McGinn's first moves ruffle some feathers

Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn started his fourth week in office by apologizing to the City Council for surprising them with his sea-wall tax proposal.

He ended the week by backing off on plans to cut 200 jobs.

McGinn was elected on a populist call for change and a promise that he would run an aggressive and transparent government. But a few weeks in, some are wondering whether the new mayor went out too fast.

"I think we came out probably — we did come out pushing a little bit too hard, too fast," on the job cuts, McGinn said in an interview Monday.

Concerns over dips in employee morale and new budget forecasts that showed worse-than-expected shortfalls led McGinn to delay the decision to cut or demote 200 nonunion managers, executives and strategic advisers — job classifications that grew under Mayor Greg Nickels.

The city's general-fund budget shortfall has grown to at least $50 million for 2011, and McGinn says he now plans to roll the job cuts into a bigger budget-cutting process between now and June.

City employees were stunned by McGinn's fast timeline for the 200 job cuts. He had planned to decide which positions to trim or reclassify by March 22.

To fight back, workers started a Web site, www.workingseattle.org, to fight "Mayor Mike McGinn's politically motivated efforts to target particular classes of employees." So many of them attended last month's meeting of the Seattle Civil Service Commission to voice concerns that the commission organized a special meeting this month in a larger room.

McGinn told employees in a Saturday afternoon e-mail that he would "pause" the cuts. He attached a video of himself explaining his rationale from his desk in City Hall.

After McGinn made public his proposal to put a $241 million bond measure before voters in May to pay for a sea-wall replacement, eight of the nine members of the City Council signed a letter noting their concerns. They worried that other ways to pay hadn't been explored, and said it was premature to suggest there was a "reliable" price for the project at this stage.

Some members said they were caught by surprise by the proposal and doubted they would vote to put it on the ballot.

Jan Drago, a former City Council member and mayoral candidate who is now on the Metropolitan King County Council, said the city can seem a lot more complicated from the inside.

"Once you step over that threshold, you're it," she said. "It doesn't take too long before the press and the public start to question what you're doing."

McGinn said he doesn't regret making the sea-wall proposal. The structure is unsafe in an earthquake and could crumble on its own, according to city studies. He plans to send his legislation to the council this month.

The day before his announcement, he briefed Council President Richard Conlin in a morning meeting. Conlin said he would talk to the rest of the council about the proposal, and they even discussed Conlin joining the news conference.

As Conlin remembers it, McGinn said he would let him know whether the news conference would go forward. Conlin never heard from McGinn, but that evening, he learned that a press event was planned and called the other council members to tell them about the proposal.

"Even one-day notice is not much notice," Conlin said. "The council really prefers to have enough time so that we could really think things through."

Conlin said McGinn is "still figuring out how to actually make this work."

For McGinn's part, he apologized publicly to the council at a meeting last Monday.

"It wasn't our intent to blindside the council," McGinn said in the interview. "We moved quickly on it because we wanted to get the discussion started."

In another road bump on his sea-wall proposal, McGinn announced late Friday that he would restart the bidding process for the sea wall's design after a potential conflict of interest was discovered in his office. A McGinn adviser is married to a marine biologist who works for a company included in one of the design bids.

This week, concerns about McGinn's early performance extended beyond City Hall.

McGinn stood Monday with City Council members, House Speaker Frank Chopp and dozens of others to protest state plans for a new Highway 520 bridge.

Gov. Chris Gregoire, though, in a letter to the City Council, said changing the plan to include separate transit lanes instead of a pair of carpool lanes, would delay the project for up to two years. "Our commitment to ensuring public safety does not allow that kind of delay."

Local political consultant and former deputy King County Executive Rollin Fatland said it's too early to draw any conclusions about how McGinn will fare long-term.

"The test is whether the administration learns from their mistakes ... and my impression is that they are," he said.

He chalked up chatter among political insiders to Seattle's "thirst ... for political theater."

As for McGinn, he acknowledges that his first month hasn't been perfect, but said he's not worried.

"People have a history of underestimating me," he said.

Emily Heffter: 206-464-8246 or eheffter@seattletimes.com