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Seattle Mayor Ed Murray greets a fellow passenger on the First Hill streetcar during its “soft launch” Saturday, Jan. 23, 2016. Begun under his predecessor, the trolley began operations two years behind what was originally planned.
Seattle Mayor Ed Murray greets a fellow passenger on the First Hill streetcar during its “soft launch” Saturday, Jan. 23, 2016. Begun under his predecessor, the trolley began operations two years behind what
Ed Murray will insistently insist that he is not a politician with a thin skin, but Seattle’s Mayor freely acknowledges that he forever frets about election campaigns.
Hence, Hizzoner began his 2017 reelection bid — with a party at the “white house”, Roger Nyhus’ Capitol Hill digs — with the 2016 campaign still underway. There followed a formal kickoff and show of strength that filled the grand ballroom at the Westin.
Although no formidable challenger has emerged, Murray is out with another list of supporters — the region’s most influential environmentalists.
Heading the list is State Sen. Kevin Ranker, who hails from Orcas Island. It includes two former Seattle City Council members, Richard Conlin and Heidi Wills, each defeated for reelection. Ex-State Ecology Director Jay Manning is present, along with environmental philanthropists Martha Kongsgaard and Peter Goldman.
Hizzoner gets their support largely as a result of whopping property tax levies of the past four years.
The Murray record includes “record investments in bike and pedestrian infrastructure through the ($930 million, ed.) Let’s Move Seattle package,” said the endorsement statement.
The next grounds for support, “Leadership on the recent ($54 billion, ed.) Sound Transit light rail expansion package, bring stations to Ballard and West Seattle, as well as South Lake Union and other fast growing areas.”
A number of endorsers may not live to see completion of these stations, but the dye is cast.
The Mayor is also praised for passage of “dedicated Seattle Metro bus service to improve local and neighborhood connectivity.”
Mayor Murray accepted the endorsements with a mixture of accomplishment and resort to fear.
“Voters have consistently made their voices heard on issues from parks to light rail, and we have responded with targeted investments that will protect and enhance our quality of life,” Murray said in a statement.
The fear part? In Murray’s words: “With the Trump White House rolling back environmental protections, it is up to cities like ours to continue leading on issues like climate change.”
Murray and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio have emerged as the two most prominent big city mayors to incorporate demonizing of Donald Trump into their reelection strategies.
Murray has shown genuine leadership on certain issues, like the Equity and Environment Agenda to advance environmental justice. He has championed such programs as the Duwamish Valley Youth Corps, which works to clean up banks of a river long used as a dumping ground for industrial pollution.
What has also emerged, however, is what one county official has dubbed the “Transportation Industrial Complex”, the construction unions, contractors, big employers and political consultants who have sold Seattle voters on Let’s Move Seattle and Sound Transit.
They may have done good, but they’re doing very well. The voters have shown faith, but still bump around arterials once decorated with “Fix This Street” signs, but that remain unfixed. The city’s purchase of the Pronto bike share program proved to be a seven-figure debacle.
But . . . there was no snow storm debacle this week, like the one in the winter of 2008 that began the tobaggon-like slide to defeat of then-Mayor Greg Nickels.
Kongsgaard/Goldman praised Murray as a regional and national leader.
“He’s working hard to develop sensible and compassionate responses to homelessness, improving transportation and transportation infrastructure, adopting graceful growth policies, and preserving working industrial and maritime jobs and lands,’ they said. “He is also the type of leader we need to stand up to the brutal years facing us in Washington, D.C.”
It’s stretching things a bit — more than a bit — to look at torn-up Seattle as “graceful growth.” But Murray is off to a smooth campaign start that should calm the nerves.
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