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Nick Licata and Jay Westbrook

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from: Jay Westbrook

Hands-On Politics at its Best

Posted Tuesday, June 5, 2001, at 6:25 PM ET

Hey Nick,

Both Seattle and Cleveland have our elections this year. You're at-large, and we are ward-based. In both cases, municipal politics is where the rubber meets the road. As we have been discussing, quality of life, race, community relations, priorities, urban education, sprawl ... these and so many other issues get bundled together around election time.

For us it's door-to-door politics, shoe leather and door-knocking. While the voters are increasingly angry with mass campaigns on the national level, the local level is still up close and personal.

How will the issues facing Seattle play into your council elections this year? Here, the council is a constituent service first and foremost. While policies and issues have a large impact, they are somewhat secondary to the bread-and-butter, day-to-day issues facing residents. My assistant, Kathy Tierney, and I get about 60 calls a day. I'm judged every day on how responsive we are to those calls. One example: We have a major street rebuild underway. This is long overdue and will cost about $22 million. However, today the water was shut off to a major manufacturer without any notice. Work stopped; about 35 employees were sent home. And they could not get answers. So they called me. We got the answers and an apology. But they lost a day of work.

How do you handle constituent service issues in Seattle? I really appreciate your council Web site and all of the good info that I find there. You may have noticed from one of the postings in "The Fray" how behind we are in Cleveland in getting city services and constituent response online. In fact, the council and the mayor's office don't have the capability to communicate by e-mail. The mayor's office has an intranet with no Internet. Council has its own intranet and Internet connection, but no connection to the mayor's intranet. (Gasp!)

My meeting is with a group of residents who live in a subsidized housing. We just enacted a municipal landlord-tenant code that strengthens the state law. In our new code we will be requiring a standard of safety that is enforced in all multifamily housing.

Gotta run for now. Oh, I owe an explanation on the travel thing: I was making fun of us. I do believe that there is value in learning from others. Hey, that's why we're in politics. Isn't it?

the breakfast table
entries
12345678910111213141516
from: Jay Westbrook

Hands-On Politics at its Best

Posted Tuesday, June 5, 2001, at 6:25 PM ET
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Nick Licata is an at-large member of the Seattle City Council. Jay Westbrook represents Ward 18 on the Cleveland City Council.
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