Three days earlier, Rasmussen had returned from a whirlwind trip to Las Vegas, organized by Seattle Monorail Project board member Steve Williamson (who also heads the King County Labor Council) and other local labor bigwigs. Both Rasmussen and David Della, who accompanied his fellow council freshman on the trip, have pushed for slowing the approval of monorail permits that are important to organized labor.
Did the trip allay their fears? By all accounts--sorta. For his part, Rasmussen says the trip (paid for by the city) opened his eyes. Not so for Rasmussen's colleague Della, who called the Vegas monorail "a very nice system--for Las Vegas." Despite his concerns, though, Della voted for the monorail route on Monday, contributing to its easy (8-1) victory.
The same could not be said of Mayor Nickels' attempt to hijack the Families and Education Levy, on the ballot this November. Not only does the council seem likely to increase Nickels' parsimonious $103 million plan by as much as $17 million, some on the council appear ready to stage a hostile takeover of the committee that oversees the levy, currently headed by none other than Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis. Della wants to not only expand the committee (giving it more community representation) but to let it elect its own chair, loosening the mayor's hold on the levy. "We're trying to have someone that is not too tied to the mayor's office in charge... [who won't] too much influence over the committee," Della says.
Among other things, the mayor's levy proposal slashes funding for school nurses, something at least three council members (not to mention members of the Seattle Educators Association) oppose. Already, the levy lobby is gearing up against the mayor's proposal. In the past week, council members' desks have been inundated with hundreds of mysterious, identical red postcards signed by Seattle students. On Friday, Della's aides were scratching their heads at the stack of cards, which threatened to overflow the large gift bag where they were being temporarily stored. SEA president John Dunn readily acknowledged that the teachers union was behind the drive. Whether teachers were lobbying students to sign the cards on school time is unclear; the Aki Kurose Middle School teacher Dunn said was behind the postcards didn't return calls for comment.