KIRO Interview

An interview with Radio 710 KIRO for a Labor Day event.

KUOW

Radio Debate: Seattle City Council Position 1

Weekday kicks off election season with a radio debate. City Council member Jean Godden faces three challengers in the August primary: Lauren Briel, Robert Sondheim and Joe Szwaja. We'll also talk to The Stranger's intrepid City Hall reporter about the key issues facing the council in 2007 and beyond.

The Stranger Slog

NAACP Rally at City Hall

A diverse crowd of about 150-200 people, from ages eight to eighty, gathered to protest the current state of the police department and call for the resignation of embattled SPD Chief Gil Kerlikowske....

While the rally was right outside of city hall, no council members made an appearance, save for council hopeful Joe Szwaja.

Joel Connelly, The Seattle PI

Joe Szwaja, a Green Party activist who is challenging Godden, was most critical of the police. A onetime Madison, Wisconsin councilman, he argued that the police operate under a "culture of impunity."

In the WTO riots, said Szwaja, "I saw a lot of people including some of my students get beat up by police. It's worse for people of color . . . We cannot allow them (Seattle police) to police themselves. They won't do it."

Eat the State

Joe Szwaja for city council! The Green Party organizer and well-respected local human rights activist (and teacher at NOVA High School) announced his candidacy last week for Jean Godden's barely occupied city council seat, giving progressives a credible, well-funded campaign to back for a council seat for the first time in years.

The Seattle Times

Guest Column by Joe Szwaja
"Avoid messy deadlocks with instant runoff voting"

Our broken election system brought bad news in the recent governor's race — lawsuits, multiple recounts, and "spoiler" accusations against smaller parties. Worst of all, we'll have a winner who — regardless of the result — will have the support of only a minority of Washington's voters.

West Seattle Herald

City Councilwoman Jean Godden faces three challengers in her first attempt at re-election. Also running for the Position 1 seat on the council are Lauren Briel, Robert Sondheim and Joe Szwaja.

Goldy

Seattle City Council candidate Joe Szwaja sent out an email this morning announcing that he has raised $20,121 thus far — $17,091 at his Kick-Off party alone. Considering his late entry into the race against incumbent Jean Godden, I suppose that’s not bad.

The Seattle Weekly

May 24, 2007

Cathy Allen, who's working as a political consultant on Seattle City Council member Jean Godden's re-election bid, says the Godden camp's preparing for a challenge from Green Party candidate Joe Szwaja and that every indication is that he'll run against the one-term incumbent and former newspaper columnist.

Geov Parrish

After a decade of producing 5-10 columns a week for various outlets, I’ve been mostly taking a break from writing these past few months, which is why Goldy’s comment the other day about my technically being a poster. But the P-I’s article this morning on city council candidate Joe Szwaja pissed me off sufficiently to post – and then I see Will already got to the article last night.

I really like Will, but his post on Joe Szwaja’s troubles in the past misses a really simple point: Why did the P-I run this story? How did Angela Galloway think to check Wisconsin court and newspaper records, and just happen to have a story on it ready the same week Szwaja’s kickoff event raised over $17,000?

The Paper Noose

Seattle PI hits low on Szwaja smear piece

Remember the PI's headline a while back, when a crane toppled in Bellevue, killing one person? The immediate charge leveled in the PI was that the crane operator has a past history with drug abuse. Turns out that the crane operator was not at fault at all. But even before this came out, Robert Jamieson has this to say last November:

Imagine what would happen if we allowed a person's past to prevent him or her from pursuing gainful futures: Recovering drunks wouldn't be able to get a job driving buses. Ex-cons couldn't help old ladies carry bags out of grocery stores. And crane operators who've battled a drug habit couldn't build positive lives.

The Moderate Washingtonian

I generally like outsider candidates and love it when Independents/third parties can compete with the big boys, I'm excited about Szwaja's prospects. He ran for Congress against Jimmy McD in 2000 and drew a respectable 20% of the vote, and I knew he'd be back to run for something after that and had been waiting for this day to come. If I had to pick a likely target aside from open seat, I kinda figure he'd go after Jean Godden, but that's just a guess. "

The Paper Noose

I'm not in the business of endorsing candidates here, even if I think Jean Godden exemplifies the clean-freak-boosterism that has rotated in and out of City hall for the past 15 years. It would be refreshing if he talked about issues that the City refuses to acknowledge, such as the developer hold on city politics, and the urban flight of working class people and the transformation of the city into landlords, tenants, and homeowners with sub-prime mortgages.

The Wisconsin State Journal Endorses
Joe Szwaja

5th District: Szwaja

To look at the list of folks who've endorsed incumbent Joe Szwaja is to lean way to the left. And Szwaja makes no bones about his liberal philosophiesand Farm-Labor roots.

Yet in six years on the council, he has learned a lot about how to work with people of differing political persuasions. And as his political sophistication has grown, so has his stature on the council and his ability toprovide effective representation for his district. Szwaja knows residents of the 5th District are not just students, but working people, elderly people andpoor people. He tries to represent them all.