1. The non-partisan King County Council held a six-hour meeting last night (mostly taken up by, um, Republican and Democratic caucus breaks).
The evening ended in a deadlock—4 Republicans vs. 4 Democrats—over who to name as King County Executive Dow Constantine’s successor on the Council.
Erica followed the meeting last night.
2. As we reported on Friday, Mayor-elect Mike McGinn hasn’t yet announced whether he’ll keep Mayor Greg Nickels’ Office of Housing Director Adrienne Quinn.
(McGinn announced several top members of his administration last week, including some familiar faces from the Nickels administration and some new blood.) Over the last few days, there’s been speculation that McGinn plans to jettison Quinn and appoint his own housing director.
Prior to McGinn’s announcement, Housing Development Consortium executive director Harry Hoffman sent a letter to the mayor-elect urging him to keep Human Services Dept. director Alan Painter (nope) and Quinn.
Re: Quinn, Hoffman wrote, “Under her leadership, Seattle’s Office of Housing has proven to be one of the most effective in the nation,” citing Quinn’s work on reducing homelessness, passing the housing levy, and adopting standards for environmentally sustainable low-income housing, among other accomplishments.
McGinn reportedly met with Quinn on Friday.
Meanwhile, two other rumors are swirling. The first is that McGinn is considering Sharon Lee, director of the Low-Income Housing Institute, as Quinn’s replacement. Lee was the only prominent housing advocate to come out in favor of McGinn during the campaign. The second: That McGinn plans to merge Housing with another department, possibly the Office of Economic Development. HDC outreach director Anna Markee says the group “took years to get Housing separated into its own department,” so they would definitely oppose any merger.
3. PubliCola hit a milestone yesterday: TechNerd Glenn Fleishman’s post, “The Killer App of 1900,” about how electricity=broadband, got linked (and quoted at length) on national big deal tech sites BoingBoing and Slashdot.
Thanks for the hits, Glenn!
4. Yesterday, we reported that a former T-Mobile executive, Democrat Dean Willard, announced he’s running against East King County state Rep. Glenn Anderson (R-5). Shortly after we posted the news, a prominent local leader on the left sent us this post from liberal blog FireDogLake.
It begins like this:
T-Mobile has a nasty habit of intimidating its employees from joining unions, including repeated instances of turning surveillance and security guards on employees and organizers.
A new report from Labor Professor John Logan published by American Rights at Work details multiple violations of the law by T-Mobile, recurring intimidation of employees, and what one employee called a “culture of fear” preventing employees from joining together in a union.
5. Two of the biggest local environmental groups, FutureWise and Transportation Choices Coalition, are accustomed to working closely together on legislation. So it’s surprising that the two groups somehow managed to pick the exact same night, and time, for their annual holiday parties, forcing enviros who support both groups to choose (or dash).
FutureWise’s party is tonight from 5:30 to 7 at AIA Seattle headquarters (1911 First Ave.), and TCC’s bash is from 5:30 to 7:30 at FareStart (700 Virginia).
According to TCC outreach director Shefali Ranganathan, the two groups “lament[ed] the fact that we should have checked with each other before scheduling. We had already put a deposit on our venue so there was no possibility of switching dates.”
6. Quick a.m. PubliCalendar update: OneAmerica (formerly Hate Free Zone) will have a rally this morning from 10 to 11:30 in Victor Steinbrueck Park to celebrate the introduction of a comprehensive immigration reform bill by US Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), featuring speeches, personalized holiday ornaments, and hot chocolate. More info available here.
7. According to the rumor mill at city hall, Mayor Greg Nickels has landed a teaching gig at Harvard’s Kennedy School. Nickels’ spokesman Alex Fryer said he wouldn’t confirm or deny the story. (Nor would ex-council member Peter Steinbrueck, who’s spending a year studying at Harvard.)
Today’s Morning Fizz brought to you by Office Nomads:
Good god, what’s he going to teach them in Boston,
density?
rapid transit 101?
or his magna cum laude topic — snow removal?
@1, there are things about being mayor that McGinn doesn’t know yet.
There are policies that I did not care for, and the way he went about his business that sometimes worked, sometimes didn’t. He was a county councilman, and then mayor of a good sized city in a top 15 media market.
@2
I think the point is that there are things about being mayor that Nickels doesn’t know yet.
I actually heard Greg Nickels was the 3rd prospect in the Cliff Lee trade. Anyone confirm or deny?
Can i do a print screen of your comments so i can throw them back in your face in 6 months when the city has gone to shit?
Imagine if the Democrats attracted some eastside candidates who weren’t tech business executives.
Anyone know what is going to happen to Julie Nelson, Director of the Seattle Office of Civil Rights? I heard she was safe, but then have not seen her on any lists.
Keeping Adrienne Quinn as a Director of Office of Housing will be disaster. She helped developers and worked closely with Seattle Housing Authority in Yesler Project which has a lot of flaws.
Anrienne Shutted off the advocates in support of Seattle Housing Authority.
Sharon Lee is the way to go. She has more integrity than Adrienne. We need a change.And McGinn we counting on you
No matter what you think of the choices, McGinn is sure shaking it up.
