Ed Murray’s office just announced the death of former Seattle Mayor Paul Schell:
It is with great sadness that Seattle Mayor Ed Murray announces the passing of Seattle’s 50th mayor, Paul Schell, who served from 1998-2002. Schell died this morning surrounded by family and friends at Swedish Hospital. He was 76 years old.
Schell will be remembered as one of the great city builders of the Pacific Northwest. As a citizen activist, lawyer, director of community development, port commissioner, dean of architecture and mayor he directly shaped the civic infrastructure of Seattle for more than 40 years.
Schell’s greatest professional accomplishment has been the infrastructure that he built and influenced. The first Libraries for All campaign was a brainchild of Schell’s, establishing and building a new downtown library and rebuilding branches throughout the city. He led the effort to fund Seattle’s first parks levy, rebuild the opera house and was instrumental in building the Olympic Sculpture Park, Seattle’s City Hall and Justice Center.
Don’t believe I ever met Schell, whose tenure ended before I got involved in local politics. But the libraries are really nice. That alone is an honor-worthy legacy in itself.
Conservatives hate libraries, because libraries contain books, and conservatives hate books, because books contain knowledge, and a knowledgeable electorate is the last thing conservatives want because it means they can’t win elections. If we ever get a conservative mayor in this city the first thing s/he will do is blow up all the libraries.
Schell was what this city still needs (and I think has in Mayor Murray). A Mayor who is less a politician and more of a lover of the city.
@2 “Less a politician”…? Um, have you ever met Ed?
Yes.
You and I disagree on what the epithet “politician” means.
I think of folks like Nickles who see power building as more important than getting things done. Or ego obsessed folks (Jimmy McD or Reichert or Darcy) who see themselves as the issue.
Murray is a politician but he is also someone who is devoted to governance. He reminds me of Obama but I think Murry has greater skills at using the system then Obama does.
As for living former mayors, that leaves just Royer, Rice, Nickels, and McGinn, I believe.
RIP Mayor Shell.
I did disagree with him a little, mainly over his handling of the WTO protests. I was working at the Key Arena at the time, and the NBA did not cancel the Supersonics/Lakers game that night.
In my mind, Schell’s legacy is forever ruined by his decision to respond to the WTO protests with militarization of the police and martial law in downtown Seattle. Those police simultaneously teargassed peaceful protesters (yes peaceful; I first smelled the teargas at about 9 AM, when the police decided that public safety demanded that they push the loud but harmless protesters one block further from the convention center, just because) and ignored actual violent criminals (because the vandalism was happening a half-block away from the line of police, but the police apparently had orders not to step out of their line and actually, like, police). He contributed dramatically to perhaps the worst trend in law enforcement in recent memory. And he never recognized his error and apologized. So, fuck him.
A correction to the comment on living Seattle mayors. Wes Uhlman.who took Seattle out of the 1960s and into the ’70s and was a candidate for governor in 1976, is still very much alive.
By the way, I did meet Paul Schell, at a King County Democratic Pic Nic at Lincoln Park in 1999.