A lot of people believe Greg Nickels is Absolute Ruler of Seattle, maybe because he makes policies without consulting the rest of our alleged government or us, or because he nevertheless uses the royal "we" constantly. But no! It isn't true because sometimes he doesn't immediately get his way. It can take up to a year.
For example, Seattle was put on track to charge 20 cents per plastic grocery bag by the start of this year. But the American Chemistry Council stopped it with a petition. Turns out there was no shortage of people who didn't want to pay a tax without any prior public discussion.
So at this writing the Seattle City Council is poised to vote to let voters vote on whether the plastic grocery bag tax will happen, so that the voters will have the opportunity to bow to Greg Nickels' will on this issue, so that he can get more creds for being the nation's greenest mayor, and so maybe get a bigger plaque. Or maybe he could land a job in Washington, D.C., coming up with better ways to manage their waste -- not a bad outcome.
Meanwhile, it doesn't work that way. That is, if the City Council votes to not have a vote, or if they have the vote and the voters say no to the proposed tax, the tax will happen anyway, because it's already been decided. The fact is, Mayor Nickels is going to get his creds if he has to get on his knees and beg Paul Allen to buy an election for him.
The opinion just asserted -- that the fix is in, that it's always in -- can neither be proved nor disproved, because nobody in or out of Seattle's government really knows what goes on there. This is not entirely because information isn't public, or the dog ate it. It's because you can't access it unless you know whom to ask, the one thing nobody in government can ever tell you.
It's as if you have a hundred experts and one simple question, like, "