Whoops. What if he turns us down?

In this week’s CounterIntel, I write about Mayor Nickels’s behind-the-scenes effort to shore up support for the chief, and I noted that some folks, like minority-advocacy nonprofits, who’ve been asked to write supportive letters have turned the mayor down.

Well, I just talked to Darryl Smith, the high-profile, pro-business, pro-development African American South Seattle activist who’s considered to be a city council front runner for 2009. Smith told me that he was also asked to write a letter of support for the embattled chief.

“I was asked, and I decided not to,” Smith says. “I felt like it would have been odd for me to say yay or nay on the chief. I’m not involved with the chief.”

It also would have been odd for Smith to write a letter right now because Nickels has asked for a review of the chief to supposedly get to the bottom of all the accusations. If Nickels is in earnest about the review, he shouldn’t be asking people to write pro-Kerlikowske letters before that review is complete.

Smith says he has great relationship with the commander in the SE Precinct, and he’s lobbied the city for more public-safety dollars, but he’s got nothing to say about Kerlikowske.