Remember Poli Sci one-oh-something at the UW -- "Urban Politics"? In my day it looked back at history from an Eighties standpoint. The syllabus marched through time, from machine politics up to the Good Government era. There's no Democratic or Republican way to pick up the trash, was one soundbite.
Of course, from our vantage point in 2007 we can see what a quaint notion that was: the Resmuglican way would be to farm it out to a crony contractor for several times the cost of a public utilities agency.
An idea that I accepted without question was the idea of at-large city council seats being superior to district elections. It seemed so logical--why have just one member working for you, when you could have many? If one says No, you can go to others.
A fine idea, in theory. However it has been apparent for quite some time now that Seattle -- with ostensibly an at-large Council -- in fact does have districts. Not districts with identifiable geographic boundaries and balanced populations, but economic districts determined by the socioeconomics of Who You Know.
Just to illustrate, at one time, in the late Eighties to early Nineties, Seattle had two districts: #1 was Mount Baker, and #2 was everywhere else. At the time, the Mayor, most of the Council, a goodly number of municipal technocrats (yes, I still admire Galbraith), and private sector movers & shakers all lived in Mount Baker. As a result, policies coming out of the old City Hall, as well as what you read, saw and heard about it in the local media, all tended to reflect the views of the residents of the ridge by Rainier Valley. My thesis is that while the geographic distribution of political power was poor, participation by economic elites was broad.
Fine, I'm using some hyperbole, and the situation is less pronounced today; for example, Greg Nickels lives in West Seattle and Nick Licata is in Greenwood. But the reality remains that Paul Allen is in effect his own council district; real estate developers are a district; the UW Regents are a district; in a sense, everyone serving on the board of a major nonprofit or intergovernmental agency is a district.
What power does the everyday citizen have against all that? Just using the new Bridging the Gap process as an example (Political Landscape, Part One, 4/10), how will our needs be weighed against those of Allen's South Lake Union community (the Streetcar project took funds away from planned bike and pedestrian facilities)? Plus, bureaucratic inertia counts for a lot, and SDOT, which is screening Bridging the Gap requests ("Seattle Department of Transportation will then explore your ideas" - Dept. of Neighborhoods letter, 3/30) has enough for all the agencies in the whole wide world. The relationship of the public to SDOT has been one of supplicant to benign despot, and that isn't going to change overnight.
The time has arrived for clear, direct political accountability in Seattle government, and that means electing the City Council by districts. Divide Seattle into nine City Council Districts, but have three members elected per district in order to improve the constituents per member ratio. And cut the salary to $55,000, it'll keep them humble.
Then borrow a page from Parliament-style government and go to a Strong Council format. Give Councilmembers portfolios over City departments such as SDOT; while experts would still conduct normal operations, the Council would set strategic policies and goals. This would necessitate weakening the Mayor somewhat -- but that would be a refreshing change.
In the meantime, we'll still need to watch SDOT every minute with regard to Bridging the Gap, because the agency is going to be "exploring" (i.e. screening) the list of projects to be approved by the Mayor and Council.
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