While Seattle Great City Initiative founder Mike McGinn makes his big announcement at Piecora’s Pizza (I’m on deadline for this week’s paper, but Jonah, who reports, “there is no pizza,” is on the scene—also the scene, btw, of the “No on Roads and Transit” victory party in 2007), another potential mayoral contender, former city council member Peter Steinbrueck, is staying circumspect about his plans. In an email, Steinbrueck applauded McGinn for running (to find out more about why McGinn is running, check out his announcement video—replete with hockey metaphors—here), saying that the onetime Roads and Transit opponent “may show that the environmental community is not monolithic (and they aren’t).” Steinbrueck continued, “All said, the public interest is best served by have more candidates in the mayor’s race, and a real dialogue about the future of Seattle. The ultimate question is, who will have the determination, leadership that inspires the best in people, and “gravitas” to take [Nickels] out.”

Behind the scenes, Steinbrueck has been rooting for another strong challenger to emerge; as I reported last week, Steinbrueck hates dialing for dollars and isn’t sure if he wants to make an eight-year commitment to serving as mayor. Former Seattle Sonic James Donaldson is expected to announce his own entry into the mayoral race tomorrow, making it potentially (if Stranger editor Dan Savage gets off the dime) a four-way race. With that many people running, a successful challenge won’t come down to money; the winner will be whoever manages to convince people he (and so far, they’re all he’s) presents a credible alternative to more of the same. One interesting possibility is that Nickels, a la Paul Schell, doesn’t even make it through the primary. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: In his mayoral announcement video, McGinn says he’ll consider asking the city to take over the school system if it hasn’t shown improvements in two years; propose a citywide broadband network to be run by City Light; and “banish the phrase ‘overcrowded buses’ from our vocabulary.”

20 replies on “Mayoral Race Heats Up”

  3. Having the city take over the school system is a terrible idea. The city has plenty of problems of its own to deal with– the last thing it needs is the distraction of overhauling a school district. Granted, the school board does not always inspire confidence, but do you really think the city council is a better alternative?

  4. Glad to hear the race is finally underway. The city will be better served by having a serious public dialog about its situation and future. Moreover, Greg’s got some ‘xplainin to do.

  6. Hmm…not bad. I don’t know a whole lot about McGinn, but as far as opening campaign platforms go, I like where this is going.

    Of course I’d prefer that Steinbrueck ran, but he’s been such a big pussy about the whole thing that now I’m not so sure.

  7. @6: “Of course I’d prefer that Steinbrueck ran, but he’s been such a big pussy about the whole thing that now I’m not so sure.”

    Yeah, I feel the same way. Steinbrueck, you dilly-dallied too long! McGinn called your bluff.

  8. All sound like great ideas. I look forward to hearing where Mike comes up with the funds to pour into the schools, internets and buses. By the way, King County operates those buses Mike claims to ride. I hope he elaborates on how he’ll get the county to do away with their ridiculous formula that allocates most new service outside Seattle.

  10. @11 Well, yeah, but were you really expecting anything else? These little kickoff pieces are for setting the tone of a campaign, not necessarily conveying a hard agenda.

  11. Taking over the schools? Dumb idea.

    Eliminating bus overcrowding? What’s he going to do, start a city bus system? Or take over Metro as well?

  13. I want one of the candidates for Seattle Mayor to run on a platform to secede from King County and form Sealth County.

    Then we can build the Monorail and fully fund local Seattle transit bus lines – and run at a PROFIT!

  16. Just watched McGinn’s youtube intro. Is a busy pizza resturant the best choice for location? Where is his accent from? Philly?
    His main 3 points break down rather quickly. 1. The school district is actually accountable to elected officals and the city has not done a stellar job running all of its departments all of the time. 2. Information Technology infrastructure issue only show how little he understands the issue. People don’t need fiber optics to their homes. That is something like 100 times more bandwith than people need to watch streaming video and the equipement, especially the cable, is very expensive. Not to mention the damage it would suffer in windstorms etc. 3 . Lastly, the only transporation the city owns is its own vehicle fleet and the monorail. Buses, trains, and water taxi are run by other jurisdictions. Moreover, transportation is the one issue that Nickels wants to discuss. It is basically his turf.
    Beyond all that I am glad McGinn was brave enough to step forward and I hope his bid does Seattle some good.

  17. Um, the mayor of Seattle couldn’t get an audience with a midlevel manager at Metro if his life depended on it. They are quite simply not interested in anything he has to say. He’d have a better chance of getting Vladimir Putin to bring him coffee.

  18. So do an end run and make Seattle the County of Sealth and suddenly all our bus revenues are belong to us.

    There are giant open doors in the framework of our state constitution designed to be opened once in a while.

  19. the guy just threw himself in the thron busjhes on his first day of the long campaign

    all three issues are wonder pie in the sky

    METRO was dicated by the Supreme court many years ago to be the mega agency and independent of jusristictions….. and just why would they give ALL of that back to the Seattle City Council? Foolish theory.

    Schools are more messed now than ever, no money. This guy has a secret source of funding he wishes to pump into the system, or, the magic change of ownership will be all it takes?

    After ten years of talk, most of us just want the money to flow along with construction on the water front. And the tunnel has won, which, because of its leading tech. status, will attract federal dollars. I think.
    Give it up, its a tunnel folks. And this nice fellow has forgotten it is a STATE hiway, not something the city has total control about. Duh. Facts intrude. Who is going to pay? The same people in the city that can’t fill pot holes? Sure.

    Interesting that the Sierra Club is the refuge of the older white guy attorneys – en mass it seems. BUT, he did not mention urban re forestation, did he. A WINNING issue….

  20. Latest TOP 10 most popular names for hizzoner so far:

    1. MAYOR McCHEESE

    2. MAYOR McCONDO

    3. MAYOR NOPLOW

    4. MAYOR SNOWJOB

    5. MAYOR 5-CENTS

    6. MAJOR NOPLOW

    7. MAYOR McSLEAZE

    8. MAYOR FAILure

    9. MAYOR GRIDLOCK

    10. MAYOR QUIMBY

    All the names that are just too mean to such a nice fellow, like MAYOR McFATTY, MAYOR PORK, MAJOR PORK, MAYOR BIGMAC, etc. will not be included in the Top 10 names for HIS HONOR. This is Seattle, a nice city, after all.

    We are monitoring the TIMES, P-I, Weakly, Strangler, Crosscut, Publicola, and a few blogs for the most mentions in comments from the citizenry.
    Newest contenders:
    MAYOR DISASTER, MAJOR DISASTER, BOSS NICKELS, MAYOR NOSALT, MAYOR NICKELBAGS, MAYOR KNUCKLEHEAD, MAYOR FUDD, MAYOR FIVEPENNIES, MAYOR CHUMPCHANGE, MAYOR KNUCKLES

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