CITY COUNCIL MEMBER Wills thinks "some very important lessons were learned" by City Light. She points to changes, including the development of the new risk-management strategy, the diversification of the power portfolio, and a new planning strategy focused on meeting demand without market purchases, even in low-water years.
The Muni League does not have that confidence. Their main evidence is an extremely thorough, complex audit completed in October by Vantage Consulting for the City Council. Vantage severely criticizes City Light for 100-plus pages, citing the utility's current risk management and strategic planning.
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michael doucett
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Vantage also points to some management problems that City Council Energy Committee members Margaret Pageler, Jim Compton, and Richard Conlin echo: City Light's senior management has too few people with utility experience. Most of Zarker's executive team comes from other city departments. The corporate culture at the utility is "dysfunctional"—defensive, unable to learn from mistakes, and skilled at substituting public relations for real change.
Responds Zarker: "My personal view is that our management is a good balance of utility experience and good managers. [Vantage's] criticism was somewhat shallow in that it only looked at the top managers." Zarker contends that below the executive team is a wealth of broad utility experience.
As for a "dysfunctional" corporate culture, Zarker believes that gets back to how you view the energy crisis. He argues that Vantage interpreted City Light's fury over corporate crime as defensiveness. "Do we make mistakes? You bet we do. Do we learn from them? I hope so." He adds, "I don't want to debate the [Vantage] audit anymore. There are 33 recommendations. I think we've done 90 percent of them. I want to move forward."
Most City Council members share that desire. But what about the public at large?
"People want someone's head," observes City Council member Nick Licata. He summarizes the conventional wisdom: Zarker "'was in charge; rates went up; there's a huge debt; he should fall on his sword.' I don't necessarily buy that, but we can't have a go-along, get-along philosophy, either."
LICATA SAYS THE council is in a bind. If it unfairly scapegoats Zarker, it risks doing more damage to an already wounded utility. If members reconfirm Zarker, even with good reasons, the public will believe the fix was in from the start.
After all, Zarker and Mayor Nickels have been professional friends for 25 years. The City Council, despite a great deal of bellyaching, has been loath to actually stand up to the mayor. During budget negotiations this year, the council had to struggle with a $60 million deficit. Yet when the mayor threatened the funding for a fire truck unless the council approved a $500,000 increase in the mayoral staff, the council quickly caved. Imagine what Nickels would threaten if the council got close to canning Zarker.
Council member Conlin has come up with an ingenious solution: delay a vote on confirmation. Conlin says the City Council ought to use the reconfirmation process to identify benchmarks and give Zarker a probationary period of a year to achieve the goals. "Here's the criteria, come back in a year and we'll take a vote."
We'll know on March 10 which of the paths—confirm, dismiss, or delay—the City Council will take.
ghowland@seattleweekly.com 
