Kermoade: A Lifetime Preparing For Office

TWO candidates for the Seattle City Council have dedicated themselves to service. But one says he doesn't really want to win.

For two hours every night, Kerman Kermoade reads and clips local and national newspapers and then files the articles in cardboard boxes in his Lake City house.

Twenty-seven boxes fill one bedroom and most of the garage, holding about 75,000 articles about political, social and economic issues dating back to 1981.

It may sound like an eccentric hobby, but to Kermoade the files are serious business.

Kermoade, 40, says the research is part of a lifelong effort to prepare himself for public office. The land surveyor has volunteered on political campaigns, worked on neighborhood planning committees and, three times before this, run for office.

"I'd probably be the best City Council member we've ever had," says Kermoade, who is challenging appointed Councilman Richard McIver.

As a surveyor, he has studied the city's sewer and water systems and he says he's been inside nearly every office and public building downtown. He says the city's map vault is like a second home. He founded the unsuccessful campaign to change the City Council to district elections and he has been actively involved in his neighborhood's planning efforts. He's also finishing a degree in political science at the University of Washington, studying local government and elections.

What he's learned, Kermoade says, is that too much of local government is inaccessible to average citizens. Kermoade wants to change that. He wants all city meetings open to the public. He wants to strengthen laws concerning public-document requests, and to make the city's Ethics and Elections Commission and auditor independent.

"The awareness of what really happens in this city is pathetic," he says.

He's not alleging corruption, but believes a Democratic political machine runs the city. If you don't buy into the party line, you're not included in decision-making, he says.

But Kermoade, a man with a generous smile who looks at home in a fisherman's sweater and jeans, doesn't exactly want to win. In fact, when he learned he'd won 15 percent of the vote and the right to challenge McIver in the general election, Kermoade called his father.

"I don't want to win this race because we need an African-American man on this council," he recalls he told his dad. "If he's not there, the council is going to be lacking."

McIver, an African American, who won 64 percent of the vote in the five-way primary, was chosen from more than 100 applicants to fill an open seat when John Manning resigned the council last year. The seat has been held by an African American since 1967.

Kermoade grew up in Seattle and graduated in 1974 from Nathan Hale High School, where he was class president. In 1979, he decided to hitchhike across the country looking to work on a campaign. When he reached Elk City, Okla., a man running a survey crew picked him up and offered him a job.

Surveying seemed a perfect way to pay the bills and understand government better at the same time. "Division and development of land is the central issue in politics," he says.

He's been surveying ever since.

Kermoade and his wife, Michelle, had their first child this summer. In addition to his 50-hour work week, Kermoade has been involved in neighborhood planning and activism. But after attending hundreds of meetings, he has seen little change.

"Everybody is terribly cynical," he says. "How many community meetings can you go to where nothing gets done? It's a matter of feeling helpless."

Kermoade ran for Congress twice, in 1980 and 1990, and for City Council in 1995.

He acknowledges he's not very good at promoting himself. He has no endorsements, has refused to take any campaign contributions and has spent only about $700 of his own money on the campaign.

He speaks highly of his opponent, calling him a "career civil servant in the good sense of the word."

Still, he says he wouldn't refuse the position. "It's something I've trained myself my whole life for," he says. "I seek to be worthy to be known."