2008: Year of Hope, Year of Fear. Essay 2
Seattle should heed the message of getting back to the nitty gritty basics
Seattle seems to shine in theory, but as the response (or lack of it) during our December snow storm, the city often can't be counted on when it comes to the nitty gritty details. Mayor Greg Nickels has received recognition for his maverick diplomacy preaching the gospel of the Kyoto climate accords, but few are happy with his hometown leadership. The mayor gave himself a "B" grade in snow storm response, but when KING-5 TV asked viewers to weigh in, 37 percent gave the city a "D" and 40 percent gave an "F." That means nearly 80 prcent of citizens rated the city's performance a complete fiasco, as close as you ever get to consensus in this town. Finally, Greg Nickels brings us together in 2008.
This was the year Nickels began running in earnest for re-election, staging an ambitious series of photo-ops to showcase him as leader of the "pot hole rangers." Message: I'm the guy who gets things done. But Christmas week left that image very much battered, a kind of slow-motion WTO-style debacle involving putting our icy streets on a low-salt diet. The question for 2009: Did Mayor Pothole step in a nasty chuckhole himself? Will his chronic unpopularity finally catch-up with his political machine?
One thing the mayor has going for him is that Seattleites (myself included) are easily distracted by the trivial and symbolic. This was the year of vehement debates over plastic bag taxes, tree rules, beach bonfire bans, and car-less days.
The city council, it was hoped, would bring some maturity to things, but the new group seems insistent on either symbolic gestures (lets build a trolley car system we can't pay for!) or endorsing fixes (the Mercer Mess!) that aren't really fixes. Nick Licata makes attempts to keep his colleagues honest, but allies and skeptics like Peter Steinbrueck are missed. Still, new council members have some time yet to prove themselves and the 2009 election will be another chance to reshape, and hopefully upgrade, the body. A voter's work is never done.
One thing 2008 gave Seattle, which will help in the new year, is the gift of cognitive congruence with American reality. No longer need Seattle contemplate seceding from the union (as Nickels hinted earlier this year) to make progress in the world. The sense of congruence comes from two things.
First, Seattle loves Barack Obama and having George W. Bush out of the White House makes the country feel right again. Plus, the new New Deal policies being formulated suggest the federal government will become an active enabler of our shovel-ready dreams and our green schemes. The re-election of Gov. Christine Gregoire added to the sense of well-being among local liberals, even if she's on a tight budget.
Second, as Seattle's economy slows and our big companies struggle (WaMu dead, the Starbucks juggernaut halted, Boeing stalled, the high-rises not rising) we are less out of step with much of the rest of the country which sank into the Great Recession before we did. We boomed a bit longer, we busted a little later, but the year-end sees us joining the ranks of the struggling.
That's the good news bad news in the Year of Hope and Fear.
Some argue that Seattle is at its best during down times. The city isn't so prone to distraction by civic baubles and it's big heart comes through in a pinch. Let's hope that's true in '09. Could this be a year when we focus on basic functions, on helping the people of Nickelsville, on remembering that a city's job is to pick up the garbage, to catch bad guys, to keep the buses and schools running?
Don't count on it.
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Comments:
Posted Mon, Dec 29, 6:40 a.m. inappropriate
To my eye, even more than the uncleared snow, the growing monuments of garbage cans and recycling bins demonstrate the failure of City Hall to tend to the most basic tasks of municipal government. Folks thinking about running for public office in Seattle this year should be out and about with a camera taking pictures. Accrding to the ever changing collection schedules appearing in the papers, the very earliest I can expect my garbage to be picked up will be 23 days from the last collection. That Mr. Nickels is an F grade.
Posted Mon, Dec 29, 6:46 a.m. inappropriate
I had thought that you did NOT in fact live in Seattle. Has that changed? If not, why do you consistently imply otherwise? Reflex? That would explain much of your work.
Posted Mon, Dec 29, 7:50 a.m. inappropriate
As to snow: this seems to have been the second time in the 15 years I have been here that it has. The other, around 1996/97 it was about six inches in two inch increments with several frozen rain crusts inbetween, tough to walk through, and I gathered that the city had just sold its snowplows and had only five left, and it was a wonder to behold the articulate buses so inarticulately scattered over the road. But what I noticed then still holds: one flake of snow and lots of shops decide to close early, or take forever to open up again, or do so for just few hours. That Seattle turns out to be like the Big Apple and blame its mayor for the snow is not too surprising: at least Mayor Nickels did not make the mistake of cleaning up Manhattan and forgetting all about Queens as Mayor Lindsay did back in the 60s in New York, thus killing any chance of being re-elected. Since I go par pedes, but pack my office, the unsalted packed ice sidewalks proved a dangerous nuisance, and too heavily for cross country skis which I was glad to see on quite a few folks. What was Seattle like in the olden days when you, old timers tell me, you could sled down Queen Anne and all the other hills several times each winter? How did it cope then?
As to congruence, I suppose so. And Seattle like the rest of the country will be as disappointed in what few changes Obambi will really make. Just look at how much is already is staying the same.
