Dori: Good riddance to Rob Johnson — get someone better next time, SCC

Lying Seattle City Councilmember Rob Johnson is not going to seek reelection next year. He says that he wants to spend more time with his family.

We all know what has happened with Rob Johnson. This is a guy who is a proven liar. His pet project is redoing 35th Avenue Northeast, a thoroughfare in the Wedgwood area that is full of mon-n-pop shops. Rob Johnson and the bike activists want to take out a car lane in each direction, take out parking spaces, and put in bike lanes, even though the Burke-Gilman Trail runs north-south just a few blocks east of 35th.

There are an awful lot of citizens who live and work in that area and don’t want that. They aren’t going to be able to park in front of their homes. Their customers aren’t going to be able to park in front of their businesses, which could be the nail in the coffin for the small businesses that are already struggling to get by. I’ve talked to small business owners who are terrified about the project. They’re already teetering on the brink with all the taxes and regulations in Seattle, not to mention the competition from Amazon and discount chain stores.

RELATED: Seattle CM Rob Johnson is not telling the truth

A majority of Rob Johnson’s constituents along 35th told him in polling two years ago that they did not want to lose car lanes in favor of bike lanes, and that the gridlock is already horrible. Rob Johnson flat-out lied earlier this year when he said that he had not known the public felt this way. We showed you the texts and emails that prove that Rob Johnson was well aware of his constituents’ feelings a year before that.

Then Johnson claimed recently that he got death threats over all of this, which appears to be another blatant lie. I don’t know what kind of politician would receive a death threat and then not file a police report. He admitted that he never filed one. What he cites as a “death threat” is a tweet by someone calling him “a dead man walking.” That expression is a very common phrase to refer to someone who is about to lose their job. Now he cites that tweet whenever anyone asks why he never filed a police report for the death threats. He is a proven liar.

But here is how things work around here, and we saw this with Johnson’s friend Scott Kubly. The anti-car zealots and developers put Rob Johnson in office so that he could push relentlessly for bike lanes and upzoning. Now in return for destroying the city on their behalf, one of these bikeshare companies will give him a big, fat six-figure job, as they did with Scott Kubly. He has raised billions of dollars for special interests that will now reward him because that’s how politics work around here.

Good riddance to Rob Johnson. Hopefully the Seattle City Council gets someone sensible the next time around.

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