Seattle mayor fights to hang onto job

FoxProvidence ^ | 08/20/2009 | Associated Press

[Robwin]

Seattle (AP) - Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels has been hailed as a visionary and a leader on environmental issues, helping persuade nearly 1,000 mayors around the country to abide by the standards of the Kyoto Protocol on global warming.

But an environmental issue of a more basic sort — the city's inability to clear streets during paralyzing snowstorms last winter — might have set the stage for his political undoing.

Nickels narrowly trails two challengers following Tuesday's primary and is at serious risk of not advancing to the general election in November, potentially ending his eight-year run at City Hall.

[snip]

But the city's response to a series of three snowstorms last December helped focus voters' discontent with his leadership.

Over a two-week span, the storms dumped 14 inches of snow on a city that rarely sees that much. Given a relative lack of plows, steep hills and a stubborn refusal to salt roadways, the city all but shut down, with main streets undrivable and bus service curtailed.

A Seattle Times investigation revealed that the city held some plows in reserve even as neighborhoods complained of snowbound paralysis, and Transportation Department officials focused snow removal efforts disproportionately in West Seattle, where Nickels lives.

[Intolerant in NJ]

It gets treacherous here...I and my VW bug drove the ten miles to and from base in the same two inches of snow that seemed to be giving many others problems, and as I remember it it seemed pretty much like snow I'd driven in before and since - I attributed the trouble to the lack of experience in driving in such conditions for many there - but if you want to tell me Seattle snow is different than that in other climes, I certainly wouldn't argue......