Letter to the editor: A candidate analyzes the council race as a voter, and as an organizer
This submitted column was written by Damon Krane, an Independent at-large Athens City Council candidate. It has been lightly edited for grammar and style.
The views expressed in this column do not reflect those of The New Political.
I am currently a candidate for Athens City Council at-large, and for the past year, I have mostly been speaking as a candidate. But I am also a voter, and like every city voter I get to vote for up to three different candidates in the at large race. The three at large seats then go to those with the most votes. This means that, as a voter, I not only have a hand in deciding whether or not I am one of the three people elected -- I also have a hand in deciding who else gets elected.
At the same time, I am not only a voter, I am also a community organizer who is always pursuing positive change no matter who holds office. So I am keenly interested in the different opportunities for positive change that each candidate presents, and that each possible electoral outcome presents.
Therefore, I want to switch proverbial hats for a moment and give you my take on this race, not as a candidate, but as a voter and an organizer. Here is my take on who else, besides myself, I plan to vote for and why -- plus my take on the opportunities to create a stronger community no matter who wins.
Iris Virjee
Iris is the other Independent candidate in the race. I have had her back in recent weeks, not because she asked me to (she did not) and not because she needs me to (she does not). Iris and I want to represent the same people -- the vast majority of our community shut out of city governance by the elitist clique running the show.
When Mayor Patterson and his Republican pals belittled Iris as merely “a girl” and “a bartender,” they dismissed all the working people and young people of our community. These are the vast majority of city residents who actually make the city run. Thus, when every other city officeholder, county party leader and candidate besides me failed to stand with Iris against the mayor’s classist and sexist comments, his lies and his attempt to mobilize dangerous far-right paranoia against Iris and me, they failed to stand with the people of Athens. Eff that.
Iris and I do not agree on everything, but she has plenty of smarts, plenty of heart and more integrity in her pinky than exists in the entire local political establishment. She’s got my vote.
Ben Ziff & Micah McCarey
Democrats Ziff and McCarey are on the same yard sign, and they are the newest people on Council. Both were appointed earlier this year to replace two Councilmembers who resigned.
Ben and Micah simultaneously embody progress and the establishment’s attempt to halt that progress. They are the first renters on Council in 13 years. Additionally, Ziff is the first service worker and Micah is the first openly queer and Black person on Council in decades, if not ever. And beyond symbolism, they have taken clear positions on many issues which, if acted upon, will benefit the underrepresented communities to which they belong. They have been almost as good as Iris and me on tenants’ rights, rental housing regulation and parking, and at least better than their predecessors on racial equity and police reform.
The problem I have with Ben and Micah is the proverbial deal with the devil they have made to win their seats at the table. Despite being on the same page as Iris and me about many issues, they also share the same sign with Sarah Grace, who opposes them on key city issues.
Yet, while Ben and Micah are both tenants, Sarah is a landlord. And while Ben and Micah took great positions (the same as Iris and me) on a questionnaire about housing issues provided by United Athens County Tenants, Sarah is the only candidate in the race who refused to respond to the UACT questionnaire.
Ben and Micah share a yard sign with Sarah, not Iris and me. They both failed to stand up to Sarah’s steadfast ally Mayor Patterson when he sought the support of Republicans who attacked Iris, Ben, Micah and me.
Finally, Ben and Micah joined with Sarah in skipping the Sept. 30 candidate forum, and only agreed to appear at candidate forums from which Iris and I were excluded.
So when it comes to the issues, Ben and Micah are campaigning for their opponents and opposing their allies. Why? Because it is their opponents who appointed Ben and Micah to Council. Not just Council, party leaders appointed Micah to the ballot without him gathering any signatures and after the candidate filing deadline had passed. (Strangely, that’s legal). It is the party leaders who run both candidates’ campaigns but the Athens County Democratic Party is Ben’s one and only campaign donor.
Suffice to say, Ben and Micah’s deal with the devil is not a deal I’ll ever make. I just don’t like the taste of boots.
Nevertheless, I recognize their deal may prove successful at keeping one or both of them on Council. The sad truth about our city is that many careless folks will always vote “blue no matter who,” even though the only Republican candidates in Athens run as Democrats (e.g. Patterson and Grace) -- something that turns “blue no matter who” into “red, the joke’s on you.” And Ben and Micah are doing whatever it takes to win all the thoughtless votes they can.
