August 25, 2011
The Honorable Michael Patrick McGinn
Mayor of Seattle
Mayor’s Office
P.O. Box 94749
Seattle, WA 98124-4749
Dear Mayor McGinn,
It has become apparent to most informed observers that your political career, and by extension, the city which you govern, are in deep trouble. I’m aware that the favorability ratings of city officials often fluctuate wildly, and the good and honest voters of Seattle in particular can be quite fickle, but EMC Research’s summer opinion poll measuring your favorability rating at 23% is unnerving to say the least.
That’s only one point more popular than Dubya when he finally abandoned the White House, Mr. Mayor. And while you were never responsible for anything as odious as, say, helping to drown what’s been called “the least annoying French place on earth,” that certainly says something about the electorate’s perception of your leadership. And in politics, of course, perception is everything.
You’ve fought the good fight, valiantly throwing yourself in the path of a dangerous and expensive boondoggle in order to protect the people you swore an oath to serve, yet most are annoyed by your heroic and principled stand. It shouldn’t have turned out like this, but the big money developers and their creatures in public office have won the day. Their pet mega-project will go through, the widest deep-bore tunnel in the world, dug through easily liquefiable rubble-fill along a waterfront in an earthquake-prone city, complete with tolls, costing the taxpayers billions while vital health services are being slashed across the state in the name of “fiscal discipline.”
When I bring this up to the average voter, they blink, cringe, and begin to shout, “Ridiculous! Who could possibly swallow such a scam? And what clique of sociopathic troglodytes would have the gall to push it?”
When I bring this up to the average voter, they blink, cringe, and begin to shout, “Ridiculous! Who could possibly swallow such a scam? And what clique of sociopathic troglodytes would have the gall to push it?”
We both know the answer to the latter question: the entire local political estab- lishment, namely, the one you shattered in part when your team of bicycle folk captured the Mayor’s Office a year and a half ago, in one of the greatest feats of grassroots organizing in the history of Seattle. It was a glorious day, but in retrospect it should’ve been clear that the grinning dimwits on the City Council would reject you like an emergency baboon heart transplant. You’re idealism was simply too foreign, however necessary for the health of the city.
As for those who went along with the tunnel, well, 59% approval in a city-wide referendum does sound pretty decisive. It’s going to be built, but not because 59% of the people actually look forward to a consortium of contractors co-owned by a major war profiteer (and Democratic Party campaign contributor) tying up traffic for the next several years. They voted to approve the tunnel because they were tired of waiting for something to happen. As every snake oil salesman knows, people often prefer the wrong solution to no solution.
As for those who went along with the tunnel, well, 59% approval in a city-wide referendum does sound pretty decisive. It’s going to be built, but not because 59% of the people actually look forward to a consortium of contractors co-owned by a major war profiteer (and Democratic Party campaign contributor) tying up traffic for the next several years. They voted to approve the tunnel because they were tired of waiting for something to happen. As every snake oil salesman knows, people often prefer the wrong solution to no solution.
The surface option was a beautiful dream, but a dream only a few of us could fathom. While downtown business interests had the advantage of money, the town’s only print news daily, and big name politicos, who or what was amplifying our message? Sure we had the Stranger, as fine a commercial rag as one can probably hope for, but not everyone reads the Stranger. Moreover, not everyone reads. Our only advantage would have been the ground war, an army of door-knocking volunteers bypassing the corporate noise machine altogether, making the case not simply against the tunnel, but for the surface option.
All in the past, of course. Opportunities missed, lessons learned. I myself took a whack at the tunnel in a reputable British journal, but as history shows us time and time again, the English can be slippery, and have minimal leverage over municipal affairs this side of the Atlantic. I would have preferred to have helped organize the people of my beloved Seattle on a face-to-face basis instead, one alienated voter at a time. But traveling writers are notorious for their inability to be everywhere at once, and unfortunately I too suffer from this dreadful affliction.
So where are we now? A well-intentioned Mayor with a 23% approval rating, that’s where. It’s time to move on from this high-profile defeat of ours as quickly as possible. We all want light rail, better schools, rational city planning, elevated pedestrian-only vacuum tubes, and a decent nightlife, but those things have a long gestation period, and by the time they get noticeably advanced the Chamber of Commerce might have coughed up a challenger shiny enough to take your job.
We can’t let that happen. I met the last Mayor at a cocktail party in Washington, D.C. a couple years back, and although I have my suspicions it was really a pink gorilla in a business suit, he was so evasive and eager to flee the proles around him that it was clear to all present just what kind of a politician he was. Apes don’t get shifty at the sight of an outstretched hand. Nor do they scheme with big business to put a city at risk with ill-conceived construction projects. Weasels do, and Seattle can bear their influence no longer.
Your popularity will no doubt rebound as the tunnel debate fades from the mind of the electorate, but the villains in our midst will do what they can to resurrect it at every turn. With that in mind you’d do well to aggressively shift the topic of conversation to other ideas of a more digestible scale. The Seattle Jobs Plan unveiled by your office a year ago was and is a noble pursuit, but perhaps too technical to generate the kind of headline you need for a lift in the polls. Least of all in August, when voters busy themselves more with burgers and getting the kids out of the house than with parking regulations and reduced permit intake times.
This September, I’d respectfully suggest that you knock the haters off-balance with a surprise initiative of your own. Here’s an idea: a hefty annual registration fee on foreclosed property. This would not only bring in revenue, it would fall on the comparatively wealthy, clarify ownership of abandoned buildings, and compel the leaches of finance to think twice before giving poor families the boot. In addition to branding you as proactive on the economy, housing might even become more affordable by penalizing speculators for withholding residential units from the market, thereby also freeing up discretionary income to be spent on goods and services. Then I could get that penthouse in Pioneer Square I’ve always wanted, and you could come over for whiskey and corned beef, and we could sing and fight, just as we proud members of the Diaspora do so well.
Just be sure to announce your bold plan after the school year starts and families have settled in for the autumn, maybe September 12th or so. If that’s not in the cards, at least tell Parks and Recreation to use rakes instead of leaf-blowers. Not quite as visionary, I know, but one of many token reforms you could be implementing one week at a time to remind the good and honest people of Seattle that although you’ve had your differences, you’re still the Mayor, and doing what you can to make their lives better. Good luck on the remainder of your term, and onward to the next.
Sincerely,
XXXXXXXX
Citizen
