Take a break, Ron, and give us one

I spent an hour talking to Ron Sims yesterday, and now all I feel is sad.

Sad for him. Sad for the dysfunction of our politics. And sad for the future of this region. Sims is the top-ranked politician in Puget Sound. Last week he announced he's against this fall's big highways and light-rail plan.

Yet if any power broker is responsible for what we're about to vote on, it's Sims.

He is Mr. Light Rail. For a decade he has served on the board that is proposing to add 50 miles of light rail. He appointed nine of 18 members, giving him the most influence of anyone over the rail routes and the taxes to pay for them.

It took three years to create that light-rail plan. Somehow politicians across three counties, from Lakewood in the south to Issaquah in the east up to Edmonds in the north, hashed out something they all agreed on. In April it passed the board unanimously. Including the yes vote of King County Executive Ron Sims.

Except he didn't mean it.

It turns out Sims has felt for at least a year that the light-rail plan is fatally flawed. He says it will take too long to build, costs too much and goes to some of the wrong places.

OK. But why in the world didn't he say something before? Back when it might have done some good?

He says he objected privately. His colleagues say that's news to them. The record shows he voted for every aspect he now decries, from the sales-tax boost to the routes.

"Ron was at the table for the whole thing," says Dave Enslow, the Sumner mayor who has served with Sims on the Sound Transit board since 1997. "Who knows what he was thinking? He sure wasn't saying any of it."

"He never once said to me, 'Hey, I think we need to change course,' " says Dow Constantine, King County Council member and transit-board member.

Sims says he went along for one reason: human weakness. After all the fighting about light rail six years back, Sims says, he was tired. He could no longer hack the slings and arrows.

"Face it, this is not a town that tolerates dissent," Sims says. "I voted for it because I didn't want the hassle of getting beat up. I didn't want to take one more punch."

That meant working on other issues that wouldn't flood his office with nasty calls. And it meant sitting silently by as everyone hashed out a plan he knew he couldn't abide.

I said this story makes me sad. It's true Sims gets a lot of personal abuse, often just for putting up the good fight.

But it also makes me angry. Sims is admitting he abdicated his job. Which was to lead, not shrink from the challenge.

How will we ever solve our transportation mess when the top guy seems so worn out?

Leadership is doing tough work in closed rooms to reach compromises — as Sims himself did to save light rail back in 2001. It isn't harboring private qualms, then detonating a last-minute public bomb.

Now, years of political work may be blown apart. Yes, we'll survive. Especially if we have a strong King County executive to help pick up the pieces.

I admire Ron Sims the man as much as anyone I've met in public life. But if his job makes him this unhappy, maybe it's time to move on.

Danny Westneat's column appears Wednesday and Sunday. Reach him at 206-464-2086 or dwestneat@seattletimes.com.