Purpose: Seattle is facing historic challenges—job losses, climate change, unaffordable housing, and falling city revenues. The City Council has the power and obligation to the enact laws and budgets needed to meet these challenges. This report card evaluates councilmembers' decisions on legislation that either helps or hurts the goal of Seattle becoming a sustainable, livable, and affordable community.

Focus: We believe Seattle should aspire to become a city with compact and walkable neighborhoods, well-networked streets, more bicycle facilities, more pedestrian facilities, more affordable housing, an efficient transit network, a restored natural ecology, more parks and public spaces, low waste generation, energy conservation, local food production, and transparent government. These are the building blocks we need to make Seattle the green city we want.

Issues: We graded the Council on three issues, chosen because each pitted a commitment to sustainability against some basic unsustainable assumptions held by powerful interests in our community: roads mean jobs; density is a step backward; and tax breaks will help business. Challenging these assumptions is risky for an elected official, especially in an election year. But these are the issues where a strong, principled position and consistent voting demonstrate the kind of leadership that overcomes doubts among citizens.

Grading Criteria: The grades are based on what councilmembers did and said and how they voted. We ask two questions for each issue:

• Has the councilmember taken the tough, courageous vote necessary to achieve a sustainable outcome for our city?
• Has the councilmember has been a leader who shows creativity, openness to debate, and decisiveness?

We graded councilmembers poorly if they said one thing but did another, or voted in a way inconsistent with the goal of Seattle becoming a sustainable, livable and affordable community. Because so many councilmembers claim they support this goal, we looked carefully for signs of what we call the Sustainability Gap—the difference between what elected officials say and what they actually do. Supportive statements and master plans are not enough—we looked for action.

Follow the links below for a detailed explanation of each councilmember's final grade, which is an average based on the weight of each issue.

• Deep Bore Tunnel (50%)
• Backyard Cottages/Detached Accessory Dwelling Units (25%)
• Funding for Transportation – Employee Hours Tax (25%)

A complete PDF version of the 2009 Report Card is available here.