Mayor Greg Nickels has put one of his top guns, senior legal adviser Regina LaBelle, in charge of pushing his proposed "311" customer-service hotline—a sign, some council staffers speculate, that he's making it his do-or-die priority in the runup to the 2009 election.
Last year, at the peak of one of the longest runs of economic prosperity in the city's history (and in the wake of windstorms that left thousands without power), Nickels pitched 311 in his annual budget speech, saying, in typically grandiose fashion, that the proposal represented "a fundamental change of attitude that will make government more open, accountable, inclusive, and responsive." But the council disagreed and, in a stinging rebuke, reduced the mayor's $9 million request to a mere $500,000—to be spent "examin[ing] the challenges and problems that exist within the city's current approach to customer service and access," as the council resolution allocating the money put it; they also directed the mayor to come up with "significant savings" over his initial proposal.
One year later, and at the beginning of the first budget cycle in years that won't include major new spending by the city, Nickels is back again, pushing for a new-and-improved 311 system that's been retooled as a "customer-service bill of rights." Next week, at the end of a three-day chamber of commerce–hosted "Intercity Study Mission" to Austin, Texas, a delegation from the Seattle City Council will take a look at that city's 311 nonemergency hotline center, which employs a dozen full-time staffers and costs the city about $2.5 million a year. The mayor's proposal, in contrast, would have cost the city $4.2 million annually.
LaBelle says the mayor's office is complying with the council's request, taking "kind of a private-sector approach" to figure out "how the city can improve customer service comprehensively."
But the problems with 311, both real and potential, are more than just political. Logistically, it's unclear how a new call center alone (even one enhanced with fancy software) would solve the fundamental customer-service problems at the city, which have more to do with staffing (getting somebody out to deal with a neighbor's barking dog) than information (having access to a friendly operator to tell you there's nobody to deal with the stupid dog in the first place).
And funding remains a stubborn problem—one that will only get more stubborn in the next few years, which promise to be leaner and leaner as the national recession deepens. According to numerous sources, Nickels is telling city departments to keep their budgets flat, in anticipation of lean times ahead. Perhaps foreseeing this, the council told the mayor last year that if he wants his 311 center, he needs to figure out how to reallocate "existing staff and budgets in order to minimize the amount of new ongoing funding" needed, in the words of last year's resolution. 311 may be a good long-term solution; whether it makes sense in a tight budget year, however, is a question the council should consider very seriously—no matter how much pressure an up-for-reelection mayor brings to bear on them. 
