Tomorrow the Council will hear from officials in Los Angeles, San
Francisco and Portland about the experience of those cities with public
financing of local elections. There will be a brown bag session at lunch in
Council Chambers, then a larger public forum at Seattle University in the
evening. See more details here if you would
like to attend the forum.
If you are interested in a sneak peak at the presentations, take a
look:
a. Los Angeles
Matching Fund Program Presentation
b. San
Francisco Public Financing Program Presentation
c. Portland
Campaign Finance System Presentation
In 2008, the Council voted to establish an advisory committee to come back with recommendations about how to implement public financing of campaigns. The committee’s report then came at the same time as the recession and we were forced to table the discussion.
Every city with public financing of campaigns does it differently; there is a lot of information and a variety of approaches to digest. I’m looking forward to hearing from our visitors tomorrow as the Council begins our exploration of this issue.