Mass Transit Now

Kemper Freeman

Bellevue developer Kemper Freeman has been the central opponent of mass transit since the mid-90s when he bankrolled the fight against light rail. Freeman is the CEO of the Kemper Development Company, which owns Bellevue Mall, Bellevue Place, and Lincoln Square, and has spent nearly $1 million over the last decade to stop mass transit in our region.

He spent $100,000 last year alone against the regional light rail measure. And he’s already spent $50,000 this year supporting the Eastside Transportation Association, an anti-mass transit group. The official opposition group broke state election rules and filed their campaign finance reports late, but they have promised to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to defeat 2008’s light rail proposal. Expect Kemper Freeman to be the sugar daddy.

In addition to pavement, Freeman’s other pet financial causes include: the Washington State Republican Party; George W. Bush — twice; Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi; Republican Attorney General Rob McKenna; and the federal shopping mall PAC, the International Council of Shopping Centers Inc.

Why doesn’t Kemper Freeman want the Eastside to be connected to the rest of the region with a mass transit system? It seems to have something to do with his interest in keeping certain people away from his shopping malls. As he told the Seattle Post Intelligencer: “When you walk through (Southcenter) mall, the way the customer dresses just to shop there–the light blue and pink hair curlers, the shoes that flop, flop, flop along–it’s a completely different customer… Yet we are 12 miles apart.”

Further Reading

• Read the plan to bring mass transit to Puget Sound
• Read debunked myths about Proposition 1

Mark Baerwaldt

Having lost his strange lawsuit in 2004 against Sound Transit’s right to levy taxes, Mark Baerwaldt, an independently wealthy Belltown resident, continues to be obsessed with stopping light rail. He spent $250,000 last year trying to defeat mass transit expansion.

Bearwaldt is the chairman and board president of Toucan Inc., a holding company. He was also the CEO of USA Maritime which did oil and gas exploration. Oil interests? Doesn’t like light rail? Hmmm.

The funny thing about Baerwaldt is that he fumes about Sound Transit’s irresponsible public behavior (not sure what he means exactly—the agency is about to complete its first line on time and under budget), while he himself has been cited two times by the King County Environmental Division for violating wet land regulations on his property.

Jim Horn

Former Mercer Island Republican State Senator Jim Horn is now the board chair of the Eastside Transportation Association, a lobbying group that advocates building more roads to solve the region’s transportation problems. Horn was bounced from the State Senate by four points in 2004 when suburban Seattle voters decided that Horn, who as Chair of the Senate Transportation Committee for nearly 10 years had built a sad reputation as an anti-mass transit stalwart, was out of touch with the district’s demand for smart solutions.

Following the same-old, knee-jerk anti-everything script Horn has followed for years, his Eastside Transportation Association began running a $50,000 anti-light rail radio ad campaign last summer, long before Sound Transit had even proposed any plan to the voters. The ads claimed van pools were a better solution than light rail.

The biggest funder of Horn’s ETA? Kemper Freeman.