And as strange as it may sound, I might cast my third vote for either Ben or Micah.
Why? Because, whether sincere or not, they have taken excellent positions on a lot of issues, which makes them head-and-shoulders above Sarah, who, in contrast, has taken awful positions or simply refused to state her positions.
But that is not all. What’s more important is what the unmasking of Democrat-In-Name-Only Steve Patterson (and all the DINOs who elevated him to power) means for Ben and Micah.
Patterson’s unmasking has massively discredited the local Athens County DINO Party leadership -- which is why no party leaders have come to the mayor’s defense. Patterson is so toxic he can’t even defend himself! And with only more scandals and missteps on the way, Patterson is becoming an ever more unaffordable liability to party leaders. It is only a matter of time until they throw him under the bus. I doubt the mayor will even finish his current term. Regardless, his political career is over, and he is taking the party leadership’s credibility down more than a few pegs along with him.
The local establishment will have but one option for rebuilding some of that credibility, and that will be to grant policy concessions to progressives. This means that if Ben and Micah win the Nov. 2 election, they will soon have the opportunity to break their deal with the devil and follow the better angels of their nature. Meanwhile, the rest of us can demand Ben and Micah make good on the good policy positions they have taken.
So if Ben and Micah beat me, I won’t shed any tears. Quite the opposite, I’ll do everything I can to help them disprove my negative assessment of them.
Sarah Grace
Sarah has been in hiding for the past month and a half. First, by skipping the Sept. 30 candidate forum along with Ben and Micah, and second, as being the only candidate to refuse to respond to the questionnaire on housing issues, despite being chair of Council’s Affordable Housing Commission. This is just because Sarah has the same indefensible policy record as Chris Fahl, who, on the basis of their shared record, lost the city’s only competitive Democratic primary race by 30 points to newcomer Alan Swank. While Sarah has hidden from the council race, on Council she’s no slouch. She’s not the mayor’s puppet, she’s his partner.
Sarah has worked hard to maintain our status quo of staggering inequality by writing resolutions and ordinances and actively stumping for bad policy in the media. For example, she called the city-subsidized construction of new quarter million dollar homes at University Estates an “affordable housing” initiative, then lied through her teeth in saying that it was never described as such. However, the ordinance approving the deal directly calls it an “affordable housing development” and so did Sarah for a year and a half, and once again at the most recent candidate forum. Finally, she used a short-lived lumber price bubble as an excuse to make the homes even less affordable. Sarah also wrote a great racial equity resolution that she’s been voting against ever since and pledged to ban source of income discrimination on the 2019 campaign trail, only to then oppose a ban for the next six months. If you thought Steve Patterson was the epitome of a two-faced politician, let me introduce you to Sarah Grace.
If you like the Steve Patterson approach to politics, Sarah is the candidate for you. But thankfully for the rest of us, the only victory Sarah can now achieve is a pyrrhic one. Sarah has lost her ally on Council, Chris Fahl, and she will soon lose her ally in the Mayor’s office. With the tremendous damage Patterson’s downfall has done to the DINO establishment that Sarah represents, should Sarah retain her seat on Council, she will be forced to concede to Progressives. She was already forced to concede to Progressives when she voted to ban landlords from discriminating against tenants with government housing vouchers. She later lied and said she supported it on the 2019 campaign trail.
Plus, with our community’s newfound ability to view politicians like Sarah more critically, all of her past misdeeds will now be scrutinized, just like Patterson’s. It certainly doesn’t help Sarah that, in many cases, she played a leading role in Patterson’s misdeeds! At the end of the day, a defanged Sarah Grace is nothing for Progressives to fear.
Conclusion
As a candidate, my own chances of winning office have always been a longshot. But what’s nice about being a candidate, a voter, and most of all, a community organizer is that I never put all of my social change eggs in one strategic basket. However this election turns out or how the dust settles after Mayor Patterson’s political demise, Progressives like myself have fought a good fight against our city’s tired, sleazy establishment for these past two years. Our efforts will have irrevocably changed our city for the better, and that too is only the beginning.