(Image: Pamela Banks via Facebook)

What can you learn about candidates based on the institutions they come from?

Last week CHS looked at Socialist Alternative, the grassroots — and growing — activist group that helped catapult District 3 incumbent Kshama Sawant from an Occupy Seattle speaker to City Council. The institution that molded challenger Pamela Banks for Tuesday’s top-two-move-on primary could not be more different in its approach to civic engagement.

Prior to taking over Seattle’s Urban League in 2012, Banks spent nearly her entire adult career working for the City of Seattle. While her opponents have recently heightened their criticisms of Banks’s soaring campaign contributions from large donations, she says it’s only a distraction from her long history of serving the City.

“This idea that I’m a corporate sellout when I’ve spent my entire career in public service is hilarious,” she said. “I could’ve went into the private sector, but I decided not to.”

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Banks started in what was then called the Department of Housing and Human Services, working as a community organizer and spreading the word out about energy conservation in poorer neighborhoods. She then spent over a decade in the Department of Neighborhoods. She was a neighborhood district coordinator in the Northeast and Southeast districts and later oversaw the coordinator program.

That history could prove useful in one, albeit minor, undertaking at City Hall. It remains to be seen how the current 13 neighborhood district councils will mesh with the new seven district City Council. Banks said she’s open to reducing the number of district councils to reflect a more unified system of representation.

“I couldn’t pick and choose who I saw … even if they were angry and mad at the city. I had to take those hits.”

The work Banks says she’s most proud from her time at the City came in the mid-2000s while working to help small businesses impacted by construction of the Sound Transit Link light rail line. Construction of the line along MLK was a strain on shop owners for all the reasons Capitol Hill is familiar with now: lack of parking, lots of debris, blocked sidewalks, and occasionally damaged property.

The program claims it was able to retain 75% of small businesses along MLK Way. The key, Banks said, was having a project mitigation fund specifically for small businesses. When she couldn’t help a business owner, Banks (who then went by Pamela Green) said the experience was equally important in preparing her for public office.

“I couldn’t pick and choose who I saw … even if they were angry and mad at the city,” she said. “I had to take those hits.”

(Image: Pamela Banks)

Her three decades spent at the City, working under five mayors, and garnering endorsements from six sitting council members has, for some, earned Banks the badge of “establishment candidate.” She says it’s just a reflection of the good relationships she’s built over the years with City officials.

“I do know how government works. I know how budgets work. I’ve hired people and fired people,” she said.

If Banks doesn’t make it to the council this year, she’ll have her previous job waiting for her as head of the Seattle Urban League. She’s currently on a leave of absence, but maintains a pared down set of responsibilities (she spent part of last week in Florida at the Urban League national conference).

Banks took over the Urban League following a scandal in which state auditors found Seattle Public Schools improperly spent money on a variety of contracts, including one to the league. Banks’ first order of business was an apology tour to donors and government agencies. She also helped implement a jobs program for African American men -— an issue she’s eager to work on at City Hall.

No third place
Though they jumped in earlier than Banks, challengers Rod Hearne and Morgan Beach haven’t received the same level of attention for their campaigns heading into Tuesday. That didn’t keep either from battling a hot Friday afternoon to doorknock and drop campaign materials door-to-door.

We asked both what issues they wished got more play during the campaign. For Beach, who works in corporate donations at the Red Cross, it was emergency preparedness. Hearne said he wished that raising the cultural and art opportunities for children got more attention.

Early on, Beach said she knew winning the Council District 3 election would be no easy task. That proved to be true, she said, but not for the reason she expected.

“I sincerely underestimated what it would be like to maintain a full-time job and pursue this campaign, that has been the hardest part,” Beach said in an email. “I did not have the luxury to take any (time off) but some of my saved up paid time off (which I’ve only started using in the last 2 weeks) because I am a renter and work on a non-profit salary.”

Hearne, the former director of Equal Rights Washington, said while he’s trailing in campaign cash he’s making up for in relentless door knocking.

“I think it’s anybody’s race at this point,” he said. “The real poll is on Tuesday and that’s the only one that matters.”

As the last contender to get in the race, Lee Carter has repeatedly said he’s running as a “informational candidate” to resurrect the movement of neighborhood powered government and to place a spotlight on seniors issues.

Capitol Hill will be full of primary parties Tuesday night. Here is who will be celebrating where:

• Pamela Banks – 95 Slide
• Kshama Sawant – Melrose Market Studios
• Rod Hearne – Poco Wine + Sprits
• Morgan Beach/Jon Grant – Bar Sue

Before you head out to party for democracy, your ballot must be me dropped off or postmarked by 8 PM Tuesday.

UPDATE 8/4/2015 9:45 AM: The survey results through Tuesday morning reflect the same percentage totals we’ve seen since the non-scientific, totally self-selected poll was posted — Sawant with a commanding 50% of respondents, Banks with a strong 41%. If we pull a sample based around District 3 respondents who chose either of the frontrunners, we can glean some insights into what is driving the responses.

First, here’s a look at how neighborhoods break down in the Banks-Sawant sample. For example, of all First Hill respondents, 64% selected Sawant:

Meanwhile, here are the priorities the respondents for each candidate cited. For example, of all respondents in the sample who cited “Addiction” as a priority, 58% of them chose Sawant: