How did something as harmless-sounding as a new aquarium get so controversial? What’s an MOU? And why does the Seattle Aquarium Society use the acronym SEAS, when it really should be SAS?
Well, on to the letter questions first: SEAS looks more nautical on a letterhead, and MOU stands for “memorandum of understanding”—loosely translated as “an agreement that the city will regret for many years to come.”
Or at least that’s what critics of the proposed agreement between Seattle and the aquarium society are predicting. City Council member Nick Licata has proposed some 25 amendments to protect the city’s interests; the final council vote is set for April 24.
Licata doesn’t want the city to sign away its right to final design approval or to grant SEAS too much autonomy when it takes over day-to-day control of the aquarium.
The aquarium society is quick to point out that the city is only being asked for a paltry $24 million investment to a $200 million project. Of course, their dream aquarium would sit on Piers 62 and 63—perhaps the city’s best public viewpoint. Also, we have to give them the fish. But, if a nonprofit group really manages to raise $100 million in private donations, that’s undeniably an impressive feat.
Still, the public process for the aquarium project has hardly been sterling—and sometimes rather brassy. An expanded aquarium was first endorsed by the City Council as part of the 1988 Harborfront Plan, but city voters rejected a ballot issue to fund it. The city’s next effort to reward aquarium boosters was the so-called Central Waterfront Master Plan of the early 1990s. During a recent briefing, the council was told that many members of the master plan’s advisory committee later ended up on the aquarium society board of directors. Which means that either a) the merits of the project captivated previously disinterested citizens, or b) the committee was packed with pro-aquarium ringers. The record is silent on this issue.
More recently, the city and aquarium society cosponsored a design meeting that demonstrated significant support for aquarium expansion. Which isn’t surprising, really—admission was by invitation only.
Efforts by Licata and council colleagues Judy Nicastro and Peter Steinbrueck to commence a fair and full examination of possible aquarium sites seem noble. However, aquarium boosters say that city officials have promised them the Pier 62/63 site for years.
And many private promises have surely been made to the aquarium boosters. Every bureaucrat likes to be seen as speaking with complete authority, just as every mayor likes to imply that he has five council votes in his vest pocket. City officials are happy to cut deals with—and force painful concessions from—private entities, even well before they can guarantee ultimate success. (Talk to the Seattle Commons folks about that one.)
But the aquarium gang has to accept political reality as well. Only three council members remain from the group that unanimously accepted the waterfront master plan in 1997. Past politicians may have allowed them to grab the prime piece of public property on the waterfront, but the new council members don’t necessarily feel obliged to rubber-stamp the deal. Odds are the aquarium backers will lose a few battles on the Licata amendments, but win the war.
One minor point: Are we sure we want to put design approval in the hands of city officials? They are, after all, planning to build a new library that looks like a giant, multilevel cheese grater. (At the same time, we’re busy trying to keep our future City Hall from being redesigned via City Council fiat.) On the other hand, it’s likely the council would approve any proposed aquarium design that is “reasonable” (i.e., one which bears no resemblance to that lumpy Experience Music Project).
Fixing a hole
All jobs carry their own degree of difficulty, but it isn’t just politicians who labor in the public eye. Last week, the northeast crew members of Seattle Transportation’s pothole rangers (T.C. Carey, Stacy Jackson, Marcus Potts, and Chris Reynolds) were nice enough to take me along on a morning street repair job.
Due to safety regulations, I was decked out in street-worker gear (hard hat, orange vest, etc.). I was embarrassed, because I thought my nonworking presence would make the crew look lazy. Yet when I told a couple of the workers that, they just laughed knowingly. I quickly found out why. The job is hard, dirty, and physical, but the work goes in fits and starts. One worker cuts pavement with the jackhammer, while the others wait for a section to break off so they can shovel it into a truck. Meanwhile, the folks at the stoplight see one guy working and three guys standing and go into a Tim Eyman-like spaz (“Those city workers just stand around all day—let’s cut our taxes again!”)
Reynolds, a surehanded asphalt raker, doesn’t worry that the gawkers don’t always have something to see—or that rush-hour drivers sometimes don’t appreciate traffic blockages. “You get pretty thick-skinned after a while,” he says. The street crews’ tactic: Kill them with kindness—just smile and be pleasant to everyone. Which is good advice for all workers—and thank goodness for those cubicle walls.
