While it's certainly fun to look back on the victories (the Stranger Election Glee Club was the only editorial board in town to have endorsed both of the city's recent significant wins: Nickels and the monorail), we know there's still a lot we have to keep our eyes on: Sound Transit, the Alaskan Way Viaduct, the newly constituted monorail agency, and the upcoming municipal elections--which include some interesting initiatives (like relaxing local marijuana laws).
We'd like to take advantage of the holiday lull by looking back on the year--with an eye toward what it means for 2003.
by the Stranger Glee Club
Nickels: With Power Comes Great ResponsibilityAs 2002 began, we were thrilled that Stranger-recommended mayoral candidate Greg Nickels was taking over. And, for the most part, we're happy with the job he's done. Nickels threw his weight behind the monorail--loudly endorsing it, dialing for dollars, freeing up his staffer Marco Lowe to help the campaign, and best of all, backing Rise Above It All against the Seattle City Council's anti-monorail hijinks. (In fact, Nickels proudly signed a petition at the behest of monorail activists, signaling he would veto any council attempt to change the monorail plan.) As a dedicated Sound Transit fan, Nickels was able to see the writing on the wall and get behind this Seattle-centric plan.
The mayor also played a strong hand on two issues dear to our hearts. Nickels instigated the Teen Dance Ordinance (TDO) repeal, sending the legislation to council at our urging. And in his best move, he vetoed a $6 million city council handout to hotel developer Richard Hedreen.
Our disappointment in Nickels, however, has to do with his emphasis on politics over policy. Nickels is all about demonstrating he's in control for the sake of demonstrating he's in control, rather than for the sake of pushing specific programs. Witness his opening-round shot to take over the city departments, which included firing powerful neighborhoods director Jim Diers. What did Nickels' bold display actually accomplish? Not much good. Diers was an excellent neighborhoods advocate, and quite frankly, Nickels' departmental encroachment has limited ambitious city council members' ability to develop new legislation.
But Nickels' point people--namely, Tim Ceis and Michael Mann--often seem to think outmaneuvering the city council is a good thing in its own right. For example, after the note-passing debacle--in which a shocked media caught Nickels bullying the council into upping the mayor's staff budget by holding a community fire engine hostage--one of the mayor's point people boasted to The Stranger, "Well, we got what we wanted, didn't we?"
Well, sure, but to what end? Nickels' team should start asking themselves that question more often. After all, Greg, taking firm control so you can fund your own office (rather than fire engines) and sidewalks (rather than social services) is a waste of your accumulated influence. If you want to put your power grab to good use, how about taking money out of all those boom-year glamour projects? (Nickels' budget increased the pot for items including the Civic Center and the Opera House by nearly 8 percent--or $40 million--while slashing things like human services and public health by as much as 25 percent.) Funnel the dough back into city services, Greg.
Margaret Pageler vs. the Progressive MajorityWhile the main city hall story line this year seemed to involve the extent to which the hapless city council lost its power struggle with Mayor Nickels, the untold (but most significant) council story was the rapid demise of Margaret Pageler. Think about it: Only a year ago, Pageler was council president, calling the shots and setting the agenda as a civility crank with a conservative bent on economic justice issues. But after she had a bona fide meltdown as the newly emboldened progressive majority headed toward repealing the TDO (you should have seen Pageler chasing 24-year-old rock singer Rocky Votolato around the Miller Community Center), the former council president woke up on a council controlled by the left-leaning politics of Peter Steinbrueck and Nick Licata.
The TDO battle, which even had longtime ally Jan Drago abandoning the bad ship Pageler, was the council's signature moment this year. The repeal plainly demonstrated that times had changed. After years without a veto-proof progressive majority on issues like the TDO repeal, the tide turned, and Pageler was knocked off her feet, finding herself in the fringe minority. We predict she will increasingly find herself in this same spot next year--if she chooses to stay in office, that is.
Early in 2002, The Stranger broke the story that Pageler was looking for a new job outside city hall. Here's hoping the private sector job hunt succeeds in 2003.
Viaduct: Good LuckLast summer the geniuses running our state floated--with straight faces--an $11.9 billion plan to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct with an underground tunnel complex elaborate enough to put Tora Bora to shame. This, for a city that spends $2.6 billion a year on EVERYTHING else. And then they were shocked and dismayed when the public sent them a big, collective fuck-you on the multi-billion-dollar roadway-to-heaven R-51 package, which would have pumped $450 million into the viaduct plan. Of course, the referendum didn't bother to specify exactly which viaduct plan it was actually "funding."
Now Washington politicians still have to solve the viaduct mess--and soon, since the damn thing is likely to keel over in the next summer breeze. Among the options to choose from are a $2.5 billion rebuild, a nicer $3 billion rebuild, and a shorter, more realistic underground route ($4 billion plus). They're even yakking about a plain old surface road, which they could probably do for three easy installments of $19.95, but which would reduce capacity and make truckers and West Seattleites miserable.
In the end, we think lefty council guy Nick Licata may have called the outcome earlier this year, when he proposed we just brace the existing structure, which would be affordable and give those in power another 20 years to get their acts together.
