary to Scotland and my high school friend Faisal and his wife to Portugal.
I spent a bunch of time the other night talking with a lifeguard in Spanish who was from ecuador, which reminds me that Dan is moving to ecuador. But he was planning that long before this election.
(Trying to explain trumpism and Reaganomics in Spanish was an experience. I eventually had to leave to English.)
I find myself wondering how stupid I am that I'm not looking to get out.
Unfortunately it's not particularly any better for Jews anywhere else.
In other news, it was really really good to see people at Simon's party, which is part of why I got there so late to p&g. So it would have been good to catch up with barchan once he got there but I was on my way out
I have to be at Glen Echo in less than 12 hours for a wedding
And I'm still wide awake and I still don't know what I'm wearing. And I would have liked to have time to go swimming beforehand especially since I won't be going to Acro first
Speaking of acro, I fell yesterday, and many kudos to my partner who managed to keep me safe. No biscuit to either of us for not making sure a specific person was identified to spot..
It's late but I wanted to write a bit
Sep. 8th, 2025 12:40 amvvalkyrior maybe not i dunno.
I'm down on a long penninsula south of virginia beach right now, with Joe and Bernadette and there's been a bit of an object lesson in "sleeps 2 adults and 3 kids" and it's somewhat tempting to sleep in the living room/kitchen instead of my bedroom in that I absolutely do not recommend these mattresses even stacked, and it's cold tonight so at least the lack of a/c is less of a problem.
today we went to great dismal swamp. the earlier part of this was about 1.5 hours of walking out and back on a gravel road to a trailhead before deciding to go to somewhere else in the car. At that point I was kinda wishing that I had gone to acro. But the rest of the time, the time on the boardwalks was cool. I hadn't seen cypress roots before. Freaky. And the lake. And the swamp near it.
Yesterday I stayed with a couple acro people paddleboarding out to some concrete battleships that are used as breakwater (a bit sad my waterproof camera didn't get better pics), and got some [abrasive] acro in while J and B got really sweaty in their hikes.
Day before, 22k steps including a whole lot of beach.
Sadly it'll be another rather cool day tomorrow. Probably will try to get to the beach at least tho. This morning I was simply way too exhausted and went back to sleep after breakfast.
Back in DC there were 10s of thousands at the We Are All DC march and that was good. Come the 19th there's the We Are America march, where folk started today from Philly.
I've been looking at socials some. And everythign is argh. Turnberry said something about how I'm doing the good fight and I'm like "I'm mostly useless and if it gets to that I'll just die." Conversely he got AR14 training back in 2013.
I'm really not enjoying looking at White House and State Department socials and thinking "It's like Idiocracy but make it malevolent."
I'm down on a long penninsula south of virginia beach right now, with Joe and Bernadette and there's been a bit of an object lesson in "sleeps 2 adults and 3 kids" and it's somewhat tempting to sleep in the living room/kitchen instead of my bedroom in that I absolutely do not recommend these mattresses even stacked, and it's cold tonight so at least the lack of a/c is less of a problem.
today we went to great dismal swamp. the earlier part of this was about 1.5 hours of walking out and back on a gravel road to a trailhead before deciding to go to somewhere else in the car. At that point I was kinda wishing that I had gone to acro. But the rest of the time, the time on the boardwalks was cool. I hadn't seen cypress roots before. Freaky. And the lake. And the swamp near it.
Yesterday I stayed with a couple acro people paddleboarding out to some concrete battleships that are used as breakwater (a bit sad my waterproof camera didn't get better pics), and got some [abrasive] acro in while J and B got really sweaty in their hikes.
Day before, 22k steps including a whole lot of beach.
Sadly it'll be another rather cool day tomorrow. Probably will try to get to the beach at least tho. This morning I was simply way too exhausted and went back to sleep after breakfast.
Back in DC there were 10s of thousands at the We Are All DC march and that was good. Come the 19th there's the We Are America march, where folk started today from Philly.
I've been looking at socials some. And everythign is argh. Turnberry said something about how I'm doing the good fight and I'm like "I'm mostly useless and if it gets to that I'll just die." Conversely he got AR14 training back in 2013.
I'm really not enjoying looking at White House and State Department socials and thinking "It's like Idiocracy but make it malevolent."