On the corner of indifference and ignorance

FOR such an enterprising, global city, Seattle does not get enough global candidates for its School Board or City Council.

Seattle voters get local — often too local — candidates for public office whose first allegiance appears to be to the neighborhoods and intersections rather than to the intersection of the world. The candidates now coming through this shop for the August City Council primary are decent people intimately connected and knowledgeable about the details of their communities. Many appear disconnected to the larger world.

The path to leadership within political Seattle is not through business or major life endeavors. Candidates appear genuine, able to make deadlines, render decisions and, if necessary, stall to take a breather and consider the outcome of their actions.

But a look at their backgrounds and the backgrounds of previous officeholders shows a city's political reward system strangely out of plumb with the region and the needs of this metropolis.

The city is run by representatives of two major and influential cohorts: neighborhoods and highly specialized interest groups. That may fit a less-competitive era, but if this region is going to need every brain and every molecule of stamina, it must have a much higher caliber of contestants for public office.

Those candidates would be knowledgeable on the Shanghai school methods, on the bridging of both space and dollars for transportation, on the depth of connections between here and Chile or China. Only a few are.

That's why whenever council members venture away from the narrow into the broad currents of national or state policies — or even pro sports — they appear woefully parochial, despite representing one of the most-dynamic and exuberant city-states on the planet.

Take international trade. Last week, Sen. Patty Murray gave a serious speech on the decline in support for foreign trade, a lifeblood of Seattle. The senator, with impeccable trade and labor credentials, warned that the backlash against foreign trade agreements looms as a threat to Seattle's economy.

Sen. Maria Cantwell voiced the same concerns, while hailing the passage of a free-trade agreement with South Korea. This was also the week when the president's ability to form fast-track trade agreements failed, a failure of both the Republican presidency and a once-trade-sophisticated Democratic Party.

Good news for some, bad for others on trade, yet it seems improbable that a member of the City Council could rise at the same meeting and talk strongly and with nuanced background on something as important to Seattle as trade.

Take a look at energy. While rates from City Light are important to each household, the wider range of energy options is often dismissed. It's hard to imagine a City Council seriously considering more water retention at higher elevations (these used to be called dams). While wind power is popular as a generic drug to alleviate the strain on gas and oil, it's hard to imagine a City Council extending itself beyond immediate interests — as an earlier city did — to put in perpetuity something as regionally powerful as the Cedar River Watershed.

Take schools. Instead of governing the most imaginative and self-guided of urban school districts, every board candidate appeals to the most-threatened coterie of voters. A new Seattle school superintendent will arrive Monday, perhaps to improve the district — we simply don't know.

Arguably the most important public appointment this year, the new superintendent, Maria Goodloe-Johnson, is almost unknown to those outside the two cohorts public officials value most.

Take urban life and density. No candidate can walk the talk on urban design like Councilman Peter Steinbrueck, but challengers should be expected to understand the little things, and the big ones.

Of the challengers coming through here, only about one in five even reviewed the plans on the Web showing options for Seattle Center. The rest, well, that was for another day.

James F. Vesely's column appears Sunday on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is: jvesely@seattletimes.com