Ethics Commission Flags Wills’ Contributor

Seattle City Council Member Heidi Wills has returned $1,050 in questionable campaign contributions from businesses associated with Bellevue real-estate developer Robert Wallace, who owns and manages numerous properties in and around Seattle. Operating under the names Wallace/OnCorp-Madison, M.O. Wallace-Melberg, Wallace GT-Northgate LLC, and Wallace GT-Northgate II LLC, among others, Wallace and associated businesses donated nearly $2,000 to Wills’ campaign between April and October. Wallace leases two properties in Northgate, one of them located right at the hub of Mayor Greg Nickels’ redevelopment plans for the area. The city council will have to approve removing development restrictions included in the Northgate neighborhood plan before Nickels’ scheme can become a reality.

Under Seattle election law, an individual or business can’t give more than $650 to any candidate. Skirting that rule by giving money under several business names is likewise against the rules. “Making contributions from each of the entities you have control of is controverting the contribution limits,” says Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission Campaign Finance Auditor Polly Grow, who brought the curious run of contributions to Wills’ attention. But Wallace calls that interpretation “bizarre,” noting that the five contributions Wills returned were from five different companies, not Wallace himself. “I think the city of Seattle has gone kind of crazy on this whole thing, but on the other hand, if they don’t want the money, I’m happy to have it back.”

Wills campaign treasurer Bob Mahon says that because Wallace doesn’t own more than 50 percent of any of the companies—the threshold for “controlling” a corporation—Wills could, technically, have kept the contributions. But because making that case might mean a protracted fight with Ethics, Mahon says, “We just decided to return the money.” ERICA C. BARNETT

Nickels vs. Nick

An October 24 letter from Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske to the Seattle City Council may as well have been signed by Mayor Nickels. The memo undermined Council Member Nick Licata's nascent neighborhood safety initiative, which had obviously trumped Nickels' October 14 Capitol Hill public safety plan. Licata's plan would, via the budget process, put a new police bike squad (and more social services) in the East Precinct, which is currently plagued with public drug use, drug dealing, and prostitution around Cal Anderson Park and 22nd Avenue East and East Madison Street.

Defending the mayor's "17-point" plan, which didn't include more cops or any social services, Kerlikowske wrote: "Today's 'hot spot' may be different tomorrow or next week. I do not think it is prudent nor necessary to dedicate officers to a particular park or a precinct based upon the issue of the day." Instead, the chief says, Nickels' ideas for helping Cal Anderson Park are sufficient. But the mayor's plan--with basic items like "officers will aggressively enforce the three-hour parking," stupid items like removing benches and bleachers, and offensive items like stepping up "parks exclusion" citations, which ban folks from parks--has been criticized by neighbors.

The chief's memo riled up East Precinct residents. They note that Licata's bike squad plan isn't just a temporary Cal Anderson Park fix, but would help all of the neighborhoods. "This is a precinct-wide issue," says Ann Donovan, Capitol Hill Community Council president. Residents plan to continue to press their bike cops case at a November 6 public hearing. AMY JENNIGES

Lifelong Leader Resigns

Lifelong AIDS Alliance's executive director, Chuck Kuehn, announced last week that he is resigning. He's joining the Peace Corps, and hopes to do AIDS prevention work in Africa.

Kuehn, 51, has been running the agency for over seven years--a tenure marked by falling receipts for the agency's annual AIDS Walk and, more recently, rising rates of STDs and HIV among local gay men. The AIDS Walk, which in the mid-'90s brought in as much as $1.5 million, netted only about $500,000 this year, according to Kuehn (about the same as last year). And since the late '90s, STD rates among local gay men have been climbing steadily, with a rise in gay HIV rates reported this year. Along with Gay City Health Project, Seattle's other major gay community health agency, Lifelong has been sharply criticized for not doing enough.

"For a long time we believed we were getting the message out, and succeeding," Kuehn said. "But I think the new HIV rates and the new STD rates say we have to have a tougher conversation." Someone else will have to lead that conversation at Lifelong--Kuehn's last day is in February. ELI SANDERS

General Sidran?

Former city attorney Mark "Civility Laws" Sidran, who lost to Greg Nickels in the 2001 mayoral race, is privately telling friends he will definitely run for state attorney general in 2004's Democratic primary. Publicly, Sidran claims he is still undecided and will "make a decision soon" but is "not ready to make that decision or comment on it." Former state insurance commissioner Deborah Senn has already formally declared. Senn's political consultant Karen Besserman confirms that she has also heard Sidran is running, but is unconcerned. "We're focused on winning the primary in September and continuing [current state attorney general] Christine Gregoire's legacy," she says. Republican King County Council member Rob McKenna is also running. SANDEEP KAUSHIK

Passing the Buck

The Seattle City Council continues to play hot potato with the idea of holding a public hearing on police accountability. Public groups asking for input into private negotiations between the council and the Seattle Police Officers' Guild--in which accountability issues are front and center--are getting the runaround. At a recent candidate forum, five council incumbents pledged to make the hearing happen. Dorry Elias of the Minority Executive Directors Coalition contacted Council Member Richard McIver for answers. "He agreed to ask for a hearing and [said the council would] decide on a date," Elias says. But "he believes Council Member Nick Licata is the one who should call a hearing." Licata aide Lisa Herbold passed responsibility on to Jan Drago, head of the labor committee. MAHRYA DRAHEIM

Passing the Buck II

Later this week, Cambridge Systematics, a company hired by the Seattle Monorail Project to perform an independent audit of the agency's revenue estimates, is expected to release its study explaining why the monorail agency's revenues have fallen a third short of projections.

Cambridge principal Chris Wornum says, "While I don't think anybody behaved in a reckless or cavalier manner, I don't think you'd do things the same way, either."

The study, according to Wornum, will show that although SMP had several opportunities to accurately estimate its tax base, it failed to do so. Instead of crunching the raw data itself, the SMP relied on flawed numbers provided by Sound Transit and the Washington State Department of Licensing, leading to the inaccurate estimate.

One question the audit won't definitively answer: Did SMP finance director Daniel Malarkey know, when he accepted an inflated DOL tax-base estimate, that the DOL number included new cars (which aren't taxed by the monorail)? The DOL and Malarkey have given conflicting accounts. Ultimately, Wornum says, in accepting an estimate that now seems to have been unreasonably high, Malarkey "looked the gift horse in the mouth--he just didn't look down its throat." ERICA C. BARNETT