Michael “Mike” McGinn is the Mayor-elect of Seattle, a lawyer, Greenwood neighborhood activist and a former Sierra Club state Chair. He built his candidacy around his opposition to the proposed tunnel replacement to the Alaskan Way Viaduct.

Battles Mike McGinn has fought as an activist

• Worked to bar development of large, commercial “big box stores”.
• Eliminate street parking in favor of bus lanes.
• Push for changes in zoning laws to encourage greater density in the Greenwood neighborhood.
• Stop plans for a highway tunnel beneath downtown Seattle.

Education

• Williams College (B.A. 1982)
• University of Washington School of Law (J.D. 1992)

Biography – from wikipedia

Originally from Long Island, New York McGinn grew up in a family of eight. He earned a BA in Economics from Williams College and then attended Law School at the University of Washington. After graduation he practiced business law for the Seattle law firm Stokes Lawrence, eventually becoming a partner. He remained a full-time lawyer for Stokes Lawrence until 2006, when he started a small non-profit

McGinn is the founder and former Executive Director of the Seattle Great City Initiative, a non-profit advocacy group, as well as the former head of the Greenwood Community Council. While at Seattle Great Initiative McGinn oversaw a budget of $160,000 and worked alliances with companies like Triad Development, Harbor Properties and Paul Allen’s Vulcan Inc. on environmental and urban development issues. In his capacity as a neighborhood organizer and head of his non-profit McGinn endorsed his future opponent Greg Nickels and worked with him to bar development of large, commercial “big box stores”, eliminate street parking in favor of bus lanes and push for changes in zoning laws to encourage greater density in the Greenwood neighborhood. McGinn stepped down from his position as head of the Greenwood Community Council in 2006 and as Executive Director of his non-profit in March 2009 in order to run for Mayor. In 2007, McGinn used his position as a leader in the Sierra Club’s Cascade Chapter to help successfully campaign against Washington State’s Proposition 1, a combined road and mass transit measure, in favor of a transit-only measure. Later McGinn chaired the successful campaign to pass a Seattle parks levy.

McGinn announced candidacy in the 2009 Seattle Mayoral election at Piecora’s Pizza Restaurant on March 24, 2009 declaring that his principle policy positions would center on schools, broadband Internet access and local transportation infrastructure. He expounded his initial policy proposals with the idea of abolishing local school boards and replacing them with city officials, replacing private broadband Internet service with a government controlled utility provider, the replacement of the Alaskan Way Viaduct with a surface street instead of the planned tunnel and greater local neighborhood control of their parking taxes and meter rates.

After Mayor Greg Nickels came out with a proposal to eliminate Seattle’s head tax on business on the grounds it was no longer needed and was hurting business and job growth it quickly became a campaign issue. McGinn opposes overturning the head tax, called the Employee Hours Tax, which taxes business $25 for each one of its employees that drives to work alone. McGinn maintains that Nickels and his opponent Mallahan, who also favors repealing the tax, are “out of touch” and too close to the “business elite”.

The McGinn primary campaign was run along a populist model similar to the strategy he utilized as a community and environmentalist organizer. McGinn was known to ride his electrically-assisted bicycle to and from political events and maintained no paid campaign staff. In a surprise upset, aided by exposure in the form of a cover profile from The Stranger, McGinn came in first in the August primary by earning 39,097 votes, beating runner up Joe Mallahan’s 37,933 votes and incumbent Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels’ 35,781 votes.

Although a major selling point for many voters McGinn has simultaneously received significant criticism over his anti-tunnel stance from groups like the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce, the downtown business community], the King County Labor Council and the Seattle Times which called McGinn’s surface street plan “impractical” and claimed it would clog downtown and overwhelm nearby Interstate 5. Despite being perceived as the more left of the two candidates, McGinn never gained the widespread support of local organized labor unions. The King County Labor Council endorsed McGinn’s opponent, Joe Mallahan, mainly on the position that McGinn’s opposition to the viaduct tunnel, described by unions as a “deal breaker”, would cause the city and its unions to lose jobs and billions of dollars from the State of Washington and Federal government. After the Seattle Firefighters Union Local 27 and the Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) endorsed Joe Mallahan the SPOG President Sgt. Rich O’Neill went on record at a news conference to criticize McGinn’s lack of an adequate policy position regarding public safety.

Since running for mayor McGinn’s history has come under greater scrutiny, including his chairmanship of the parks levy campaign. Members of the Seattle City Council, including Tom Rasmussen, have contended that McGinn mismanaged the effort. The City Council became “alarmed” at what was described as a disorganized effort and appointed Seattle Parks Foundation Executive Director Karen Daubert as co-chair to help right the effort. Rasmussen contends that it was Daubert that “saved the day” for the levy despite McGinn receiving credit. McGinn has also been accused of “push polling” with robo calls to Seattle residents. His opponent Joe Mallahan called the surveyabout the proposed Alaska Way Viaduct “dishonest” but McGinn claims the poll was entirely legitimate research.