A few weeks ago, Seattle City Councilwoman Sally Clark attended a rally where members of Washington Won't Discriminate were celebrating Tim Eyman's failure to get enough signatures to challenge the gay-rights bill passed this year.

Clark stood in the back of the crowd, listening to the speakers, until a colleague urged her to the front. "Stop acting like a staffer," he told her.

"I don't think of it that way," Clark said the other day. "It's the better view!"

And therein lies the beauty of having Clark on the council. Despite besting 100 people who wanted to fill former Councilman Jim Compton's seat last February, Clark still considers herself one of us.

At the same time, she has taken on a political triathlon.

The first challenge was getting appointed. Now, she is campaigning for the last year of Compton's term. If she wins this November, she will run again next year for a four-year term. Only then will she be able to rest her fundraising muscles.

"Crazy, huh?" she said as we sat in at Geraldine's Counter in Columbia City the other morning, poring over a list of Clark's contributors. "And now I have to go back to those people.

"But it is worth it."

Clark was never a placeholder, keeping the City Council's ninth seat warm until someone better came along: "I want to keep the job."

So, she likes it?

"I never know how to answer that," she said. "It's like I should have little butterflies and chirping birds floating around when I talk about it."

She loves that she has "grasped onto a huge challenge," and that even though she worked for former Councilwoman Tina Podlodowski, there is much to learn.

As a councilwoman, Clark must be a negotiator, a listener — and neighbor. Clark loves seeing how the city works and hearing about how it doesn't.

"There's a very grass-roots part of the job," Clark said, then paused. "And I worry that that's the easiest part to lose."

She also frets that she may turn into something she's not: "I worry that I will hear things out of my mouth that are not answers to people's questions, or that I will say a bunch of things, but not give them any information."

In other words, be more of a politician — a term that makes Clark wince a little.

"It's such a loaded word for us now," she said. "We want to see leadership, but at the same time we want to vote on everything ourselves."

Clark has vowed to cut to the chase and make "the right decision" on issues like transportation (she thinks the viaduct should be replaced with a tunnel), and waste disposal (she will vote against a garbage transfer station proposed for Georgetown, to support its revitalization).

And she'll do it all wearing a scratchy suit and watching her words. "I have a tendency to answer too quickly and flip-ly," she said. "I need to moderate that so I don't demean what others say."

At least she's not standing in the back of the room.

Nicole Brodeur's column appears Wednesday and Sunday. Reach her at 206-464-2334 or nbrodeur@seattletimes.com. She would rather be on the water.

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