The Opposition Gets Exposed
The Stranger fact checks the opponents’ “campaign.”
A similar pattern emerges when you look at the anti–Proposition 1 campaign’s donor base. Of the $152,000 raised by NotoProp1 .org, the vast majority came from people and groups known for giving to Republican causes: Kemper Freeman, the Bellevue land magnate ($100,000); Fremont landowner Suzie Burke ($1,000); Belltown zillionaire Mark Baerwaldt ($18,000); cell-phone magnate Bruce McCaw ($10,000); and Rossi supporters H. Chaffey Investments and Oak Harbor Freight Lines ($500 and $5,000, respectively).
Those six “nonpartisan” donors are joined by longtime anti–light rail zealots John Niles and Donald Padelford, developer Matt Griffin, and the Washington Asphalt Pavement Association—bringing the total number of donors to the anti–light rail crusade to 10. So not only is Sound Transit’s opposition hardly “nonpartisan”—it isn’t “grassroots,” either. In contrast, the Mass Transit Now campaign has more than 200 donors.
