Will he or won't he?
Momentum is building for Peter Steinbrueck to challenge Seattle mayor Greg Nickels, but the former city council member is going to decide his way.
When Peter Steinbrueck had his Seattle City Council going-away party in late 2007, he compared his council career to a water slide at Wild Waves, and his mid-life career change — he chose not to run for re-election — to a dream he had about floating peacefully on a quiet stream through a beautiful forest. Steinbrueck was ready for a break from politics, and wanted to indulge his interests in sustainability and city planning. He is an architect, after all.
As promised, he's done some writing (on Crosscut for one) and teaching at the University of Washington. He's been a consultant to clients like Children's Orthopedic Hospital on their master plan, and given speeches in Europe on sustainable cities. He's advised Philadelphia and San Diego on urban planning. He's been able to think, to be creative, to work at his passions without being a harried elected official. He's also had more time for family. It's tough to take a mid-life plunge from a steady job into the unknown, but Steinbrueck's done it and seems to be happy.
Now he's facing another test, and he offers another forest metaphor. Only this time, it's the dense, dark wood of politics that has his attention, he says. The mojo wires are humming with the news that Steinbrueck is thinking about running against incumbent Greg Nickels this year, and fans have created a Facebook page that's already signing up hundreds of grassroots supporters encouraging him to make the leap back into the Wild Waves politics.
Steinbrueck says he had no intention of running for mayor when he left the council. Recent events (the snow storm political debacle, Nickels' poor polling, a paucity of other candidates) opened him to the idea of listening to people clamoring for a Nickels challenger. More recent polling and the Facebook fans have moved him from "passive listening" to "active listening," meaning he's really thinking about it and asking people what their major issues are. He's seeking advice and counsel. One recent poll picked up by The Slog had Steinbrueck leading Nickels 47% to 24% in a two-way race.
Steinbrueck won't be hurried into making a decision, however. He tells me it could be June before he makes up his mind. He doesn't want his decision-making process to back anyone else out of the race. "Don't wait for me to decide," he says. He'll get in if he gets in when he's ready. He does hope that Nickels will have strong opponents, whether he's one of them or not. And he's personally not afraid to face other possible challengers.
He's got to weigh everything, especially what he really wants and when. It's not just a decision for this year, but how he'll spend the next eight years at least. So, he says his internal process is like Dante at the beginning of the Inferno: "Midway upon the journey of our life/I found myself within a forest dark,/For the straightforward pathway had been lost." Steinbrueck's peaceful forest float trip gets complicated when he considers plunging into the tangle of city politics again. The path to an answer lies in finding his way through the woods of his own ambitions and life goals.
Political moments don't wait for people. It's Steinbrueck's choice whether or not to jump in, but the temptation must be great. Nickels, even with his mighty machine, is unpopular and vulnerable. While he has dominated with the big-money support of greens, labor and developers, parts of the Nickels coalition are ripe for picking apart, and there are many unaffiliated voters and constituent groups across the spectrum who are ready to be rallied for a change.
Part of this is less on policy, Steinbrueck and Nickels have large areas of agreement, but on style. Nickels' my-way-or-the-highway treatment of the council and the neighborhoods has made enduring enemies; his centralization of power has seemed less inspired by "the Seattle Way" than Chicago. Nickels rubs people the wrong way and a credible opponent, as the polls indicate, will have a leg up. He's had failures too, on the waterfront tunnel, the snow response (or lack of it) made worse by Nickels' taking a victory lap before the citizens had dug out from the storm. More recently, there's heavy-handedness over the Mercer street (or is it Vulcan beautification?) project and Seattle being stiffed by Olympia on transportation stimulus money.
Also, these tough economic times could play into the hand of sustainability advocates like Steinbrueck. It's a strategy that can make great progress without boom: adaptive re-use, green retro-fitting, working out the details of shaping neighborhoods at the street level, new opportunities for historic preservation, finding alternatives to big mega-redevelopment projects, reinvigorating the neighborhoods. If Steinbrueck ever wants to be mayor, to drive the public apparatus and implement policies that can really reshape the city toward sustainability, the pathway is about as open as it gets.
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Comments:
Posted Wed, Mar 11, 7:44 a.m. inappropriate
Peter,
IT'S YOUR TIME!
DO IT!
Arthur M. Skolnik FAIA
Posted Wed, Mar 11, 9:39 a.m. inappropriate
YES! YES! YES!
Posted Wed, Mar 11, 9:57 a.m. inappropriate
Did you and another tree-humper have a moment, Knute? That's so cute. Just what we need: another do-nothing who thinks it's their personal mission to save the world.
Posted Wed, Mar 11, 10:14 a.m. inappropriate
Knute,
This would seem terribly obsequious from any columnist, but from you it oozes a creepy, unpalatable syrup. Where did this come from? Do you owe Steinbrueck money?
I've observed the Council enough over the years to realize that there are few people in Seattle politics who shout from a soapbox as imperiously as Peter Steinbrueck. Frankly he and the bulk of the Council deserved to be run roughshod over by the Mayor. I believe a strong Mayoralty to largely be in the City's favor.
Nickel's is mostly right on climate change, transportation, Seattle's place in the state hierarchy and his advocacy for Seattle at the federal level. Also, the Mayor runs the City fairly well and came in during a bad recession and steered the City through it with its fiscal responsibilities in tact.
Peter Steinbrueck has shown little interest in the financial state of the City. Perhaps that's more a function of how the Council operates, with just the chairman of the budget committee paying any attention and individual council members making sure they get a couple of million for their pet projects and damn the big picture. Even so, I doubt he has the fortitude or resources to steer us through this recession.
For a mossback, I'm surprised you're seeking change to such a degree. Nickels has been there, done that, and has usually been correct. Little reason to throw him out, even if he is from Chicago.