Tim Eyman: The ResurrectionThis was the year Tim Eyman was supposed to go down into oblivion. The Seattle Times caught him with his hand in the fundraising cookie jar, and liberal Seattle crowed that the anti-tax activist was politically kaput. Sorry. Eyman rose from the dead with I-776, an anti-Sound Transit $30-car-tabs initiative. Now the comeback kid is touting a new initiative for 2003--one demanding that any future tax increase receive two-thirds support in the legislature. It's a crazy-ass idea (unlike I-776), but Eyman has proven once and for all that, like him or not, his crazy-ass ideas resonate.
Sound Transit: Shaky YearAfter a year like 2002, maybe even diehard Sound Transit chair Ron Sims sees the handwriting on the wall, even if he's way too proud to admit it. For one thing, voters passed Eyman's I-776, despite the opposition of every area newspaper (except The Stranger). If the initiative passes legal muster, it will cut 20 percent of Sound Transit's budget and kill light rail for good.
Even if it doesn't pass legal muster, Sound Transit faces a federal review of the light rail project in the next few months--and now that Sims' buddy and federal string-puller Senator Patty Murray is in the minority party, she's no safe bet as a trump card. With Murray weakened, there's now a real possibility that Sound Transit won't get the full $500 million the feds long ago promised the troubled program. (Realizing federal support might never actually arrive, Sims has started claiming Sound Transit doesn't even need the federal cash.)
Even worse for Sound Transit, the monorail passed, in spite of Sims' transparently frenzied efforts to use the government agencies under his control to subvert it. Sims rightly sees monorail technology, and its can-do populism, as a dire threat to his pet project's survival.
To be fair, Sound Transit also had a few victories in 2002. New head Joni Earl has made progress in reforming the Keystone Kops agency, winning the federal go-ahead to do preconstruction work. Sound Transit also fended off a legal challenge from Sane Transit, which called for a revote. In the end, though, Sims can't be feeling too sanguine. Given all the political capital he's spent, if light rail dies next year, his political career may well go with it.
Chief Kerlikowske: 2002's SurvivorAt the beginning of 2002, Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske was hanging on by the seat of his blue pants. The incoming mayor, Greg Nickels--who had made a campaign issue out of Kerlikowske's mishandling of the 2001 Mardi Gras riots--intended to meet with Kerlikowske and decide the chief's fate.
Kerlikowske was in the same situation in March, when the Seattle Police Officers Guild tallied up the ballots in their no-confidence vote and announced that 88 percent of the guild's members--rank-and-file officers--did not support the chief.
The mayor stood up for Kerlikowske both times, calling the chief "the right man for the job." Now, at the end of the year, Kerlikowske and Nickels are allies, standing side by side to roll out their new (and controversial) police department reorganization.
South Lake AllenDespite the protests of South Lake Union community activists--and Seattle City Council Member Nick Licata's attempt to make large developers (like Paul Allen's Vulcan Inc.) publicly disclose their grand plans for neighborhoods--gazillionaire Allen charged ahead with efforts to colonize South Lake Union.
Vulcan Inc. now owns 50 acres of land in the neighborhood just north of downtown, but hasn't officially announced what's going to happen there.
Allen's designs aren't hard to figure out, Nick: Vulcan has been courting biotech companies and research institutions all year, landing tenants like Merck, the University of Washington, Seattle Biomedical Research Institute, and Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center.
With this fall's demolition of the Lillian Apartments--which neighborhood activists couldn't stop--Allen's on track to turn South Lake Union into a sprawling biotech campus.
Big Mack AttackIn April, Robert Thomas Sr. was shot dead in Renton by off-duty King County Sheriff's Deputy Mel Miller. The black community rallied against the shooting, seeing Thomas as just the latest black man cut down by cop gunfire. (Shawn Maxwell was surrounded by cops and shot in the University District in February.)
After Thomas' funeral, protesters marched onto I-5, snarling rush-hour traffic. The activists had Seattle's attention, if only because people wanted to see what they would do next.
Here's what they did: They elected a new, vocal leader to head up the local NAACP. Carl Mack--originally the Seattle chapter's vice-president--had been one of the most vocal protesters in the black community, leading marches and meticulously following the inquest into Thomas' death. Mack, a 40-year-old engineer at King County Metro, nominated himself for the chapter's presidency and won by a wide margin over incumbent Oscar Eason in November. Mack's 32-year-old buddy Alfoster Garrett Jr. became the vice-president.
Mark Sidran's Unraveling LegacyWhen Mark Sidran ran for mayor in 2001, The Stranger played legal scholar, using our editorial pages to point out that Sidran's policies didn't pass the constitutional litmus test. Since he was voted off the island last year (or more accurately, voted to the island, since he spends more time on Vashon Island after failing to become mayor of Seattle), the city seemed to spend 2002 washing Sidran out of its hair. In addition to the TDO (which wasn't officially Sidran's handiwork, but his legal advice kept it on the books), other Sidran blemishes followed Sidran's political career into the trash. On August 5, Sidran's poster ban was found unconstitutional. On December 12, Sidran's impound ordinance was rendered irrelevant by the state supreme court, forcing Seattle's current city attorney to reform Sidran's pet project.
Earlier, back in February, Sidran's habit of picking on black nightclubs forced the city to pay $675,000 to Oscar's II--after a judge ruled that the Madison Street club was denied due process under Sidran's siege.
There's still a no-sidewalk-sitting ordinance and a parks exclusion ordinance on the books, if any litigious folks out there feel like tapping the judiciary's evident common sense in 2003.
