Thanks to the number of challengers itching to go after incumbent Seattle City Council Member Judy Nicastro next November, Nicastro's vulnerability has become the story of the looming 2003 city elections. Nicastro says she's deemed "vulnerable" by the mainstream press because--thanks to her outspoken style--she stands out from Seattle's status quo politicians. "The public knows where Judy stands," she says. "I'm not going to be a wishy-washy council member. You may not like my vote, but I'm not going to play the role of being coy with the public. That's dishonest."
We adopted Nicastro as our rabble-rousing poster child when she ran a 1999 long-shot campaign. We hyped her renters' rights platform and pushed her into office. (We also put her picture on the cover a year later, praising her accomplishments in a feature story.)
However, we spent 2002 tearing Nicastro down. When we broke the story about the $6 million council handout to developer Richard Hedreen in June, we laid the scandal at Nicastro's doorstep. We also trashed Nicastro's frivolous idea for a city council webcam, parodied the weirdly defensive letter she sent to labor leaders, blasted her for supporting a $50 million Sound Transit bailout, and disowned her when she recanted quotes she had given us about Margaret Pageler's secret job hunt (possible "conflict of interest," she first said in reference to Pageler--before sending a letter to the editor in which she denied the statement).
Our track record--praising and dissing Nicastro--puts us in the most credible position to assess her. We've been paying attention all along, seeing Nicastro from all angles.
Here's the deal: With the exception of Saint Nick Licata, Nicastro has the most consistently progressive record on the council. (In fact, I like her politics slightly better than Licata's because where Licata sacrifices pro-density development on the altar of NIMBY whining, Nicastro makes much-needed density the centerpiece of her agenda.)
Bottom line, Nicastro had a strong voting record in 2002: She encouraged low-income development (and density) by drastically amending parking-space requirements citywide for developers who provide low-income housing; she stood up to the Seattle Housing Authority for raising rents on seniors; she took the lone vote against the housing levy because she (CORRECTLY) understood that the package had strayed from its original mission to serve the poor; she took the lone vote against privatizing the zoo, citing union issues; she instigated the infamous November 14 vote to rein in Mayor Nickels' budget--demanding more money for social services and pulling the veil off Nickels' selfish politics; and she was the only council member in Licata's corner for a series of 7-2 votes to do things like check Paul Allen's South Lake Union colonization, support district elections, and hold Sound Transit accountable.
I'm curious to see what Nicastro's challengers bring to the race, but as it stands now, it'd be a shame to lose Nicastro. I predict her voting record in 2003 will continue to bear that out.
