In a budget battle last week, it was West Seattle versus North Seattle. And in true Seattle Nice style, it ended in cheerful compromise—but only after raising concerns that council districts will promote pork spending that divides neighborhoods.

On November 8, three days after voters passed a new district model for future Seattle City Council elections, council transportation chair Tom Rasmussen put forth a funding plan for a project in West Seattle, where he lives, that would turn Fauntleroy Way Southwest into a "green boulevard." That caught the attention of some city hall staff: If Rasmussen seeks reelection in 2015, he may well seek it in the newly drawn 1st District of West Seattle, and the project in question looked like a generous gift to that district. By all accounts, this is a great project, one that's been a long time in the making, and the kind of pedestrian-friendly infrastructure the neighborhood needs. But when he proposed funding it by pulling $500,000 from an equally pedestrian-friendly project in Northgate—a half million to help plan pedestrian connections, including a footbridge, from the west side of I-5 to the future light-rail station to the east—neighbors got pissed.

And with good reason.

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