Last month, CHS wrote about an effort to get an initiative on the ballot to transition the Seattle City Council to a district-based body. The group spearheading the effort at the time reportedly put their effort on hold. But a group has revived the effort and started mounting a campaign to collect enough signatures to get the initiative on Seattle’s November ballot. If they succeed and the measure passes, the City Council will be made up of representatives from five city districts starting in 2011 and add four at-large members in 2013. From the PI:

“A hybrid system will allow more economic, ethnic and racial diversity on the City Council,” Pat Murakmi, executive director of Action Seattle, said in a news release issued early Wednesday. Murakami is a southeast Seattle political activist.

“We will be better served by a council that is more in touch with what the voters want rather than a council being pressured or influenced by special interest groups.”

Critics contend that districts can lead to parochial squabbling and an ineffective council. Here’s a comment about that concern from our previous post on the possible redistricting:

districts are a sure way to give the mayor more power
I lived in a city with districts. All it did was turn the City Council into a turf-squabblers, consumed all their time with “in-district meetings”, and left the mayor to run the City. Seattle doesn’t have such a great history with mayors, but if you want to make the Mayor’s Office even more powerful and turn the City Council into a bunch of small time neighborhood problem solvers, by all means, let’s elect by districts.

If what we want is a stronger voice for neighborhood issues, let’s beef up the City’s Dept of Neighborhoods – give them more authority, say and power in city government.

The group needs to gather 29,500 signatures to qualify the initiative for the ballot. You can learn more at http://www.actionseattle.org/