The city council's released its 2009 priorities in a meeting that just wrapped up a few minutes ago.

Going around the dais, show-and-tell style, each council member presented the two or three council priorities that most closely concerned his or her committee. The scintillating details:

• Tim Burgess wants to improve the city's relationship with the school district, make neighborhoods safer, and improve delivery of city services. Vague, but not as vague as things quickly became, as you'll see...

• Richard McIver—retiring to his villa in Mexico later this year—said he wants to create more housing and jobs (see? vague) and "make sure that Seattle has a vibrant and creative industry that thrives on live music as well as recorded, but primarily live because that has been a major part of blah blah blah" (bizarrely specific).

• Sally Clark wants to improve South Downtown so that "it's a place that we are proud to look at" and update the neighborhood plans.

• Jan Drago's "theme is continuing to move forward" on transportation, including 520 and the viaduct. Drago is expected to retire this year.

• Jean Godden wants to "continue to put people first" in the city budget and improve customer service. She also quoted Obama at length—something about blood, sweat, and tears making the world "just a little bit better than the one we have today."

• At this point, Bruce Harrell dispensed completely with the pretense of introducing priorities, and went on for a while about "very strategic issues" and "critically important... regional and national relationships." I think it had something to do with City Light. Plus he wants the city to make some kind of system that will tell people they have to clear snow off their sidewalks and "what to do when their televisions no longer work." I believe this magical system was part of his campaign platform as well.

• Tom Rasmussen wants to make sure the parks levy gets off to a good start and improve Seattle Center, including Key Arena and the saddest little amusement park in the world, the Fun Forest.

• Nick Licata wants to enhance the arts, increase police oversight, and improve pedestrian safety.

• And Conlin wants to "take steps toward the goal" of reducing homelessness and hunger.

Well, who doesn't? The problem with that worthy laundry list (apart from the fact that it's basically the same every year) is that there isn't one single proposal in there that might cause anyone to raise an eyebrow (in disapproval or even interest). Why doesn't the council use the opportunity—the TV cameras, the assembled audience—to roll out some real initiatives, along the lines of the proposals Nickels rolls out in his State of the City speech every year? (In 2008, for example, Nickels proposed amping up spending on youth gang violence, passing a levy to fix up Pike Place Market, and increasing restrictions on guns. Two out of three ain't bad).

The council is made up of nine people with nine different agendas, but that doesn't have to be a liability. Instead of trying to paper over their differences, the council should use them to their advantage—introducing individual priorities, rather than inventing collective ones. Council members often complain that the mayor hogs the civic spotlight, but that isn't really fair—the mayor gets attention because he demands it. If council members want citizens to pay attention to them, they need priorities more substantial than "we want to make Seattle a better place for everyone."