Seattle really needs Mike O’Brien to keep doing his thing. He’s a key leader on climate change, pushing for divestment and engaging in kayaktivist civil disobedience against Shell’s Arctic drilling rig. (*Fist bump.*) This year, he’ll need to stand his ground, corral his colleagues into staring down threats from developers, and make sure that the “grand bargain” he recently forced to fund thousands more units of affordable housing in the city gets implemented without getting watered down. (*Fist bump #2.*) He’s the only council member who has opposed the downtown tunnel boondoggle from the start, and it will be up to him to doggedly hold the lying bureaucrats running it accountable. We need him in the trenches, fighting the good fight, and none of his jokey, inexperienced challengers made a credible case for unseating him. (But we wish cool-grandpa Stan Shaufler, who has no campaign website, was running in a different race so we could endorse him, too. Dude is smart as hell and has run a sawmill, directed a wooden boat school, and built submarines. Swoon.)
The incontinent codgers at the Seattle Times editorial board dismiss O’Brien as a “far-lefty.” That’s music to our ears. Too bad O’Brien, who bikes to City Hall, describes himself—and his political style—as “Seattle nice.”
