Seattle City Council Member Judy Nicastro isn't the only one who lost credibility after last week's vote on City Light Superintendent Gary Zarker. City Council Member and energy committee chair Heidi Wills also deserves serious scrutiny.
Wills' performance during the Zarker affair raises real concerns. In short, Wills was so out of sync--voting to reconfirm Zarker while six of her colleagues said no--that it's clear she was doing the mayor's bidding, most likely in exchange for his political support this election year.
For example, the word at city hall throughout the debate was that a December 5 proposal--ostensibly from Wills' energy committee to Mayor Nickels' office--demanding reforms at City Light had actually been edited and approved in advance by the mayor. When I brought this serious accusation to Wills' attention, she denied it. It would make zero sense to send to the mayor a list of demands that the mayor had helped author, Wills told me.
I agree. So I'm stunned that (according to the paper trail unearthed by a Stranger public records request) Wills did forward advance drafts of her December 5 "list of demands" to Nickels' office--and even showed Nickels' office anti-Zarker analysis that Council Members Jim Compton and Judy Nicastro were working on. Compton's office complained to me that Wills was "watering down" the demands coming from the council. Well, guess what, Jim? It wasn't Wills; it was the mayor who was watering down your demands. That explains why the mayor's office keeps referring to the December 5 proposal as the be-all and end-all--as though a previous 2000 audit and ongoing, unmet demands for changes and answers were irrelevant.
Equally troubling, someone deeply involved in the 2002 City Light audit told me Wills had been ready to nix Zarker, but then "flipped like a gymnast" in November, after she got her marching orders. "Too co-opted and far gone" is how one council member who voted against Zarker on March 6 characterizes Wills.
The Zarker vote confirmed what's always nagged me about the otherwise spot-on Wills: When the rubber meets the road, she's terrified of bucking the status quo or standing up to the mayor. Zarker needed to go, and Wills knew it. Now, Wills needs to go as the council's energy committee chair.
After all, the majority of council members who flatly rejected Zarker (six out of nine) were in effect rejecting Wills' lead on the biggest issue to face her committee in years. Rather than taking its cue from Wills, the council followed the lead of energy committee vice-chair Jim Compton, the council member who had the smarts to call for an independent audit of City Light (the audit that led to the critical reconfirmation hearings) in the first place. Heck, even Richard McIver, who voted with Wills, cited Margaret Pageler and Compton as the people he looked to for guidance on energy issues. No mention of Wills.
Compton should be given the reins of the energy committee. Wills needs to be unplugged.
