How appropriate.
In addition to planning nearly 40 days out of the office (this year's city-council record in its own right), Nicastro also went on four official out-of-town trips, including turning a week-long stint in Sweden to study "Stockholm commerce" into a three-week stay. By far, Nicastro racked up the highest council member bill on out-of-state travel--$17,627.14--70 percent of which was paid for by the city.
Nicastro's official business trips included: a five-day visit to New Orleans for the American Planning Association conference; a three-day "federal relations" trip to Washington, D.C.; the aforementioned nine-day trip to Stockholm; a two-week trip to Ireland, where she visited Seattle's sister city Galway and "other Irish cities to meet with Seattle-based businesses"; and a 13-day "trade mission" to Germany and Central Europe.
"I would fully agree that this was the year of excessive work-related travel," Nicastro says. However, she says her business trade mission to Germany was helpful. (She wouldn't elaborate on "forthcoming plans" related to the trip.) And she contends that visiting Stockholm helped her get acquainted with other Washington-area officials who went. (No mention of why simply meeting at 13 Coins wouldn't do.)
Nicastro says she's not in the running for this year's Chamber of Commerce Barcelona trip, although five of her colleagues are already lining up to go.
