Another primary election upon us. Again this year, thanks to a judge's decision, voters will be asked to declare a party affiliation, but unless you care about who is on county council and live in either North Seattle (Democrats) or southeast King County (Republicans), there really isn't a contested primary election within the parties to force you to choose; stay independent. And throw the bums out.

Whether it's the pro-development agenda of the city of Seattle, the ongoing catastrophe of the monorail board, the corrupt corporate footsie played at the Port of Seattle, or the fiscal mess of Seattle's schools, it's time for new blood. With a few honorable exceptions (Richard Conlin in the city council, Lawrence Malloy at the Port of Seattle, and Mary Bass on the school board), the incumbents on the ballot this month need to go. Voting doesn't necessarily change things--activism does--but voting is our one chance to control who is allowed the opportunity to either shine or fuck things up. And for these incumbents, it's mostly the latter.

So, here we go; ETS! hereby enters its tenth year of sharing our dubious wisdom as to who we like (or dislike least) in these races. The same caveats apply as when we started out in 1996: this is a single opinion. Don't rely exclusively on us or anybody else to reach your decisions; do your research and make up your own mind. And not voting at all is an entirely honorable option.

To the envelopes:

City of Seattle, Mayor: The stewardship of Paul Allen, er, sorry, Greg Nickels has been a disaster. Wherever he has had the opportunity--South Lake Union, the U-District, Northgate--he has consistently favored the interests of wealthy developers over those of the people who actually live there. His chief aide, Tim Ceis, practices the sort of strong-arm politics better suited to a decaying city back east, if not somewhere behind the Iron Curtain. Nickels has got to go.

Alas, he faces no serious opposition this year, so this is strictly a protest vote. Among the six alternatives, the two with the staunchest progressive platforms are the Progressive Party's Christal Wood and the Socialist Workers' Chris Hoeppner. Alas, Wood is too flaky and Hoeppner is too sectarian to merit our backing.

We're going instead with Al Runte, a former UW prof with little political experience but a lot of good ideas. Unfortunately, Runte and the others will all be footnotes to the Nickels machine come November.

Seattle City Council, Position 2: All the city council incumbents are running for re-election, but in this race, the incumbent is the (relatively) good guy, and it's the well-funded opponent who's the nightmare. The incumbent is Richard Conlin, who, in his two terms, has evolved from showing inconsistent streaks of progressivism to being one of the few council members openly questioning Nickels' pro-development agenda. That's why he's being opposed by Paige Miller, a corrupt Port of Seattle commissioner who embodies everything wrong with the Port. Miller would suck at Greg Nickels' teat. Conlin won't. Vote for him.

Seattle City Council, Position 4: Unfortunately, the two most progressive people running for city council this year are in the same race, running against each other. Naturally, neither is the incumbent, Jan Drago, or her well-heeled main challenger, Casey Corr. Drago, a former Downtown Seattle Association president, is the most ideologically conservative, pro-business Democrat on the council. Corr spent the last four years working for Greg Nickels. (Before that he was a newspaper columnist. What is it about media figures turning into politicians in this town?)

That leaves us with Linda Averill and Angel Bolanos. Averill is smart, articulate, and thoroughly progressive. She's also a member of the strident socialist group Radical Women, a front of the Freedom Socialist Party, and she has a tendency to tilt at windmills like affirmative action and rent control (both now illegal in Washington state, and likely to stay that way).

If you can get past the sectarianism, Averill is a fine choice. But we're going with Bolanos, an Ecuadorian immigrant who has worked tirelessly, since his first run for council two years ago, to build up his name familiarity in progressive circles. Angel, unfortunately, has a tendency to get dismissed because of a thick accent that can make it hard to understand him. But having a poor immigrant--and a thoroughly progressive one--on Seattle's nearly all-white city council isn't a bad idea at all. We're going with Bolanos.

