Protest groups face off over Bellevue campaigns

Published 11:55 am Thursday, November 3, 2011

A dueling group of protests occupied the corner of Bellevue Way and Northeast Eighth Street Wednesday night in response to rampant spending in Bellevue City Council races.

The rally was originally planned by Fuse Washington, a progressive public policy group, to protest negative mailers sent out against council candidates Claudia Balducci and John Stokes. The protestors were upset about what they said were negative mailers were sent by a political action committee tied to local developer Kemper Freeman. They accused him of attempting to buy an election.

Not to be outdone, another rally across the street formed to protest the high donations from Seattle-based entities for Balducci and other council candidates. They held signs telling Seattle to “butt out” of Bellevue’s election. This group of protestors was tied to the organization Building a Better Bellevue, which has advocated an alternate route to Sound Transit’s Bellevue Way/112th Avenue light-rail alignment. These 50 protests praised Freeman for all he has done for Bellevue.

Both protests lasted from 5 p.m. until after 5:30 when it got dark and rain began to fall.

Freeman, along with developers Bob Wallace and Skip Rowley funded a $69,000 donation to the Eastside Leadership Council last month. According to the state Public Disclosure Commission, more than $63,000 of that donation has gone to another PAC, Friends of Bellevue Families and Neighborhoods. That money was then used on the mailers against candidates.