City vs. State: Tale as Old as Time

Not so fast on the Mayor Nickels-bashing, claims the P-I. Turns out charges that he costs the city by not playing well with Olympia may be overblown, because Seattle’s legislators aren’t very good at helping Seattle themselves.

Basically, Nickels is mean to people, Frank Chopp is stubborn, other legislators further their agendas and ignore us city folk, and nobody works to help each other out.

Our reaction, who cares? We assume this sort of thing has been going on for years, it's not going to change, so just sit back and enjoy living here.

People love to bitch and moan about the do-nothing Seattle process that results in studies, back-tracking, and spendy meaningless elections, and while they’re right, all that complaining really doesn’t matter.

Most of of our local officials keep getting elected cycle after cycle after cycle. They make only the people who vote--aging hippie NIMBYs--happy, so they know they aren’t going anywhere. Paying the political price is as rare as Carl's Jr. around here.

You’re a local politician who has been given a job with power for as long as you want, what are you going to do to prevent boredom? Damn right, you are going to try and use your power and have meaningless pissing contests with other power brokers. Wheeeeeeee!

Of course you’re always at risk that a major snowstorm will keep people out of their cars for a week. Seattleites do not like that. It’s really the only sort of thing that gets us upset enough to seek change.