Seattle City Council, Position 8: This race has no good choices. The incumbent, Richard McIver, the council's only African-American, is a former bureaucrat who has mostly been an inert presence on council for eight long years. It's time to retire him. His main challenger, Dwight Pelz, is probably the best person running here. He's a staunchly liberal former county council member from Southeast Seattle who's being squeezed out of his position as the county council shrinks from 13 to nine seats.

Pelz, however, is close buddies with Greg Nickels (dating from their time on county council together), and is all for Nickels' tongue firmly in Paul Allen's ass (at taxpayer expense) on the South Lake Union development scheme. That leaves us with the third candidate, Robert Rosencrantz--a professional landlord with no political experience. We tried to find a reason to endorse Rosencrantz, but just couldn't find one. Back Pelz if you must, just to get McIver out of his sinecure, but our inclination is to skip it.

Seattle School District Director, District 5 (Central District, Leschi): Incumbent Mary Bass was saying "no" to the fiscally incompetent regime of ousted superintendent Joseph Olchefske back when bashing Olchefske wasn't cool. Frequently the butt end of 6-1 votes on the school board, she now anchors the reform slate that inherited the Seattle school mess two years ago.

However, the "old boy" network in Seattle doesn't like the upstart reformers now running the school board after being swept into office two years ago. Their first chance to do something about it is by trying to get rid of Bass, an African-American who has relentlessly worked to be accessible to her constituents. Their great non-black hope is Jane Fellner. Fellner would represent the old way of doing business in Seattle schools: consensus-driven, arrogant, oblivious. Bass represents her constituents, and does it well; for that, she deserves another four years.

Seattle School District Director, District 7 (Beacon Hill, Rainier Valley): Former city councilwoman Cheryl Chow is the best-known name in this race. She's been trying to get back into elected office ever since leaving council; meantime, among other things, there was a short but disastrous fling as the principal of Garfield High School. Chow has been trading on her resume and influential family ties for far too long. She's a disaster.

That leaves three others in this race for an open seat: Theresa Cardamone, an anti-WASL candidate a bit too flaky for our comfort; Linda Thompson-Black, a PTSA veteran backed by Norm Rice and other local rainmakers; and Alan Lloyd. Lloyd isn't great; he has no real education experience beyond being a parent. But he opposes abolition of the choice system, a move which would be a nightmare for south end schools. Good for him.

Seattle Popular Monorail Authority Board Member, Position 8: It's tempting to vote for incumbent Cindi Laws, who was asking hard questions of the now-disgraced former monorail head, Joel Horn, while other board members stood around like sheep. But Laws is still a monorail True Believer, at a time when what's needed is somebody to pull the plug on this doomed project. That, and Laws recently blamed the monorail's problems on a cabal of downtown Jewish interests, a racist streak that shouldn't be rewarded with re-election.

Someone in this race who does want to pull the plug is Beth Goldberg, Laws' main opponent. (The third candidate, Stan Lippman, is a fringe perma-candidate.) Goldberg would bring some much-needed skepticism to a board still largely dominated by appointed apparatchiks who've already demonstrated their incompetence. It's a shame the monorail board has only two elected positions--yet another reason why a good idea became a taxpayer's nightmare.

Seattle Popular Monorail Authority Board Member, Position 9: At least incumbent Cleve Stockmeyer isn't an anti-Semite, but he has way too much of a taste for Kool-Aid to deserve re-election. He's opposed by two candidates. One, Dick Falkenbury, is the taxi driver who thought up this idea in the first place; he clearly wants to save his pet idea before it becomes a historical trivia question. Our choice is Jim Nobles, another candidate willing to preside over euthanasia.

King County Executive (Democratic Primary): When two-term incumbent Ron Sims ran for governor last year, he tried to distinguish himself from Christine Gregoire by campaigning as far more progressive than he's actually been as county executive. However, his two primary opponents are both fringe candidates, not worthy of a vote. Go with Sims, reluctantly.