@9,
The biggest shake up, I think, actually comes with moving Dwight Dively off budget and over to Finance. Even though McGinn is “keeping” Dively, I agree w Erica’s assessment that McGinn’s demoting him.
Sources tell me that the consistent advice McGinn got from council was “keep Dively on budget.”
The fact that McGinn didn’t keep Dively on budget isn’t only a shake up, it’s a message that it’s a shake up: Tell me this, but I do that.
How does John Fox feel about Adrienne Quinn (is John@8 Fox?)? If he feels she should go then she should stay. If John Fox likes Quinn then she’s obviously doing a terrible job of housing people and needs to go.
Thanks for the quote Erica, in the letter I used the correct tense, “proven” not “prove”, in case any of my school teachers read Pubilcola.
To clarify for those not following this situation, HDC’s support of Adrienne Quinn is not a reaction to any potential replacement candidates but rather based on her track record work and that of the OH staff team in managing the 2002 Seattle Housing Levy and in preparing the Mayor and City Council for the 2009 renewal which garnered a record of almost 66% voter approval.
Creating and operating affordable housing has never been easy and in these tough times, in which demand is growing while resources are shrinking, is that much more difficult. Adrienne Quinn has been a good steward of public investments and a fair partner and I see no reason to seek her replacement at this juncture.
@8 maybe we should shutted you out of this commenting board?
John Fox is one of the most credible progressive housing advocate in town. Adrienne Quinn has done more harm than anyone else i can rembember in that office. She is lesbian which is a good thing– i am great supporter of gender equality, but she is and has been the wrong-side of the fence. She needs to go. If we are ever serious about solving the housing issues in Seattle, Sharon Lee is the right person.
@8
Let’s be clear that Yesler Terrace (an SHA development) and the Office of Housing are two distinct entities. Quinn does not oversee that development project, although I do think that she (and John Fox) serve on the diverse Citizen Review Committee that oversees the planning for the project (along with residents of the site). Maybe that can be interpreted as implicit support for SHA’s policies, I don’t know, with folks like Fox on the committee I would imagine they bat around a lot of different perspectives.
For me, I want to know that the head of each City department will be a good manager of people and policies. I think Quinn has a stellar track record in this regard. In general, I don’t think it is appropriate for former Executive Directors of nonprofits to be in this position, as they would then be responsible for making large financial Levy commitments to their former organizations, and that to me seems too close to a conflict of interest. Perhaps this is why Quinn has been good – she is a trained lawyer – super smart on policy and objective in her policy execution. This is why we exceeded all 2002 Levy targets. She holds nonprofits accountable while pushing them to be creative and smart with their development projects. With a new Mayor that has never been in City Hall, this is exactly the type of leader we should be retaining.
I think Adrienne Quinn should go. @15 are you Seattle Housing Authority employee–,,, Most corrupt agency in the city
Seattle Liberal: What on earth does Quinn’s supposed sexual orientation have to do with this subject? Are you going to disclose your own sexual orientation so we can consider it when we read your comments?
Ya, that was strange.
I think Quinn is a nice lady, and desrves a respect. However, i think is the time to have a new Director of “the Office of Housing” . She did not manage the levy money well. She is very close to the developers than the advocates and the low income folks. I think we need new leadership and new direction. I think Sharon Lee has more support than Quinn in the eyes of the Seattle citizens
@16
I am not an SHA employee. My point wasn’t whether SHA is corrupt. Anyone is free to have that opinion. My point was that Quinn should not be judged on SHA’s performance, but on the performance of her own office – which is OH and not SHA.
@19 On the topic of whether she managed Levy money well, the 2002 Levy met or exceeded every target – she produced more low-income housing than was expected of the Levy – which means that she was able to stretch money to go further for low-income folks in our community. The irony of your statement is that Lee’s organization, LIHI, is one of the biggest nonprofit developers in the City.
Non-profit developers aren’t exactly in the same category as the developers who built SLU and the condos downtown.
“Seattle citizens” as a whole know nothing of Quinn or Lee, and there won’t be a vote on who fills the position. Lee would be great in the position but I’d hate to see her leave the non-profit field, as in that sphere she combines professional experience with an advocate’s passion and fearlessness.
“John” and “Bill” have almost identical writing style and say basically the same thing. Wonder why.
i know Bill works LIHI. Stop your fucking attack on Quinn.
Why on earth would peter know if greg took a job at the kennedy school??? he is a nobody over there. i hope he takes greg’s class and learns how to be a classy individual.
FYI, SHA isn’t an agency. It gets money from HUD and doesn’t really answer to anybody but HUD (which is a, if not the, problem). The City oversees SHA Board positions but nothing else; no local control.
It’s hard to imagine LIHI without Lee, but the City would be lucky to have her.
ktstine speaks the truth
kstine works for the Seattle Housing Authority. She is a nice woman.
Again, I do not work for SHA. Although I do work a bit with the resident leadership group at Yesler Terrace, so I think I have a pretty well-rounded view of that development project. Personally, I have a lot of mixed feelings about HOPE VI developments (I know I know, YT isn’t a HOPE VI, but it will be modeled after one) and the displacement and disruption of community that they cause.
@2
I think the point is that there are things about being mayor that Nickels doesn't know yet.