Judy Nicastro wanted to send a message. "The council isn't just going to pass every request the mayor sends our way," she said after a June 16 city council vote. "It isn't going to happen. At least from my perspective it isn't." Council Member Nicastro's tough talk echoed the "Judy vs. the mayor" message she'd unveiled earlier at her June 12 reelection campaign kickoff.

Unfortunately, while Nicastro's speech was on message, the vote she had just cast wasn't. The legislation that Nicastro voted for on June 16--and, in fact, that she'd co-sponsored--gave Mayor Nickels exactly what he wanted. With no strings attached, the council voted 6-3 to lift the "lease lid"--the longstanding check on the University of Washington's expansion into surrounding neighborhoods.

Nicastro and co-sponsor Jan Drago, along with allies Jim Compton, Margaret Pageler, Peter Steinbrueck, and Heidi Wills, say that in return for lifting the lease lid they extracted promises from the UW about promoting housing stock and maintaining the neighborhood's indie character. Please. The legislation places no legally mandated housing obligations on the UW; in fact, Nicastro voted against concrete requirements. When Council Member Richard McIver tried to amend the limp legislation with language dictating exactly where 75 percent of the UW's neighborhood expansion must take place--as opposed to Nicastro and Drago's meaningless "The university will work toward directing 75 percent of its leasing... blah, blah, blah"--he got exactly nowhere.

Meanwhile, Council Member Nick Licata tried to sell a neighborhood-friendly proposal. Licata's plan kept specific restrictions on UW and included a smart--and tangible--housing production incentive. Only McIver and Council Member Richard Conlin supported Licata's plan.

Having failed, Conlin summed up the trio's objections to the majority legislation: "Protections have been whittled away one by one to the point where we're now depending on the good faith of the U. I'm not willing to take that leap of faith."

Conlin is right. Significant neighborhood protections were stripped from the final legislation. For example, Nicastro and Drago originally pitched a plan that, à la McIver, dictated where UW expansion could occur. They also put a sunset provision on the lease lid repeal that could only be waived if UW expansion didn't undermine housing stock. Clearly, Nicastro and Drago originally understood--because the council was the only authority that could lift the lease lid--that they had a negotiating advantage, and could win pro-neighborhood concessions. In a May 27 press release boasting about their original plan, the pair said their proposal "require[d]... the creation of housing." Drago earned rave reviews in this column for telling Nickels that a lease lid repeal must be tied to housing production. And on May 7, Nicastro derisively described the mayor's unconditional repeal as a way to "gentrify" the U-District.

Despite all the tough talk, though, by June 16, after gutting their proposal of meaningful requirements, it became apparent that Drago and Nicastro's votes had strayed off message. Unfortunately it's votes, not talk, that matter.