Posted Wed, Mar 11, 11:20 a.m. inappropriate
I know it's all just political theatre, but I have say the ease with which politicos work reporters is stunning. Licata and Steinbruek have been playing you guys with promises of The Big Leap for like 10 years now. They just want their egos stroked. And you guys never miss your part in this tired narcissistic poli-drama. Why does this routine never get old? Don’t you ever feel used by these egocentrics? Each time you remove the hook from your mouths do you never remember all the other hooks?
It's not just you old guys either. Probably any minute now we can expect Matt Fox or even better - Daryl Smith - to start winding up The Stranger journalists into their breathless fits of begging for candidates too.
Since journalists are now in a somber reflective mood asking gee-where-did-we-go-wrong you might look at just these kinds of incidents as one of the reasons we, you know - real people, don’t have a lot of respect for the profession.
Posted Wed, Mar 11, 11:21 a.m. inappropriate
Pick a level you are comfortable with.
Tenth Circle Added To Rapidly Growing Hell
http://www.theonion.com/content/files/images/onion_news1285.jpg
Posted Wed, Mar 11, 11:24 a.m. inappropriate
If you build it, they will come... So what if you don't build it? Nickels would have you believe that the whole city and region will fall apart. He has thrown open the flood gates to developers and they are not catering to people who need affordable housing or doing justice to our neighborhoods. This city has a strong history of middle class values that is disappearing at an alarming rate. So George, I do not understand why you would question why a mossback would seek a regime change because a mossback is by nature resistant to revolutionary changes in their daily lives and surroundings. This does not necessarily mean resistant to political shifts. Care to compare the physicality and culture of this city ten years ago to today?
Posted Wed, Mar 11, 11:39 a.m. inappropriate
George, where have you been for the last seven years? The Mayor does not run this city well. Nickels, like Bush needs to disappear. Why is it OK to "ride rough shod" over Council? Harsh and arrogant [ie rough shod] may be your perferred method for effective governing, not mine. You applaud Nickel's stand on climate change and transportation but as a environmental activist I find him to be the most inaccessible and single minded politician in the region.It's his way or not. Take off your 'rose colored glasses' and have an honest look at an incumbent mayor the majority of people in Seattle don't want and applaud anyone who has the wherewithal to take him on. I look forward to mayoral debates, something about the democratic way of doing things. Peter, take him on!
Posted Wed, Mar 11, 11:59 a.m. inappropriate
Brad,
I understand your point on why Mr. Berger may seek a change at the top. I'm suggesting that there are few reasons to do so. I can empathize with your distaste at the pace and nature of many new developments in the City. Many of them coincided or rather were the result of the national housing and commercial property boom that has quickly dissolved into bust. The Mayor and Council could have limited the scope of many of these projects in some significant ways, they have little impact on their number. These projects were going to happen regardless of political interference; simply too much money at stake.
Of course that house of cards has now collapsed. We're left with a few gaping holes in the ground and a number of tarped, half-finished projects, but homes and apartments are becoming more affordable and development projects have all but stopped. Arguments about the merit of dense living are moot for now. We're shedding jobs and even if we were expanding, we couldn't expect underwater homeowners from around the country to be able to move here.
I disagree with a number of the Mayor's pet projects, SLUT, Mercer, Nightlife task force (execution more than the idea), but that's just what they are, pets. He has been adroit at keeping these from interfering from the City's goals of sustainable living, safe streets and active communities.
All Council members know are their special interest groups who come around every year to beg for money and Council members are only too happy to oblige, no matter the merits. That's the distinction between this Council and this Mayor. For that I see know reason to replace the latter with one of the former.
Posted Wed, Mar 11, 12:30 p.m. inappropriate
George,
Development has all but dried up but that is temporary and, even if it takes 5 years, we need a plan for when the the economy turns around other than more unfettered growth. Maybe council membership isn't the best path to the mayor's office because of their focused view, but where was Nickel's experience prior to this?
If the Mayor's focus is, in nutshell, sustainable living, safe streets and active communities, from my standpoint, he has failed. Sustainable living because of the prohibitive costs and focus on wealth. On safe streets because of the uptick in gang related violence and the police department's disbanding of its gang task force several years ago... Perhaps crime levels as a whole are down, but I would prefer my car getting broken into than the Tuba Man being murdered. Maybe he has succeeded on the active communities front because they are up in action trying to protect what they have. On the whole, this is less than ideal.
Mayor Nickels has succeeded well in further dividing ethnic and social classes and I disagree with his priorities that have effectively set our neighborhoods against one another. Look at the city reallocating money from fixing the South Park bridge to put into an ineffective solution to the Mercer mess.
Posted Wed, Mar 11, 10:22 p.m. inappropriate
The Wall Street Journal http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123673662900091009.html closed it 3/10/09 article "Downturn Catches Up to Seattle" by Jeff Wingfield as follows:
"Some longtime residents believe the downturn is leading locals to urge a rethinking of the city's priorities. In a new book called "Pugetopolis," Seattle writer Knute Berger chronicles a local identity crisis in which a lust for growth competes with a push for a more ecologically minded town that is more affordable for the middle class.
"Deep within our roots, we have this sense that we should have our cake and eat it too," he said. "We can be a very dense, global, growth-oriented city and do it in such a way that we can live in this beautiful, pristine environment. That's a fantasy we're loath to let go of.""
Very loath, it would seem.
Posted Fri, Mar 13, 6:59 p.m. inappropriate
Peter lost my vote of competence when he tried to handpick Venus Velazquez as his replacement on city council. That kind of democracy doesn't pass the sniff test with me (or the police).
Anyway, thanks for the good laugh Gregory Wade. patricia stambor