The large crowd, which Nicastro campaign manager Jenn Forbes later put at more than 250, included former Governor Al Rosellini, 43rd District Democratic chair Richard Kelley, and consultant Blair Butterworth, who worked on Nicastro's previous campaign. The crowd at the official kickoff netted Nicastro about $13,000; in contrast, the activists who put on the event a week before, though equally enthusiastic, contributed just $2,000.
Politically, Nicastro occupies a tenuous position: Both pro-tenant and pro-developer, she has struggled to maintain her grassroots support while continuing to rake in big donations from developers like Martin Selig and Richard Hedreen (whose VP of operations and lobbyist have each contributed $650). That divide was on full display Thursday, when Nicastro delivered a campaign speech that managed to be both impassioned and reserved. Perched on a rickety milk crate, the diminutive, ruddy-faced council member fired up the well-heeled crowd, talking up her accomplishments on low-income housing and tenants' rights while shying away from the fiery rhetoric that spiced up her speech to the housing activists. Instead of accusing the Seattle Housing Authority of "jacking up [seniors'] rents" when the agency proposed increasing the minimum rent for SHA's senior housing program from $210 to $390 she noted coyly that the housing agency is "in a financial pickle." Instead of calling the mayor's decision to raise his own office budget while cutting basic city services "offensive" and "outrageous," as she did a week earlier, Nicastro characterized the decision as merely "wrong" and vowed blandly to be a "watchdog, not a lapdog."
Nicastro's divided loyalty has also been evident in her voting record. As far back as 1999, The Stranger hyped Nicastro as the tenants' voice on the city council. And in many respects, she's lived up to it: Over the last two years, Nicastro has encouraged low-income housing by rolling back parking requirements at low-income developments; made it easier for renters to prove retaliation by their landlords; and voted against last year's housing levy, traditionally reserved for low-income renters, because it tripled the city's subsidy for homeownership programs, which can also serve the middle class.
But on other issues, Nicastro has disappointed her base of tenants and housing advocates. She voted to give $6 million in building credits to developer Richard Hedreen. She caved on lifting the lease lid around the University of Washington, voting for a proposal (backed by Mayor Greg Nickels and reviled by neighborhood activists) that will allow the institution to rent as much space as it wants in the neighborhood around the campus. And she, along with the rest of the council, has voiced her support for the mayor's big development plans for South Lake Union, despite residents' concerns that the planned complex of lab buildings and apartments will gentrify their neighborhood and won't deliver the 20,000 jobs the developer, Vulcan Inc., has promised.
One common denominator throughout Nicastro's three years on the council has been her tendency to exaggerate her achievements. For example, at last week's kickoff, Nicastro claimed that thanks to her "tenacity," SHA's senior housing rent increase "has been rolled back. We won." (Not exactly--Nicastro's resolution, passed by the city council this Monday, only "supports" SHA's efforts to keep most of its units affordable to very low-income seniors and "requests that SHA should remain open" to alternative funding sources.)
She also tends to couch her estimable accomplishments in language that's almost mythological. She repeatedly describes her housing levy vote as a "fundamentally moral" decision; she refers to herself as an "independent, feisty, courageous woman"; and she overstates the true effect of her own legislation. Still, despite her flaws, Nicastro has been one of the most solidly progressive voices on an often mushy city council. And she does stand her ground on issues like the housing levy, even when it has created fodder for her opponents' campaigns. If only she'd stick to her core positions, without resorting to hyperbole, Nicastro's stump speech might sound heroic instead of self-aggrandizing.