Posted Mon, Dec 29, 8:27 a.m. inappropriate
Fly: I live in the city of Seattle.
Posted Mon, Dec 29, 9:37 a.m. inappropriate
The union the seceding was to be from was the state and county more than the country itself.
I am with him on that front.
Having to get city taxing authority from the state for the county to administer is dumb.
See Ron Sims' vision of Seattle Center written by David Brewster here, the big ditch, about 18 months ago. Why is he even thinking about that, and why should he have such a big say in this city?
A new county exec would do Seattle a world of good.
Posted Mon, Dec 29, 11:09 a.m. inappropriate
Global warming, pollution, waste and over-consumption are not "trivial." The Kyoto pledge, car-free days and bag fees are not "symbolic." They are first steps towards trying to address problems that are much larger than a bad snowstorm.
Posted Mon, Dec 29, 11:09 a.m. inappropriate
Global warming, pollution, waste and over-consumption are not "trivial." The Kyoto pledge, car-free days and bag fees are not "symbolic." They are first steps towards trying to address problems that are much larger than a bad snowstorm.
Posted Mon, Dec 29, 11:36 a.m. inappropriate
I agree with Michael.
What's trivial is HARPING on the City's attempts to address real issues.
Posted Mon, Dec 29, 1:57 p.m. inappropriate
There's a lot to grade in this one; I'll pick three:
The policy questions are fair game and need to be addressed. I saw significant changes (to the better) from the previous significant events in the mid-80s['86?] and mid-90s['96?]. It was surprising to hear the public message and seemingly light analysis of "salt versus sand" (versus other choices now available too). The city/region also has to address snow route plowing versus residential street "service-by-request", which is part of the scene that created grumbling in the neighborhoods.
On balance, this event was handled better than previous one.
Arterial streets were opened. Residential streets generally were not, but that is part of the question to be engaged.
Emergencies always produce frustrations and finger pointing once people can focus on the larger picture of what happened. There is another question whether these weather events should even be considered emergencies. It's about money; how much do you want to spend on being ready for a snow event that does not happen very often?
People and families were not as prepared as we should expect. Abandoned vehicles amaze me! What are these people thinking?
Posted Mon, Dec 29, 2:36 p.m. inappropriate
It was noted over the weekend that Samuel P. Huntington, author of the controversial book, Clash of Civilizations, had died. His bones were set to rest in 2008 along with those of Alexandre Solzhenitsyn, the Nobel Prize winning author. In 1978 Solzhenitsyn stood astride the commencement stage at Harvard College, where Huntington had been a member of the faculty since 1950, and delivered his electrifying and wildly controversial remarks about, among other things, the decline and loss of civic courage in the West, especially among intellectuals.
At the end of this year, Seattleites would do well to recall, reflect, and argue about the works of these two men, especially in the context of civic courage. Seattle (and its surroundings) is a city that was uniquely shaped by the economy, politics, and culture of the Cold War. It was molded in a manner not yet fully articulated in print and not much understood in the popular imagination. But the end of the Cold War throws a long shadow on our present efforts to begin anew, something we might collectively struggle with for decades to come.
Huntington’s grand effort to articulate a new, post Cold War paradigm may have proven for many to be a false start, just as the Global War on Terror doesn’t quite seem to capture the sum of our new reality. But the death of these two men (as well as the deaths of Edmund Hilary, William F. Buckley, and Jesse Helms) in 2008 ought to be a powerful reminder that we are, as the historian John Lukacs has pointed out, at the end of an age.
For many reasons, Seattle (and Vancouver, BC, and Portland) is at the center of the new age that is waiting to be born, whatever it ultimately turns out to be. And though we may be uncertain precisely in what age we are living or what it will be called one hundred years hence, civic courage of a high and self-sacrificing nature is in order. Without it, we may not live up to the demands of our time. My sense is that Mr. Nickels does not possess the qualities needed to lead Seattle through difficult times: he seems to lack civic courage.
Posted Mon, Dec 29, 6:38 p.m. inappropriate
I don't understand the concern over weather problems this last two weeks in Seattle. It will go away. Walk to work. Catch a bus. Stay home and shovel snow and get in shape. You could be living in 1900. No cars, no busses, and everybody lived in Seattle and worked in Seattle or in Buckley and worked in Buckley. The problem with rapid transit is when it was successful a hundred years ago you lived close to work and there were no real paved roads in-between to plow or grip about no one taking care of them. The weather is normal and will happen again. Grab a shovel!
Posted Tue, Dec 30, 6:29 a.m. inappropriate
Knute: Kirkland kept coming to mind. Clearly, I was wrong. My apologies.
Posted Thu, Jan 1, 8:48 p.m. inappropriate
"People and families were not as prepared as we should expect. Abandoned vehicles amaze me! What are these people thinking?"
Far too many think that someone else will bail them out of everything. Where is the personal responsibility that says store chains in your trunk so you are prepared? Walk to work. Catch a bus. Stay home and shovel snow and get in shape, but quit being a government-dependent WHINEY BABY.