Last week, KUOW’s Ross Reynolds invited me onto his program “The Conversation” to talk about the most underreported stories of 2009. Typically, though, I had a lot more to say than could fit into my three minutes. So here, in slightly longer form, are what I consider the top five most underreported local stories from the past year.
1) The stunning sweep of this year’s Bellevue City Council races by a Kemper Freeman-backed slate of anti-light rail candidates.
PubliCola readers who live in Seattle may not consider three city council races across the water a major local story, but for those interested in the future of light rail, it is: This year, the seven-member Bellevue City Council became dominated by a four-member majority that favors revisiting the voter-approved light rail line through downtown Bellevue, thanks to the election of two new council members, Kevin Wallace and Jennifer Robertson, who were backed by anti-light rail developer Kemper Freeman.
Robertson and Wallace, along with incumbents Don Davidson and C ontrad Lee, support moving the proposed at-grade line through downtown Bellevue either underground (an option Sound Transit estimates would add half a billion to the cost of East Link) or far to the east of downtown along existing rail right-of-way next to I-405 (an option that would almost certainly depress ridership and would no longer serve the south Bellevue park-and-ride.)
The majority contingent has already forced Sound Transit’s hand once, pressuring the agency successfully to study the I-405 alignment, which Wallace has dubbed the “Vision Line.” They could also, as Lee has threatened, hold up Sound Transit’s permits, effectively standing in the way of light rail expansion on the Eastside.
2) The city council races.
Sure, we covered them here on PubliCola plenty, but we were a rare exception to the all-McGinn, all-the-time coverage in the Seattle Times and on other online-only news sites. Of course, we gave McGinn wall-to-wall coverage too–his out-of-nowhere, don’t-underestimate-him campaign was the local story of the year–but by and large, the local council races didnt’ get their due. By the end of this year’s long campaigns, council candidates had taken to complaining openly that McGinn was “taking all the air out of the room.”
And that’s a shame, because this coming year’s council will likely be a stark departure from what longtime city hall watchers are accustomed to seeing. With the addition of civic activist Sally Bagshaw and environmental leader Mike O’Brien–who ran, by the way, on a platform almost identical to, if slightly more pragmatic than, McGinn’s–the class of 2010 will be more professional than ever before. Given the stated mayoral ambitions of both council president Richard Conlin and council powerhouse Tim Burgess, a newly powerful city council might be a factor to give freshman mayor McGinn reason for pause.
3) News from the legislative branch of county government.
The King County Council, similarly, took a backseat to the far flashier King County Executive race, which pitted a longtime county council Democrat who was undeniably qualified for the job against a flashy Republican newscaster who promised to “solve problems and fix things” at a county that “needs fixing.”
Somewhat lost in the shuffle was the frantic (and still ongoing) scramble to replace Dow Constantine, the victor, on the county council. I’ve covered the machinations in detail here, here, here, and here, but suffice it to say that the takeaway is: “Nonpartisan” county government is anything but.
At last count, the county council was split 4-4 along traditional partisan lines, with vague plans to revisit the replacement issue (Republicans want former Seattle City Council member Jan Drago as a placeholder; Democrats want current state Sen. Joe McDermott as a full-time replacement) early this year. An ongoing deadlock on the appointment also spells deadlock on the 4-4 council.
4) The political demise of Tim Eyman and those that brung him.
Obviously, Tim Eyman isn’t going away–the former watch salesman’s entire livelihood depends on bringing in new contributions, and new contributions require new campaigns. But this year’s stunning defeat of his latest tax-slashing measure, Initiative 1033 (his first tax measure, importantly, to be defeated) spells doom for future Eyman initiatives. Voters don’t have to be told that taxes pay for things they need anymore–they can see it all around them, in the state’s crumbling infrastructure, the closure of county parks, and the ongoing budget crisis at the city, state, and county levels.
Moreover–to paraphrase Josh–Eyman’s defeat this year is good news for Democrats in general, suggesting that last summer’s anti-government, anti-Obama backlash was overblown.
5) Mike McGinn as political “outsider.”
Sure, McGinn’s campaign was won largely by the efforts of volunteers, thanks partly to lack of funds and partly to the enthusiasm of dozens of young people who saw his progressive, idealistic campaign as a stark departure from Seattle politics-as-usual.
But as his early decisions (and, indeed, his history in Seattle) make clear, McGinn is no political ingenue. Several of his initial appointments (Marco Lowe, Phil Fujii) have come from within the Nickels/Vulcan political axis, and his green-urbanist group, Great City, was funded in part by Vulcan. Again, we’re not saying that’s a bad thing–however, as we’ve reported repeatedly, those connections may come as a surprise to some of McGinn’s more idealistic supporters.
