Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Alliance, the Thornton Creek Legal Defense Fund, and a neighborhood
group called Citizens for a Livable Northgate adopting a litigation strategy
based on the new ESA listings of salmon populations as justifi cation for
daylighting Thornton Creek. 94 The neighborhood coalition took the City
of Seattle to court over its approval of the mall redevelopment plans, and
after several appeals, reached the state Supreme Court, which declined to
hear the case. The mall owner and redevelopment proponents had won the
litigation battle, but in the intervening years, the economy had gone into
recession; now, Simon Properties wanted to submit a revised development
plan that would again require approval by the city council and yet another
round of negotiations with the neighborhood groups.
For their part, the neighborhood and environmental activists were not
opposed to growth and mall redevelopment but wanted any changes to
refl ect the neighborhood development plan's primary goal of creating a
walkable, vibrant urban center. Furthermore, they saw the daylit creek as
a central amenity to a new urban center. One creek activist stated, “We
are not sure why there is such obstinance [ sic ] about looking at designs
that will protect the creek. We strongly believe this is a win-win solution,
that we can integrate this development with a restored Thornton Creek.” 95
They were advocating for Schell's philosophy of sustainable development,
which considered economic growth and environmental protection to be
complementary goals, and they were willing to stand up to the munici-
pality using litigation to realize their preferred future vision for the city.
Despite the success of the NDS approach and other millennium proj-
ects, Mayor Schell would go on to lose his 2001 reelection bid in the
aftermath of the notorious 1999 World Trade Organization meeting in
Seattle. Greg Nickels swept into offi ce and quickly made a number of
signifi cant changes to the municipal planning and governance approach
championed by his predecessors. One of his earliest and most contentious
decisions was to fi re Jim Diers, the popular head of the Neighborhoods
Department and a key player for fourteen years in fostering neighbor-
hood governance and power. 96 Nickels attributed the decision to a desire
to diversify the leadership in the Neighborhoods Department, but many
interpreted the move as a way to shift local political power away from
the neighborhoods and back to city hall. A neighborhood activist bluntly
states, “Nickels hates neighborhood groups.” 97 Nickels's governing ap-
proach is often described as autocratic and in the mold of his hometown
mayor, Chicago's Richard M. Daley. Nickels exerted his power to cen-
tralize environmental governance within the mayor's offi ce, replacing the
neighborhood approach of his predecessors with an authoritarian form
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