Metropolitan King County Council District 1 (North Seattle) (Democratic Primary): Two incumbents, Bob Ferguson and Carolyn Edmonds, are being thrown into the same newly-created district as the county council shrinks. Ferguson is the better choice. Best known for doorbelling the entire district as he successfully campaigned to oust 20-year incumbent Cynthia Sullivan two years ago, Ferguson has since shown an independent streak largely missing in Edmonds, an undistinguished Democratic Party hack of the worst Seattle kind. Go with Ferguson.

Metropolitan King County Council District 2, 4, & 8 (Democratic Primary): Larry Gossett, Larry Phillips, and Dow Constantine are inexplicably on the ballot even though they're all unopposed. Sorry, but even when they're civil rights heroes like Gossett, we don't vote for anyone unopposed on a ballot. It's a symptom of an electoral system that's broken. Badly.

Metropolitan King County Council District 9 (Southeast King County) (Republican Primary): Both candidates in this deeply conservative rural district are reactionaries, but only one is the creepy, privileged son of a former congresswoman who wants to use this as a springboard to higher office. That would be Reagan Dunn (his mother named him when his namesake was still governor of California). He's opposed by the incumbent, Steve Hammond, a humble pastor who at least represents his constituents honestly. And isn't likely to trade on mom's name and donor lists to inflict his rabid views on Congress. Dunn must be stopped. Choose Hammond.

King County Sheriff: Incumbent Sue Rahr inherited the title when Dave Reichert ascended to Congress last year, but as Reichert's No. 2, she effectively ran the cop shop for years while Reichert was busy prettying himself up for higher office. Still, that means she had her hands dirty with many of the scandals that have been plaguing KCSO for years. Alas, her opponents are also flawed. Officer Jim Fuda made the headlines this month for having gotten a pay raise two years ago by presenting a "college" degree for "life experiences" from an Internet degree mill that's now out of business. No wonder the police guild endorsed him! The third candidate, Greg Schmidt, would be our choice except for a domestic violence incident a few years ago, one backed up by the intimation by acquaintances that he's something of a bully. Just what we need in a top cop. Skip it.

Port of Seattle Commissioner, Position 1: Lawrence Malloy is a nearly unthinkable contradiction: an environmentalist at the Port of Seattle. Elected as a reformer four years ago, he's largely kept to his word of representing environmental and community concerns at the Port. That's why he's a target. The choice of the OBN (Old Boy Network) is John Creighton, a pro-business hack who'd reinforce the corrupt, incompetent tendencies at the Port. Malloy is one of the good guys. Re-elect him.

Port of Seattle Commissioner, Position 3: There are several decent candidates in this race for the seat vacated by Paige Miller, who's running for city council. Lloyd Hara, for example, is a fine pick. But we're going with Christopher Cain, an anti-WTO veteran who for four years has been publishing the Port Observer, a muckraking newsletter that highlights the incestuous nature of much of what goes on at the Port. (Disclaimer: and he uses the same layout guy that lays out ETS!, too.) Cain would be a strong voice for change at the Port at a time when it's desperately needed.

Port of Seattle Commissioner, Position 4: The Port of Seattle is not only corrupt and an environmental disaster, but from a business standpoint it's incompetent. The marine division loses money in an industry where that's hard to do, and it's so expensive to land a plane at Sea-Tac that Southwest Airlines is willing to invest $130 million in Boeing Field because they figure they'll actually come out ahead!

For all this, you can blame incumbent Pat Davis as much as anyone. For years, Davis has dominated the port commission (inviting WTO to Seattle was her idea). She represents everything foul about this junket-taking, wasteful, back-scratching agency. For the good of humanity, ditch her.

Our choice to take her out is Jack Jolley, a Microsoftie with a business background and a desire to change how business is done at the Port. Voices like Jolley's are always desperately needed at the Port. What we don't need is another four years of Pat Davis.