City Controversial SHA Resident Gets Nickels’s Nod
As I predicted a month ago, Mayor Nickels has tapped Sybil Bailey, a low-income housing resident and onetime leader of the Seattle Housing Authority’s Resident Action Council, as his choice to replace outgoing SHA board member Judith Fay. Bailey’s 1998 nomination for the same position by then-Mayor Paul Schell was opposed by low-income-housing activists like the Seattle Displacement Coalition because, in SDC leader John Fox’s words, “she had a long record of rubber-stamping all of SHA’s decisions” as head of the resident action council. Peter Steinbrueck, the council member who jettisoned Bailey’s appointment the first time, wasn’t around this afternoon to comment on whether he’d oppose Bailey’s nomination this time around.
(P.S. Sorry to pile on with all these seemingly random Slog entries, but I’ve been on vacation for two weeks and stuff’s been piling up.)
For those who give a shit about public housing (and you should because any one of us could end up needing it at any moment thanks to the ridiculous housing prices for both sales AND rentals in this town), Sybil Bailey is more than a rubber stamp.
I used to report on the goings-ons in SHA and their various properties for a community newspaper dedicated to public housing in the county, and Bailey was always one of the most active, smart, and thoughtful members of the community. To call her a rubber stamp for SHA is ridiculous.
But do look who it is coming from: John Fox is a friebrand willing to fight with SHA at the drop of a hat. He is the worst kind of activist. He has a closed mind and is willing only to fight with his "enemies." He can never see them as trying to do good. And anyone who EVER disagrees with him is automatically labelled as such.