Clearly you know nothing of Seattle and its climate. This just ain't Joisey out here. Our priorities, requirements and necessities are extremely different from Joisey (for all I think Nickels screwed up royally and the stupid city would be better off without him).
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.