Who will square off against Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels? And perhaps equally vexing, who can beat him?
The race is officially on, and there are seven candidates who have stepped up to duke it out with an incumbent who is eyeing his third term in office. Historically, an incumbent is tough to beat, and with a slew of relative unknowns entering the race, except for veteran City Councilor Jan Drago, a changing of the guard may seem unlikely.
That said, Nickels has seen his fair share of stumbles, particularly in his second term. Some say he's too friendly with development, and that his penchant for high-density planning has caused friction among neighborhoods. Then there's the snowplow fiasco that left Seattle paralyzed for two weeks. Many felt the buck stopped with Nickels.
Yet there are those who see him as a bold leader, a practical risk-taker. He's a strong proponent of the Viaduct tunnel replacement, an issue that a few of his opponents will use as ammunition against him.
But only one will face Nickels come November. Who will it be? The News has interviewed each candidate to find out what is important to them, why they think they can win and what they plan to do in their first few days in office. This week we meet Norman Sigler and Elizabeth Campbell.[[In-content Ad]]NORMAN SIGLER: ECONOMY, EDUCATION, TRANSIT
There are three tiers to Norman Sigler's platform in his bid for mayor: improve the economy, improve education, improve transportation - and for each he suggests broad partnerships.
At a recent Rotary meeting atop Columbia Tower, guest speaker Sigler expounded on the components of his platform. To spur the economy, he suggested the City of Seattle partner with other municipalities and the state to create a universal and affordable health care plan for their respective employees. Pooling those employees, he said, would increase the buying power needed to negotiate with health-care providers. And as a condition of such a contract, Sigler further proposed that Seattle business owners with 20 or fewer employees be entitled to the same reduced health-care rate for their employees.
Events such as Bumbershoot, could be parlayed into programs that could help all neighborhoods. Similar to New Orleans' Jazz Fest, Bumbershoot events would stop at 7 or 8 p.m., and then artists, working solo or joining other musicians, continue into the night at clubs throughout the city. Sigler would build on similar partnerships when it came to transportation and schools, too.
He wants to see continued growth in Seattle's pursuit of mass-transit solutions. That means getting trains, be they light rail or monorail, into West Seattle and Ballard. He regards the South Lake Union Street Car a "toy" and would like to see it extended into the University District. He suggested that, instead of fumbling around for an unknown contractor, that Sound Transit be put to the task of building the train infrastructure in Ballard and West Seattle.
And regarding the tunnel replacement for the Alaskan Way Viaduct, he voted against it and was dismayed by it moving through anyway. Users of the tunnel, he said will be dismayed by its lack of egress. Now that it's voted for, if he becomes mayor, he would ensure that there would be more access points to the tunnel, particularly in the north end in the Denny area. And any cost overruns wouldn't be put on the backs of Seattleites.
Sigler, who has a degree in accounting from Michigan University and came to Seattle six years ago by way of Chicago, is not against further closures of schools, if that is what makes fiscal sense. But he doesn't see it that way at all. He sees underused school buildings as revenue sources.
"Why not partner with nonprofits with kid-specific missions to take up the space in those schools sitting empty (in summer or otherwise)?" Sigler asked Rotarians.
Sigler lives in Interbay and wants each neighborhood in Seattle to have more self-sufficiency. Recently he visited some buisness owners in Ballard. One owner told him that it wasn't so much the condominiums rising up around them as it was the diminishment of autonomy that she found troubling. Sigler said the owner told her there once was a Sears in Ballard and several other shops that are no longer there, so now residents leave the neighborhood to buy certain goods.
"I want to take it back to a time when you did have a local hardware store, and you didn't have to go to Northgate," he said.
ELIZABETH CAMPBELL
When she saw the list of candidates running against incumbent Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, longtime neighborhood activist Elizabeth Campbell knew it was time to enter the race.
"I was appalled that no one but [City Councilor Jan] Drago or Nickels had experience," she said on a Wednesday morning inside the Serendipity Café in Magnolia Village. "But I know how the city works."
She also felt that Nickels was a bit more vulnerable pursuing a third term, which would increase her chances of victory if not at the very least provide a way for more Seattleites to hear her ideas. She bounced the idea of running off a couple of campaign managers she knew and they gave her the thumbs-up.
As mayor, the Magnolia resident said she would make stopping the tunnel a priority. She said the tunnel was disenfranchising to areas of Seattle and that up to 50,000 commuters would be adversely affected by its construction-something she feels mayor Nickels doesn't grasp.
"Nickels' record is about building things but not about the people, never anything that addresses the quality of life," she said. "He's created more problems. Just look at Ballard."
If the tunnel proposal had remained in its original form, with improved entry and egress areas (particularly at the Elliott and Western streets) and six lanes, she would consider it. But with two fewer lanes, a convoluted entryway from the north end and a $4.2 billion price tag, she isn't biting.
Should Campbell be elected mayor, her No. 1 action will be to make city government friendlier to the citizens of Seattle. Right now, she sees local government as processing citizens rather than being a citizen process. To that end, she would open up parking around City Hall, eliminate the paid-parking kiosks, install one- to two-hour parking spaces and increase parking for the public in the City Hall parking garage. She would also eliminate any plans to install paid parking in neighborhoods, like Fremont, which last year installed pay kiosks near its commercial hub.
She would also terminate Stella Chao, director of the Department of Neighborhoods (DN), and Timothy Gallagher, director of Parks and Recreation, departments which she feels have become pawns to the will of the few in local government and not the people of the city. More than 90 percent of the wishes of community organizations in neighborhoods get disregarded by both departments, she said. But the will of downtown interests such as Paul Allen, get top billing.
She said, for example, that the notion of first asking Magnolians what should be done with land inside Fort Lawton was disregarded in favor of moving forward with a housing plan. Campbell challenged that plan vigorously over the last few years, which ended in a court decision earlier this year in her favor. That halted any housing development, but the city is appealing that decision now.
To help make the DN more accountable, Campbell as mayor would establish an Office of Small Business (OSB) within the department. The OSB would employ a business retention and enhancement program and create a neighborhood business match-fund program, along with establishing a business retention and enhancement loan fund.
Campbell also wants to get rid of the new BAT lanes along 15th Avenue West, what she called "insanity," and convert that lane into a carpool lane.
