Port Commissioner and Queen Anne resident Paige Miller launched her campaign for Richard Conlin's city council seat last week at a gathering in the Mountaineers Club.
It was an event attended by friends, family, fellow Port commissioners Bob Edwards and Pat Davis, Port CEO Mic Dinsmore, Seattle Monorail Project chairman Tom Weeks and Seattle City Council president Jan Drago.
Edwards, current commission president, acted as master of ceremonies and touted Port accomplishments that included record cargo business last year, the scheduled 2008 opening of the third runway at Sea-Tac International Airport and a plan to save the waterfront trolley.
"What you don't know is that none of these things would have happened without the hard work of Paige Miller," he said. "But the Port's loss is the city of Seattle's gain."
Edwards said Miller would bring the same energy to rebuilding the Alaskan Way Viaduct as she did to the third-runway project. He added that her experience managing multibillion-dollar projects will help ensure that projects such as the monorail, light rail and the 520 bridge will be built on time and on budget.
Tom Weeks, a former city council member, said he had repeatedly tried to convince Miller to run for a city council seat for at least the past 15 years. "Usually when people say no that many times, it means they're never really going to take the leap," Weeks said.
"So it's with great, great excitement that Paige has decided that it is time for her to take her service that she's brought to this region in so may ways to the Seattle City Council," he said. Weeks added that there is no better career to prepare someone for a council seat than Miller's job on the Port Commission.
Miller quoted President Harry Truman as saying he wanted an advisor with only one arm because he was tired of hearing his other advisors saying: "On the one hand and on the other hand."
It's that on-the-other-hand style of leadership that's come to dominate Seattle, she said, "and nothing gets done, and that's why I'm running." While the city has been stuck in process for the past decade or so, the Port has accomplished many things, Miller added.
"We're building that third runway ... we've found a way to extend light rail all the way to the airport, and we've extended the Sea-Tac subway on time and under budget," she said of some of the Port's accomplishments.
"Meanwhile, our city's been stuck in process, crippled by a disease we could call on-the-other-handitis," Miller said. "Seattle is simply choking on its transportation problems, and that's why I am running against transportation [committee] chair Richard Conlin."
Further illustrating that point, Miller at one point in her speech pointed out a window to a large red balloon floating in the air across the street. It was the location for a Thomas Streets station for an ex-tended waterfront trolley she has proposed.
Miller also touted her accomplishments at the Port as a reason to vote for her in the city council race, and then she waxed metaphoric. "So, if you would like to help get Seattle on the right track, please lend me your hand - but only one hand," she said.
Staff reporter Russ Zabel can be reached at rzabel@nwlink.com or 461-1309.
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