One measure of the frustration with Seattle's political process: put together a party with the explicit purpose of speeding things up and plenty of people will come. The trick, of course, is focusing the energy after the party ends.
It was no different Tuesday night at the launch party for Friends of Seattle, a year-old group that promotes development policies in the city. True, there was plenty of energy from a crowd of maybe 300 business and political types, but I left wondering if the group can keep the momentum.
The highlight was a speech by Councilman Peter Steinbrueck, focusing on adding transit and removing the waterfront viaduct freeway to help cut pollution. He started asking how many people walked or took the bus to the party. Many hands went up. How many lived nearby? Almost none. He noted the obvious: "Seattle is the most car-dependant city on the West Coast." But beyond removing the viaduct freeway, there were few concrete policy proposals.
Yet others were less convinced, which was surprising at a party for a group that has made preventing a viaduct rebuild its first issue. Several people said they came to the party because they received an evite but weren't sure about what Friends of Seattle stands for. One woman said she couldn't see how Seattle could possibly survive without the viaduct.
Movements can start with platitudes, only to fizzle when it comes to finding a way to pay for big ideas or convince people to change their way of life. The party showed that frustration with the city's status quo; the group that can focus that energy has its work cut out for it.