In a budget battle last week, it was West Seattle versus North Seattle. And in true Seattle Nice style, it ended in cheerful compromise—but only after raising concerns that council districts will promote pork spending that divides neighborhoods.
On November 8, three days after voters passed a new district model for future Seattle City Council elections, council transportation chair Tom Rasmussen put forth a funding plan for a project in West Seattle, where he lives, that would turn Fauntleroy Way Southwest into a “green boulevard.” That caught the attention of some city hall staff: If Rasmussen seeks reelection in 2015, he may well seek it in the newly drawn 1st District of West Seattle, and the project in question looked like a generous gift to that district. By all accounts, this is a great project, one that’s been a long time in the making, and the kind of pedestrian-friendly infrastructure the neighborhood needs. But when he proposed funding it by pulling $500,000 from an equally pedestrian-friendly project in Northgate—a half million to help plan pedestrian connections, including a footbridge, from the west side of I-5 to the future light-rail station to the east—neighbors got pissed.
And with good reason. “Taking that money from [pedestrian] bridge planning could jeopardize my effort to get $3 million in the state transportation budget for the bridge,” says state representative Gerry Pollet (D-46). Meanwhile, Feet First, a pedestrian advocacy organization, sent a letter to Rasmussen on November 15 stating that slowing down the planning around the light-rail station could jeopardize grants critical to funding the bridge.
North Seattleites were also upset.
“I don’t want to read into this that it’s about neighborhood district politics,” says Pinehurst resident Renee Staton, who’s been lobbying for the bridge for a long time. “But right now, we have no council members who live in District 5″—that’s the North Seattle district where Staton lives.
Staton is not accusing Rasmussen of funding a pork project, but the frustration that no one represents North Seattle’s interests, while some current council members may be gearing up for a district run, permeates a lot of talk about that lonely district up north. In the District 5 Facebook group, members grumbled that this money was going to Rasmussen’s “home district,” with no one around to do the same for them.
For his part, Rasmussen says he’s absolutely not playing pork politics. “I strongly support both of those [projects],” he says. “I still represent North Seattle as much as West Seattle.” With this budget proposal, he says he was just “trying to schedule it so we can do both.” But after the outcry, he changed his mind. On November 18, Rasmussen announced he’d leave the Northgate money alone, while funneling other money toward the Fauntleroy project.
One takeaway: Although this fight may not be an example of pork spending created by districts, it’s certainly a harbinger of the inter-neighborhood pork fights to come. 