Your last chance to vote is today and tomorrow so get your ballots in the mail and make your voice heard. Even if you’ve been burnt by national elections in the past, voting on the state and county levels is crucial to making a real impact.

For those of you following The Melon, we’ve done a lot of work in Pierce County writing and interviewing for the election. You can find all of our great interviews with candidates and advocates as well as links to articles in our:

2009 Election Headquarters

Here are some direct links to articles:

• -Eight Years Is Enough – Reject Amendment 1 by New Takhoman
• -My Positions 2009 by Chris Van Vechten
• -Interview with Paul Jacob, Krist Novoselic and Kelly Haughton on RCV and Reject All Three
• -Interviews with all Pierce County Candidates (excluding the Port)

We were pleased to hear that we would have the opportunity to sit down with three fantastic authorities on voting reform.

• Paul Jacob, former President of U.S. Term Limits and current President of Citizens in Charge
• Krist Novoselic, former bassist from Nirvana (yeah, that Nirvana), current voting reform advocate and Chair of FairVote
• Kelly Haughton, President of Citizens for a Better Ballot

Huddled in The Melon’s studio, what followed was a riveting discussion on Ranked Choice Voting, democracy, and three big amendments in Pierce County’s upcoming election.

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protectvoterchoice.com – Official No on Amendment 3, RCV website

noriggingthesystem.com – Official No on All 3 website

rankedchoice.blogspot.com – Kelly Haughton’s personal blog on RCV

fairvote.org – National election reform organization

Special thanks to Erik Connell for making this interview possible

The Melon is your election headquarters for Tacoma’s 2009 ballot.  We’re pleased to announce our complete set of interviews for every race in the entire city (well…with exception to the Port). Now you can look past the dry ballot statements and get a real flavor for our candidates by listening to our extensive, exclusive and dare I say, extreme candidate interviews. We’ve interviewed the Mayoral candidates, all of the City Council candidates and the School Board candidates.

Take the time to make the most educated choice come November by informing yourself:

ELECTION 2009 PAGE

You can thank us later

Stan Smith wants the Tacoma School Board to be engaged and accountable. His hope is that “every child enrolled in the Tacoma School District is entitled to a quality education.”

Chris Van Vechten sat down with Stan, to discuss his vision and platforms.

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With a long list of experience working with youth and community development, Catherine Ushka-Hall is looking to tackle the big issues facing our schools. Catherine intends to use her organizational and management experience to help advance our school system.

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For more information visit: http://votecatherine.com/

Thanks to the work of Joe La Sac and Glynnis Kirchmeier, The Melon is pleased to present the fascinating results of Pecha Kucha Night last Wednesday. Featuring local Tacomas, Pecha Kucha Night presenters discussed identity using 20 slides each. Enjoy:

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Jerry Thorpe is one of two candidates running for Connie Rickman’s seat in the Tacoma School Board. With a history as a teacher and Port Commissioner, Jerry Thorpe wants to see Tacoma schools to start refocusing on serious education.

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Electric Elliot and Chris Van Vechten speak with the New Takhoman’s John Hathaway about Tacoma in this new podcast segment: The Rotten Melon.

In this episode we discuss:

• Term Limits
• Dale Washam’s scandal
• Election 2009
• Martin Luther King Housing Authority
• And more!!!

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The Melon is pleased to announce that we’ve officially partnered with John Hathaway, publisher of The New Takhoman. We’ll be reprinting New Takhoman comics and hopefully bringing in some exclusive content. Thanks to John for making this happen.

The Melon is pleased to announce our new partnership with TrailerHater.com.

What is TrailerHater.com?

“Trailer Hater is about hating and loving the art of trailer in all genres,  be it an action flick, video game, spoof, etc., and offering an opinion on the worthiness of the previewed film.  We let the trailer do the talking and judge the merit of an unsung medium which has a serious cultural (or at least monetary) impact.”

What does that mean for The Melon?

On a weekly basis, TrailerHater.com will be providing us with one of their latest trailer reviews for your viewing pleasure.  If you have trailer review requests, email hater@trailerhater.com and they’ll be sure to get to them as soon as possible.  We, at The Melon, are very excited to be working with Trailer Hater to bring you more excitement. Let the HATE begin.