As reported here, [w]ith his re-election prospects dimming by the day, Mayor Greg Nickels conceded Friday morning that he had lost the primary election. It's a stunning defeat for the two-term incumbent.
And, I might add, richly deserved.
"I think the people of Seattle have decided it's time for a new generation of leadership," he said at a morning announcement and news conference.
Gee ... what was your first clue, Sherlock?
His decision to bow out means Seattleites in November will choose between two men most had never heard of six months ago: businessman Joe Mallahan and environmentalist Michael McGinn. Both have spent months attacking the unpopular Nickels.
He made it easy for them to verbally attack him, with his blunders (see below) and arrogant style of "leadership".
Among his accomplishments, he mentioned light rail, the Lake Union streetcar and an agreement to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct.
Light rail - an expensive (and getting more so each day) boondoggle. Years ago, the city built a transit tunnel under the downtown core, and laid tracks for the future development of light rail. Guess what? The tracks were the wrong width, and had to ripped out and re-laid, because by the time the city finally got around to choosing which light rail system they were going to purchase, no one was making anything that ran on the width of tracks originally laid down.
The Lake Union streetcar - also known as the SLUT (for South Lake Union Transit), which no one thought about (the acronym) before they named it, and announced it to the public. I don't know what the ridership figures are for it, but when I see it in the mornings, during peak commute time, there might only be one person on it - the driver.
The agreement to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct - the only thing I've ever agreed with him on, and that took EIGHT YEARS to come to. The Viaduct was severely damaged during the Nisqually earthquake back in 2001, and has been settling ever since. When (not if) the next big earthquake comes along - if they don't get this project going SOON! - the Viaduct will come crashing down. Makes me wonder how many people in the approximately 110,000 vehicles that use that road on a daily basis will die.
"I think there were dozens of issues on which I lost votes. The thing about being mayor is you have to make decisions …. Eventually you get to make everybody unhappy … but at the end of the day you have to make decisions or you're not doing your job."
Let me count the ways you made all of unhappy, Greg ...
- Seattle Sonics being allowed to go to Oklahoma City.
- $25.00 head tax, charged to businesses for each employee. Gee, nice way to encourage businesses to come here, Greg.
- Light rail - see above.
- Twenty cent bag tax (which was recently defeated) on plastic and/or paper bags from grocery, drug, and convenience stores.
- So-called "Urban Villages" concept, where people would live near where they worked, so they wouldn't drive their cars (See $25.00 head tax above).
- SLUT - see above.
- Christmas 2008 snow storm, where the people of Seattle were left to fend for themselves because the city didn't know how to plow the friggin' streets (I personally lost two weeks of work because of that!).
- Deteriorating streets in the city. There are potholes everywhere - you simply cannot avoid them. Nickels solution? Charge a per-space tax on parking lots (another "business friendly" move) to raise revenue for repairing roads. Only problem with this is, people aren't using the parking lots in the numbers Greg expected (hoped?), and so revenue from this tax is way down from projected numbers. Oh, and where is the money going that is being generated? Well, from the conditions of the streets around here, it obviously isn't going into street repair! So, where is it going, Greg?
- Nickelsville (aka Tent City) - homeless folks who are forced to pick up and move every few months, while they try to eke out a living, and get back on their feet. A little background, before someone goes off half cocked about these folks. Everyone that is allowed to stay in Tent City is background checked to bar anyone with a violent criminal history, and no alcoholics or drug users are allowed; they are people, who for the most part, do have jobs but don't make enough to be able to get housing; and from all reports that I've read, all of them are in the position they're in through no fault of their own - life circumstances simply overwhelmed them, forcing them out of where they used to live. They are ordinary folks like you and me, who are in unfortunate straights.
I could go on ... and on ... and on ... but space is limited, so I'll leave it with those examples, which, I think, suffice for now.
Unlike his predecessor, Paul Schell, there were no huge gaffes during Nickels' two terms.
Oopsy! Go back, and read my short list above, ok?
Nickels and Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis were criticized for being too dictatorial ...
And the number one reason why? Because they were! Not only to the people who work under them, but to the citizens of Seattle as well.
I, for one, am glad to see that Greg Nickels will no longer be the Mayor of the City of Seattle.
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