Slog

News & Arts

Line Out

Music & the City
at Night

« Currently Hanging | Outrage and Outing »

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

City Cary Moon, Denis Hayes For Nickels

Posted by Erica C. Barnett on Tue, May 12, 2009 at 9:42 AM

Mike McGinn, who's making a big campaign issue of his opposition to the $4 gazillion waterfront tunnel, got some bad news this morning: Cary Moon, head of the pro-surface/transit People's Waterfront Coalition, is on the list of sponsors for pro-tunnel Mayor Greg Nickels's upcoming reelection fundraiser at a private home in south Seattle (see below). Also on the list: downtown developer Greg Smith, who considered a run against Nickels, and Earth Day founder Denis Hayes. Moon's support seems surprising at first blush; however, Moon has said in the past that she would support a tunnel if it included improvements to transit and surface streets. Unfortunately, the tunnel Nickels supports was scaled back specifically by eliminating transit improvements; and any street improvements will be completed last, after the tunnel is finished (and assuming there are no cost overruns).

a6e2/1242146538-nickles_invite_email.jpg

Comments (13) RSS

Oldest First Unregistered On Registered On Add a comment

Ha Ha Ha. Not even people who should be his core supports take Mike "broadband" McGinn seriously.

Posted by giffy on May 12, 2009 at 9:49 AM

The whole lower two thirds of the flyer is green? I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE.

Posted by Greg on May 12, 2009 at 9:53 AM

Wow, a whole lot of Nickels' staff want to see him re-elected.

Posted by keeping good company on May 12, 2009 at 9:57 AM

#3, and that's a shock to whom?

Erica, you've lifted two stories from publicola just this morning. hmmm.

Posted by dacoach on May 12, 2009 at 10:16 AM

I don't care how many people line up behind the tunnel plan, it's still the wrong thing to do. I'd expect that a lot of people view this as a done deal, so they're throwing nominal support behind it so that they don't burn their bridges with the Mayor's office. Regardless, it's an incredibly bad decision and until the first shovel goes in the ground, there's still an opportunity to stop it.

Posted by vagabond on May 12, 2009 at 10:23 AM

@4: The campaign money numbers came out today and are on every blog.

@3: The only Nickels staffers I noticed on that list are Mike Mann and Rachel Smith.

Thanks for playing, anyway.

Posted by J.R. on May 12, 2009 at 10:30 AM

@6: Counting Nickels staff is like counting Vulcan employees. There's the official staff. And there's the patronage network/ machine. Vulcan will send one official rep to a city council meeting, but two dozen people from various organizations that receive money from Vulcan will miraculously show up at the same meeting with the same message. Nickels has a similar astroturf operation going. Indeed sometimes it's the same people just with different hats.

Posted by Trevor on May 12, 2009 at 10:43 AM

yeah, but the nickels fundraiser story and the fundraising numbers story showed up right after publicola posted their story. so it might be public, but the fundraiser story was pretty much lifted.

nice try

Posted by dacoach on May 12, 2009 at 10:56 AM

According to opensecrets.org, a Michael Butler and a Deanna Butler of Seattle each gave $4200 to Mike McGavick (R) in 2005. Not sure if these are the same folks, but...

Posted by DOUG.

on May 12, 2009 at 11:01 AM

Me@9: Yes, this is the same Michael Butler.

Posted by DOUG.

on May 12, 2009 at 11:09 AM

Who cares who Moon is and what she likes. These big enviros are just a bunch of self important people in their own minds. Good thing Mike and Greg can just tear each other up. Son't like either one. Neither one is a choice for me.

Posted by Someone Good Please Run on May 12, 2009 at 11:14 AM

Is an incandescent bulb really that green? I thought the green thing to do was use those energy saver bulbs? Telling that nobody on the so called Green Team picked up on this. Also I don' t think SPU owns any windmills. Not one. They have contracts with some windfarms but that is it. There are zero in the City. Other than that they are really green or good about talking about it.

Posted by Zander on May 12, 2009 at 12:50 PM

What would SPU do with windmills, dear? SPU is the water/sewer/garbage department.

And no - City Light doesn't own any windmills.

Indeed, there are very few windmills in Seattle not because of any nefarious plot, but because - believe it or not - this is not a particularly good place for wind energy. Also, there's a lack of small-scale wind generators that have their UL listings. You can't get something permitted in Seattle without either a UL listing or an engineering review. Or so says the DPD.

Posted by Catalina Vel-DuRay