So, my cynical thought this morning when Ron Sims & Greg Nickels announced that they had a new plan for the Waterfront streetcar to extend the line South, was this: Greg Nickels was using his behind the scenes muscle to undermine Port Commissioner Paige Miller, who offered up a streetcar plan of her own last March to extend the line north. Nickels, it seemed to me, simply wants to help out is pal Casey Corr, who’s running against Miller for city council.
Voila: It only took Casey a few hours to send out a press release stating: “As I said in March, the solution to the trolley’s future was to look south. By contrast, the port’s proposal took the trolley in a direction where ridership was low and costs were high.”
I don’t know what’s more embarrassing, Nickels’s naked ploy to waste city time hammering out a plan that helps his friend in the election, or Corr’s sloppy, unsophisticated politickingcalling attention to the fact that Nickels is Corr’s daddy!