Forget Trump — the real meat this election is at the local level

One of Seattle’s mayoral candidates is interested in zero-based budgeting, while some want the city to go from asking developers to build affordable housing to the city itself building homes for people priced out of its heated market.

There’s a bus load of mayoral candidates, and one of them is going to get the job. They represent a narrow slice of the political spectrum, which might cause a prospective voter to yawn, but they’re all different people whose personalities and backgrounds would affect their effectiveness and direction in office.

And each has a least one goal that stands out: Open a city-owned bank, or put a tax on land speculation, or ramp up spending on mental-health care, or do more to get people on bikes and buses.

I suspect it’s going to be hard for voters to choose among them. It’s going to take more effort than usual, especially because the top contenders all seem like they could do a credible job.

Most of them aren’t going to stir strong emotions in voters, which could mean a small percentage of voters will be left to make a big decision for everyone else. That wouldn’t be good, especially now with the city in the midst of extraordinary growth that is making it hard to get around, or for many people to find affordable housing.

Americans are generally lackluster about exercising our most central civic duty. More people vote when the president is up for election, and not so many bother when there are only local matters on the ballot. And in either kind of election, turnout is often driven by strong feelings for or against a candidate or an issue.

In Washington state, just over 54 percent of registered voters turned in a ballot in 2014 when there was no presidential election. And even that represented only 39.51 percent of the voting-age population. A bit more than 60 percent of the voting-age population participated in the last presidential election. That data is from the Washington Secretary of State website.

You and I have the most power in local elections. Unlike the presidential election, there is no anti-democratic, Electoral-College system robbing individuals in urban areas of their full vote.

That distortion at the national level is a real problem because cities and less-populated parts of the country have different priorities and are on different planets politically. Cities and states are going their own way on issues where the federal government either can’t get its act together, or where it acts against the needs of cities, a phenomenon ratcheted up by the result of the last national election.

Seattle and King County are often out front on striking a different path, and that’s because of the people we elect.

We took a lead on raising the minimum wage in the absence of federal action, legalizing marijuana, taking what action we could against the proliferation of guns and welcoming immigrants.

We need leadership that has vision, but we also need leaders who recognize the importance of filling potholes. Still waiting for that.

A mayor can’t do everything — the city council also matters, and the school district is vital to community health. There are races for positions on the council and the school board in this election. But we look to mayors and the King County executive to offer leadership and vision.

Monday, Seattle’s current mayor, Ed Murray, ordered the city’s police department to equip officers with body cameras. The order ended a long negotiation between the city and the police officers’ union over the cameras, which can be a valuable asset in conflicting versions of an encounter. Cameras don’t always settle matters, but they do provide a base of objective information.

Sometimes a mayor just needs to get important things done.

Murray would have been on the ballot again, but he isn’t because of accusations of abuse he is said to have committed earlier in his life. The city will have to move on without a clear resolution.

In a way, it’s good that the candidates to replace him aren’t stirring up a tempest as sometimes happens in campaigns. They aren’t generating either anger or broad excitement. I hope we can be drawn to the ballot without drama.

The ballot is full of local candidates and issues that will make a difference in the daily lives of people who live in King County and your city. The Times has an interactive online guide to the mayoral race. And King County has an online guide to the entire ballot.

Please vote in the Aug. 1 primary.