Posted on 08/20/2009 6:44:07 PM PDT by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxprovidence.com ...
He has made too many enemies.
The article is out of date.
That’s like the Southerners laughing at us and our 100-degree heat wave.
NOTE TO REST OF U.S.A.—The Pacific NW is NOT like where you live. It’s a very temperate climate. There is no A/C. There aren’t major snowstorms.
Hell, I remember Raleigh, NC, grinding to a halt for about a full week for 22” of snow. I seem to recall NYC getting temperatures in the high 90s, low 100s not too long ago.
Weird weather can happen anywhere.
That being said, Nickels is a complete anti-Constitution jackass who deserves to live on the streets with all the myriad homeless he purposely does nothing about. Good riddance.
I was stationed at Ft. Lewis for fourteen months back in the ‘60’s, and as I remember it we had one snowfall for a total of two inches the first winter (the rest of the time from September ‘til April it rained, of course) - cars were sliding off the roads all over the place, and in fact one civilian who worked in our clinic was slightly injured when her car went into a ditch because of the horrendous driving conditions - Joiseyians panic too when we get snow, but I’ve never seen the kind of chaos here I saw that year in Seattle - fourteen inches in two weeks should be child’s play.....
Do tell.
LOL!!!!!
I arrived at Fort Lewis in December 1971 just in time for the Christmas Blizzard. We got 18 inches, and it stuck around for weeks. The area was paralyzed.
No one knows how to take the hills in the snow.
It's true that the city royally fouled their own nest with the recent snowstorms. And not to defend lib mismanagement... But snowfall in Seattle and snowfall back east are two completely different animals. I've been to Chicago, Denver, Jersey, DC, New York in snowstorms. There's at least two HUGE differences: Back there, it's flat. Everywhere. They also salt the roads. When roads get icy in the northwest everything is uphill and downhill, and on steep hills it doesn't matter if the ice is a half-inch thick or a foot thick. It's still a frictionless surface. Salted roads mean that nobody ever really has to drive in snow. All the roads are bare and wet, pretty much all the time. Me, for one... I'm glad they don't salt roads here. The trade-off in rust damage just isn't worth it.
NOTE TO SEATTLE -- Eastern Washington is NOT like where you live. We have A/C. We do get occasional major snowstorms. We have extremes, not moderate weather. We do have and use snow plows. LOL
Greg: Buh-bye! Maybe now liberalism will die a slow death in Seattle so it can become again what it used to be: a great blue-collar American city. Oh - with more kids than dogs (opposite of what it is now).
Liberalism fails everywhere it is tried. But the insane continue to embrace it.
Nichols was also anti-civilrights.
NOTE TO REST OF U.S.A- Bible believing Conservatives with guns wanted. It’s a rich Mission Field
Okay, be fair. How many cities do you know of that are built on steep hills that would survive any better? It is not like Chicago (flat), Bismarck (flat), Kansas City (flat),...you get my drift. Another point is that it would be too expensive to invest in millions of dollars of equipment that would get used at most maybe one or two days a year. Seattle drivers are about the worst in the world, granted, but there are extenuating circumstances that govern snowfall.
Sounds like a cry for help! :)
D'OH... that's who I was thinking of. Thanks.
I don't get to vote in KC anyway. I'm in Pierce.
“Salted roads mean that nobody ever really has to drive in snow.”
It also means your car has a limited life...
“Will West Siders ever learn”
‘Not just West Siders. Shirley Franklin(D) Atlanta has only cared about face time during her tenure while the whole infrustructure and budget has rotted beneath her feet and now she begs for bailout money. I’m sure she’ll make obamas list of political appointees soon.
Congratulations. I never claimed it was. I’ve lived here for more than a day. I know that once you go over the pass, it’s practically a different state climate-wise.
IF you are accustomed to it. And the climate is right. "Fourteen inches" as the only element displays a lack of knowledge of other factors not always seen elsewhere.
Seattleites know all about arrogant and "intolerant" people - my wife (New England/Sweden -- knows snow better than most of us) was one... until she encountered Seattle conditions. She doesn't laugh anymore.
It gets treacherous here (I'm not going to go into all the reasons why), and an awful lot of folks who simply laugh at Seattleites because *they* know better... end up in the ditch.
A friend who moved here 4 years ago from the Midwest explained it all to me after is first winter here... but I'll just leave this thread to those who know better because they know snow in an environment different from Seattle's and so they are therefore superior drivers overall.
Please come to Seattle in winter and drive like you do back East! Our tow-truck drivers can use the business and it will help boost our economy.
Amen!
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