Reasserting the Place of Nature in Seattle’s Urban Creeks - Politics of Urban Runoff: Nature, Technology, and the Sustainable City - page 151

of municipal politics. He demonstrated that the participatory style of
governance as nurtured by his predecessors was fragile and vulnerable; he
quickly shifted governance back to the pre-1970s mode of top-down man-
agement. 98 Clearly, the Seattle Way of participatory planning was not the
Nickels Way.
Despite his dislike of participatory governance and community em-
powerment, Nickels shared with his predecessors a strong emphasis on
sustainability issues and quickly developed an international reputation as
a “green mayor” for founding the U.S. Conference of Mayors Climate
Protection Agreement. He was also a strong supporter of a variety of mu-
nicipal sustainability programs focused on green building, urban forests,
creek restoration, parks development, and improved mass transit. And like
many astute politicians, he developed a reputation for rebranding existing
programs and taking credit for them as his own. A city hall insider notes
that this sometimes caused problems, stating, “Because Nickels wants
ownership, he makes it very hard to do anything that adds value. It limits
the ways that we can effectively address these issues because they are at-
tached to the mayor.” 99 In the Nickels administration, the Urban Creeks
Legacy Program was transformed into the Restore Our Waters Strategy,
and his new top-down approach to municipal governance would raise the
ire of neighborhood and environmental activists.
Not surprisingly, the Northgate redevelopment controversy escalated
when Nickels became mayor in 2001. Nickels had campaigned as a cham-
pion of neighborhoods; one of his campaign promises was to daylight
Thornton Creek at Northgate Mall. However, he changed his mind upon
reaching offi ce, recognizing the property and sales tax benefi ts to the
municipality from a redeveloped Northgate Mall, and in May 2002, he
announced his intention to modify the Northgate General Development
Plan. A city hall insider states, “Nickels made a lot of promises to the envi-
ronmental community in his campaign and this was one of the fi rst major
breaches of that trust. Neighborhood environmental activists really felt
sold out.” 100 In response to Nickels's proposal, creek and neighborhood
activists formed a new organization, Yes for Seattle, and gathered signa-
tures for a ballot initiative to require developers to daylight urban creeks
and restore salmon habitat on major development projects throughout the
city. 101 The immediate goal of the initiative was to require Simon Properties
to daylight Thornton Creek if and when they redeveloped Northgate Mall,
but the long-term goal was more ambitious: to daylight all of Seattle's ur-
ban creeks. Daylighting assumes that by revealing nature, urban residents
will work to protect and cherish their local waterways.