Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels has been hailed as a visionary and a leader on environmental issues, helping persuade nearly 1,000 mayors around the country to abide by the standards of the Kyoto Protocol on global warming.
But an environmental issue of a more basic sort — the city’s inability to clear streets during paralyzing snowstorms last winter — might have set the stage for his political undoing.
Nickels narrowly trails two challengers following Tuesday’s primary and is at serious risk of not advancing to the general election in November, potentially ending his eight-year run at City Hall. It would be a stunning development for a politician who is so respected among his peers that he was recently chosen to head the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
“The mayors have been talking about this. We’re all pulling for Greg,” said Douglas Palmer, the mayor of Trenton, N.J. “He brought the issue of climate change to mayors even before Al Gore’s ‘Inconvenient Truth.'”
Several issues have dogged the Democratic incumbent, including the Seattle SuperSonics’ move to Oklahoma City and his support for building a multibillion-dollar tunnel to replace a crumbling elevated highway along the city’s waterfront.
But the city’s response to a series of three snowstorms last December helped focus voters’ discontent with his leadership.
Over a two-week span, the storms dumped 14 inches of snow on a city that rarely sees that much. Given a relative lack of plows, steep hills and a stubborn refusal to salt roadways, the city all but shut down, with main streets undrivable and bus service curtailed.
A Seattle Times investigation revealed that the city held some plows in reserve even as neighborhoods complained of snowbound paralysis, and Transportation Department officials focused snow removal efforts disproportionately in West Seattle, where Nickels lives.
In a sort of “heckuva-a-job-Brownie” moment, the mayor gave the city a “B” for its response, only to acknowledge later that he wished he could have a do-over.
“It made him appear to be out of touch,” University of Washington political science professor Matt Barreto said. “Voters said, ‘No, in my neighborhood it’s a D or an F.'”
Barreto said that while few voters in his polling cited the snowstorm as a crucial issue, it clearly provided an opening for Nickels’ challengers.
Sierra Club activist Mike McGinn and T-Mobile executive Joe Mallahan led the mayor with about 81 percent of the projected vote counted Thursday, even though Nickels outspent them heavily. Mallahan had 27.2 percent of the vote to McGinn’s 26.7 percent and Nickels’ 25.6.
The county exclusively uses mail-in voting; ballots had to be postmarked by Tuesday, meaning they’re still being counted. The final tally was not expected to be known for days.
Mallahan and McGinn took the lead in part by snagging a heavy portion of previously undecided voters, while Nickels appeared to be collecting just 2 percent of that demographic, Barreto said. Although the office is technically nonpartisan, all three candidates are Democrats.
“He’s heavily involved in national efforts on global warming,” he said. “Those are things that are great when you’re popular, but they don’t actually accomplish anything to help residents of Seattle.”
Nickels didn’t come to office as an environmental leader, but as a pothole-plugging transportation wonk. His one-term predecessor, Paul Schell, failed to advance past the primary in 2001 following riots that shook the city during Mardi Gras that year as well as the 1999 World Trade Organization protests.
Faced with a shrinking snowpack in the Cascade Mountains, a major source of Seattle’s drinking water, and the re-election of President George W. Bush in 2004, Nickels decided that someone ought to take the lead on climate issues. He called on mayors around the country to agree to the emissions-cutting goals of the Kyoto pact famously spurned by the U.S.
“He really did show one of the few signs of intelligent life nationally during that long, dark eight years,” said Clark Williams-Derry, research director at Seattle’s Sightline Institute, an environmental think tank. “It created some hope in Europe and Asia that someday the U.S. would once again play a leading role on climate issues.”
Sightline does not endorse candidates, but Williams-Derry credited several of Nickels’ efforts. They include pushing the city-owned utility to become carbon-neutral — an easier task than in many other communities, thanks to Seattle City Light’s heavy reliance on hydro-power; forcing cruise ships to plug into the electric grid rather than pump diesel exhaust while docked on the waterfront; building 50 miles of new bicycle lanes since 2007; and encouraging walkable neighborhoods to reduce car travel.
Many environmentalists thought he could have done much more, and some considered Nickels’ support for the tunnel a black mark in his green credentials. While the elevated Alaskan Way Viaduct is in danger of collapsing, voters have overwhelmingly rejected proposals to replace it with either a new elevated structure or a tunnel.
Nickels pursued the tunnel anyway, saying it didn’t make sense to tear down the viaduct only to force tens of thousands of cars a day onto downtown Seattle’s surface streets just as the city is trying to become more walkable and bike-friendly.
The state agreed this year to foot most of the tunnel bill, but Seattle taxpayers would still be on the hook for at least $930 million.
Sandeep Kaushik, the mayor’s campaign spokesman, acknowledged his candidate is in trouble even if he manages to eke out a second-place finish in the primary. But so far, he said, there’s been limited public scrutiny of Mallahan or McGinn, and Nickels would stand a better chance facing either of them in a head-to-head race.
“If we go onto the general election, it’s clear we’re going to be the underdog in that race,” Kaushik said.
