However, if you take a closer look at the clerk's meeting notes, you'll find that on the way to those friendly unanimous roll calls, there were--thanks to some proposed amendments--actually a slew of contentious 5-4 or 6-3 standoffs. (That's exciting. Standoffs mean people are in conflict. Conflict means people are causing trouble by trying to make change. Change in Seattle = good.)
Dramatic moments like 5-4 splits--where council members are forced to take sides--are also good at revealing council members' characters. Take this year's most widely reported 5-4 vote: the council cave-in to Mayor Nickels' fire engine threat. Certainly you've read all about the November 14 budget amendment vote when Council Members Jim Compton and Heidi Wills flip-flopped on a vote they'd cast only 10 minutes earlier. The second time around the wimpy pair granted the mayor a 30% staff-budget increase after Nickels' budget hatchet-man, Dwight Dively, threatened to pull money for a Green Lake fire engine. There's not a whole lot left to say about this embarrassing vote (Compton and Wills' 180 turned a 6-3 nay count into a 5-4 yay vote) except to zoom in on what it tells us about Compton and Wills. The mayor's office correctly pegged the pair as the council's weakest links, i.e., least likely to stand by any principles.
Comedy aside, a more significant 5-4 vote took place on July 22, when Council Member Nick Licata led council members in sustaining Mayor Nickels' excellent veto of a developer giveaway. (Nickels had vetoed original council legislation, pushed by local developer Richard Hedreen, that would have allowed Hedreen to expand hotel development plans without requiring his company to meet low-income-housing prerequisites.)
Although the four votes to sustain Nickels' veto (Richard Conlin, Licata, Margaret Pageler, and Peter Steinbrueck) were in the minority, they were enough to uphold the veto. The bad guys needed six votes to override and only had five.
The Stranger was the first paper in town to expose the proposed $6 million handout ["The Six Million Dollar Scam," June 20, Josh Feit], and we were thrilled that lefty Licata rounded up the votes to sustain the mayor's righteous veto. The vote reconfirmed our belief that Licata is the main agent for change in the Seattle City Council.
Indeed, the other issues that divided the council in 2002 (the UW master plan, South Lake Union development, the monorail, earmarking money for a hygiene center for the homeless, funding glamour projects like McCaw Hall, and citizen's initiatives such as I-75, which would make pot possession the lowest priority for the SPD) had Licata's handprints all over them.
By the way, Licata--teaming up with lefty colleague Judy Nicastro--was also involved in a series of two-vote minority challenges, like their attempt to stall the council's blind endorsement of the chamber of commerce agenda, charter amendments to make the council more accountable to the initiative process, an attempt to push district elections, and fighting Sound Transit.
Admittedly, while it is hard to find common denominators in this year's 5-4 votes--for example, Richard McIver was a solid neighborhood guy one second and a downtown hack the next--Licata was certainly the member consistently at the epicenter of the divide.
It's Licata's consistency, we think, that makes the smart-dressing, 55-year-old left-winger the council agitator. For example, while every split vote on neighborhood issues finds Licata squarely with the neighbors, council members such as Richard Conlin, Jan Drago, and McIver show up all over the map. (For the record: While Licata's vote against the South Seattle community development fund seems to contradict Licata's neighborhood record, Licata was actually prioritizing neighborhood concerns by stressing his opposition to light rail. The fund was basically a shortsighted payoff to get neighbors to sign off on light rail, which--if built--will hammer the South End.)
Certainly, other council members deserve props for shaking up the status quo. Council Member Nicastro (who inspired a 5-4 vote of her own on renters' rights) and president Peter Steinbrueck (the council's most consistent advocate for low-income housing) often had Licata's back during 2002's standoffs.
As we head into 2003, we're certain that Licata will continue to agitate for change. That's good news because Seattle is aching for reform. Cop accountability is still elusive. Sound Transit is still on the loose. Seattle City Light is still a mess. Low-income and moderate-income housing is still scarce. And our city budget priorities are still weirdly weighted toward frivolous boom-year capital projects. (Licata's office found millions of dollars in extra money in the capital improvements budget during the budget negotiations.)
With Licata's troublemaking ways getting the green light from heavyweight Peter Steinbrueck in 2002 (not to mention the mayor), 2003 may finally be when Licata--in his sixth year as a council member--emerges as less the council troublemaker and more the council leader. This may sound like hopeful thinking. But that's what the new year is for.
Asked what his New Year's resolution for the city council was, Licata said: "Encourage more debate in the open. We tend to avoid those kinds of discussions publicly. Well, we owe it to the public to tell them where we're coming from."
As for his personal New Year's resolution: "Get more chocolate in my life!"
