Is Sally Clark Untouchable?

Sally Clark starts most weekdays not at City Hall but on Lake Washington. Hours before she showers, Seattle's newest City Council member puts on sweats and heads to the Mount Baker Boathouse between darkness and dawn—that time of day when you can't tell where the water ends and the slate gray sky begins.

On this particular morning, there's a slight drizzle, though not a breath of wind, and Clark is rowing sweep in a four-person boat. They practice their starts. They perfect their timing. They pay little attention to the dark city skyline looming behind them, or the cars winging around Lake Washington Boulevard.

Clark, who picked up the sport on an intramural team at the University of Washington, has been rowing three days a week with the Conibear Rowing Club's masters women's team for a decade now. She likes the peace and quiet, but she also comes for the challenge. "When it comes together on the water, it's a pretty amazing feeling. It's beautiful," Clark says. "There are days that it doesn't come together at all. That can be mental as much as anything."

Rowing in the morning mist on a serene urban lake is classic Seattle. It's also an apt metaphor for the City Council's modus operandi: doing what it can to guard against all but minor waves, so as not to tip the boat off balance.

The political ethos here is a culture of aspiring to make everyone happy. We don't like conflict; we like consensus. And we don't care how long it takes to reach it. Seattle's City Council members, though elected, pride themselves on not being political. City Council seats, though coveted, are often notcompetitive.

This dynamic is something that locals and politicians alike refer to as "Seattle Nice."

"This isn't Chicago," says council member Richard Conlin, referring to the birthplace of Mayor Greg Nickels. "We're not very good at making deals and making threats."

Conlin calls Seattle politics "orderly." He chalks this up, in part, to the city's Scandinavian heritage. "People don't get emotional about things," he says. "There's a sense that it's a clean government and you shouldn't make waves."

Clark is not only a product of this genteel political culture; she could be the poster child for it. She's known for bringing all sides together and working through the issues, but she has yet to take a calculated risk on anything of substance, to the point where political consultant Blair Butterworth calls Clark "caution on roller skates."

"There's nothing in her background makeup that has a leadership edge to it," he says. "Her style is conciliatory and compromising. That's fine. It's OK to have one or two people on the council who are like that. It isn't her fault, but you can't have more."

Former council member Tina Podlodowski agrees that the current City Council could use a little more "sting." "They're too nice to each other," she says. "They're too nice to the mayor. They're too nice, period."

The 40-year-old Clark, a Portland native, cut her teeth at City Hall as an aide to Podlodowski. After that, she landed a job in the Department of Neighborhoods as a development manager for Southeast Seattle and worked for King County Council member Bob Ferguson, D-Seattle, for a spell before joining the Lifelong AIDS Alliance, where she oversaw advocacy and public policy.

In 2005, when Jim Compton decided to step down from the City Council, Clark, along with more than 100 other hopefuls, threw her hat in for the seat.

After a few rounds of show-us-your-stuff, council members whittled the pool to five contestants, a process Butterworth calls "half beauty pageant, half debutante ball." In the end, Clark beat out five women of color—Stella Chao, Ven Knox, Sharon Maeda, Dolores Sibonga, and Venus Velázquez—and was appointed to the City Council in January 2006.

She had to campaign for the seat again in November 2006, but faced no serious challengers (perennial candidate Stan Lippmann notwithstanding). Clark is up for re-election again this year, and so far no one's decided to take her on—again.

James Bush, a County Council aide and former City Hall scribe at Seattle Weekly, said there's something to the Seattle Nice ethos that may explain the lack of challengers for Clark, or anyone else, this year. (Of the four incumbents up for re-election in 2007, only one faces competition thus far.)

"I think there's an ethic among Seattle voters that once you're elected, your job is like a job," says Bush. "Unless you do something wrong, they're not going to fire you."

In fact, council members almost have to do three things wrong, Bush says, referring to the 2003 election—the last time a handful of incumbents were tossed out. "In that election, it was Strippergate, the electric rates issue, and the general feeling promoted by the daily newspapers that the council was silly and irrelevant," he says. "Putting out an incumbent council member requires running against the council as an institution."

Most observers agree that Clark has done a good job in her chosen role as humble consensus builder. But even her staunchest supporters think it's time for Clark to find her voice on the council—and for her please-everyone honeymoon to come to an end.