City “It’s the Right Thing To Do”
Last night I attended the meeting of the Northeast District Council, the most recent stop on the Nickels campaign to promote the annexation of North Highline. I wrote on this subject in February, and I was curious to see whether Nickels staffers have since revised a sales pitch that back then seemed incomplete — suspiciously so.
The proposal is for Seattle to annex North Highline, the unincorporated sliver of land on Seattle’s southwest border, just north of Burien. The area — which includes parts of White Center, Boulevard Park and part of South Park — has a depressed tax base relative to Seattle, such that it can’t give revenue back to the city in proportion to the services it would get from the city. What’s more, there is a significant, increasingly organized opposition within North Highline to Seattle’s overtures.
So…why is Nickels so hellbent on making this happen? What is in it for him? Or us, as Seattle taxpayers?
Nickels’s representative Julien Loh, who has been assigned the task of promoting this bewildering idea, answered that question thus:
“We think it’s the right thing to do.”
But that didn’t satisfy anybody. Since when do politicians care about the right thing to do — especially when it runs against self-interest? So the question was asked again, and this time he answered:
“We can offer better services to the people of North Highline then King County.”
Still, he’s not speaking about Seattle’s interest. The question is rephrased and asked again, to which he answers that Seattle wants a “stable neighborhood south of its border.”
More iterations of the same question only bring more of the same incomplete answer: It’s because Nickels represented the area when he was on county council, and he feels an affection toward those folks. Or it’s because it’s a very diverse neighborhood which would add to the cultural fabric of our city. Or it’s because the Growth Management Act said cities should absorb unincorporated areas and that’s what we’re doing. Did I mention it’s the right thing to do?
All of the above happened at the Southwest District Council meeting I attended February 1 — four months ago. Since then, I wrote a critical article. And then this past week, the P-I wrote almost the same piece.
So surely the Nickels promotional team has reacted to the skepticism and tweaked its campaign.
Nope. Last night’s meeting unfolded exactly like the one four months ago, as members of the district council put the same questions to Loh and he answered in the same platitudes. I counted three times that he said, “the right thing to do.” It was like being at a press conference emceed by Scott McClellan.
People at the meeting wanted to know what the financial cost of annexation would be, and Loh told them the financial assessment would be released next month. Which is the same answer he gave when the same question came up in February.
The members became agitated as Loh kept to his talking points, and they only calmed down after University District Community Council president Matt Fox seized the floor and gave everyone a neat five minute rebuttal to Loh’s presentation that reduced the city’s case to rubble and, seemingly, confirmed the skepticism of all present. Loh didn’t even bother contesting Fox’s points.
It’s remarkable to see a campaign which is ostensbily designed to promote a policy have the exact opposite effect. Maybe Nickels’ motives aren’t sinister, but when the media and residents on both ends of the city all have the same reaction, that’s a campaign that needs fixing — and it shouldn’t take four months.
Nickels and the City Council have set up a deal where an inordinate amount of Metro's transit funding inside Seattle will be diverted to South Lake Union and Paul Allen's vanity streetcar. That might help to explain his push to absorb the North Highline bus service area into the city proper.
That, plus potential voters in North Highline would most likely support Nickels because he has the name recognition of having been its representative on the King County Council.