The best thing Seattle City Council members Judy Nicastro, Heidi Wills and Jim Compton can do today is instruct their campaign treasurers to return every dime of political contributions they have received from the Colacurcio family and Colacurcio employees, associates and cronies.
Such a “send the money back” order would be a clear and cogent act of political leadership. It would buttress the council members’ declarations that they did not succumb to improper influence in their recent votes in favor of a land-use rezone that was opposed by the Lake City neighborhood involved, city land-use officials and an independent administrative hearing officer.
Most importantly, such an order would unequivocally align these council members with those of us who remember the bad days in our city, when graft and bribery subjugated our municipal government.
In case you don’t know it, here’s a quick review of that history. It’s all about money. Money that flowed from people involved in illegal gambling, liquor law violations and the sex trade to police officers on the street, then to police supervisors, then to police leadership, then to city officials. Money that cast a pall of destructive influence over those we elected to office.
It was a span of influence so strong and so deceitful that it even compelled Seattle’s chief of police at the time to exercise his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination before a federal grand jury so he wouldn’t have to tell what he knew.
It was a time when Seattle city government was influenced by a coterie of criminals who acted with near impunity and violated all of us with their vile payoffs. We dare not forget that history. It’s this history that makes the Lake City rezone matter so distasteful, so very wrong.
The behavior of our elected leaders matters.
Taking money from convicted felons isn’t good behavior, especially when some of the money comes from a family with such close ties to our history of scandal.
Taking political gifts from these sources sends a demoralizing signal to the men and women of the police department who worked hard to rid the department of corrupt influence in the 1970s, and those who stand watch today.
Taking these gifts sends a conflicted signal to city workers who did their job, studied the adult club rezone request, and then recommended it not be granted because it was inconsistent with longstanding city policy, a recommendation that was upheld by the independent hearing officer.
Taking money from individuals who have official petitions of this nature pending before the council creates an ugly impression that undermines public confidence in the fairness and independence of government action. Do our neighbors in the Lake City community believe that their elected representatives represented them fairly and judiciously when they voted on this matter? I doubt it.
Taking these contributions, and then defending them as innocuous, communicates exactly the wrong message to the citizens of our good city.
It seems ironic, but the city and state have specific rules that govern how council members are supposed to behave when they sit in judgment in quasi-judicial matters such as this rezone. The wisdom of such restrictions is obvious — they prevent the appearance of impropriety, maintain an atmosphere of fairness and protect the integrity of government.
Wouldn’t you think such wisdom would extend to accepting money from rezone advocates immediately prior to voting? Wouldn’t you think it would especially apply when the reputations and criminal histories of those involved are so well known?
Sadly, in this instance, it’s as if our council members said, “We’re not allowed to talk to you about the merits of your rezone request outside of our official proceedings, but we can certainly take your money as political contributions.”
And then there is the issue of behavior at the Lake City business that is at the center of this whole matter. No, not the nude dancing, but the scores of police incidents — more than 140 in a recent two-year period — that have been recorded inside and outside the business.
Rather than taking campaign money from those running this business, council members should be asking for a review of the police records to determine whether it’s a public nuisance worthy of being shut down.
So, what Nicastro, Wills and Compton should do today is send the money back and thereby begin the process of rebuilding our confidence in their judgment and leadership of our city.
This post was first published in The Seattle Times on August 5, 2003.
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