The Municipal League of King County, 1910-1995

The Municipal League of Seattle was created on May 23, 1910 during a nation-wide drive for municipal reform. One hundred and twenty of Seattle's leading citizens joined together and founded the League to encourage and promote "active citizenship, election of competent officials, passage of wholesome legislation, scientific investigation, publicity and constructive solutions."

This followed a false start in 1896, when 49 Seattle civic leaders, including Arthur Denny, Morgan Carkeek, Dexter Horton, and John McGilvra, vowed to "separate the administration of municipal affairs from party politics" and to vigilantly watch over, criticize, approve or condemn" city government. This effort spurred a re-write of Seattle's City Charter, but the initial League disbanded.

In 1910, when the League revived, Seattle was a mere 45 years old and booming as a result of the 1897 Klondike Gold Rush. The Municipal League helped Seattle through its early growing pains with committees on City Planning, Harbor Control and Development, Billboards, Charter Reform, Garbage, Election Frauds, and 18 other topics of civic importance. It advocated for a Municipal Plans Commission, which planned for Seattle's expected growth and infrastructure needs, and a Port Commission. With the opening of the Panama Canal, Seattle stood in line for significant economic benefits from her harbor. and the League campaigned for effective Port development.

One of the League's earliest actions was to assist with the recall of Mayor Hiram Gill, whose "open town” policy provided fertile ground for gambling, prostitution, and graft. Gill was recalled in 1911 and replaced by George W. Dilling. The League later supported Mayor Dilling against recall efforts. In its February 1912 Report on Candidates, the League maintained: "We regard the candidacy of Mr. Gill as fraught with the gravest danger to the city." Gill nevertheless won reelection as mayor in the 1914 election.

The visionary Municipal Plans Commission Report, which the League strongly supported, failed. But the League continued to press for reforms. In 1911, the League began rating candidates for public office, a tradition that continues today with the work of the Candidate Evaluation Committees (CEC). In 1913, it used the new power of referendum to repeal an ordinance it perceived as “tying the hands of the police." And it recommended pasteurization of milk, civil service examinations for city and county workers, competitive bidding for public works contracts, and nonpartisan elections.

The League also joined with organized labor and social reformers in calling for the 8-hour day, child labor laws, health and safety regulation of working conditions, and relief for the unemployed. It campaigned for slum clearance and emergency housing along with other reform-minded civic groups.

Amid these grand crusades, the League found time to advocate music in the parks to "exert an uplifting moral influence which will help [the people] bear their burdens with less grumbling," and to propose a system of public "comfort stations" to replace the restrooms in some 300 bars expected to be closed in 1916 by Prohibition.

By the close the First World War, however, the League had taken a more conservative turn, aided undoubtedly by the chaos of the Seattle General Strike of 1919 and the Red Scare that swept the nation. The League changed its focus to a narrower scope of political and governmental reforms.

In the 1920s, the League campaigned doggedly to institute a city manager form of municipal government. After losing the second vote on the issue by a mere 111 ballots out of 90,000 in 1926, it laid the issue to rest. The League's efforts to promote land-use planning and zoning met with more success when the City Planning Commission was established in 1924. During this decade, the League's interests touched on themes that would recur later in its history, including a proposal for a privately financed pontoon bridge across Lake Washington; creation of a tri-county Sewage Commission to combat the increasing pollution of Lake Washington and Puget Sound; and advocacy of a special property tax to subsidize the city's trolley system.

Despite hiring an energetic and ambitious young attorney named Warren G. Magnuson as its secretary in 1930, the fortunes of the Municipal League, like those of the rest of the country, plummeted with the Great Depression. Membership declined from over a thousand to barely 300. The League felt compelled to take two major steps: it hired its first full time executive secretary, Glen Fastburn and it finally voted to admit women as members. The latter proposal had been "on the table"' since 1913, but League elders repeatedly dodged the issue through many of the same sort of parliamentary maneuvers they deplored in government. On March 6, 1937, a full 17 years after women received the right to vote through constitutional amendment, the Board of the Municipal League voted 18 to 7 to admit its first female members.

Even with its depleted numbers, the disruptions of Depression at home, and war clouds abroad, the League kept busy during the 1930s. It advocated the permanent registration of voters to replace the extant system under which citizens registered anew for each election, and it continued its campaign for city-county government consolidation, improved public budgeting, and long range capital planning. In 1934, the League even dallied with promoting a political slate, endorsing "The Order of Cincinnatus" candidates who swept out the incumbent Seattle City Council in that year's election.

In the 1940s, League membership began to rebound, exceeding 1500 in 1941 through the efforts of a membership "blitzkrieg." Ewen Dingwall, who would later make his mark as director of the 1962 Century 21 World’s Fair, moved up from League editor to executive secretary. Despite the demands of World War II the League remained active, successfully arguing in 1943 for a Freeholders election to draft a new City Charter for Seattle and in 1945 for new state law mandating centralized county purchasing.

For inspiration in these times, the League’s Municipal News quoted President Woodrow Wilson: "War must not destroy civic efficiency." After the war, the League won passage of the new City Charter in 1946, which is still the city's basic law. It also advocated and won adoption in 1948 of a state law permitting “home rule” county charters, which the League argued would “unshackle" counties from the chains of Olympia and allow for more efficient government.

The 1950s brought even greater growth and influence for the Municipal League. Its roster swelled to 5,206 members in 1952 (though a dues increase, trimmed them back to almost 4,000 by the end of the decade). With this strength, the League undertook one of its greatest achievements, the creation of the Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle, or '“Metro.”

A young attorney named James R. Ellis called for a "metropolitan government" for the region in a 1953 speech. Scientists were predicting that Lake Washington had only a few years “to live" before it choked on algae fed by the raw sewage pumped into it by neighboring cities. The proposal to form Metro was formally embraced by the League in its 1955 report, “Metropolitan Seattle-The Shape We're In." Ellis was one of the principal authors. The League went on to help pass a state law in 1957 to permit the creation of a county-wide "municipality" for water quality, waste management, transit, and parks supervision. With legislative approval, the initial charter for Metro went to the voters in 1958 and succeeded on its second try. This launched the initial $135 million program to clean up Lake Washington.

The League was exceedingly active during the 1950s. It campaigned hard but unsuccessfully for a new home rule County Charter in 1952; championed creation of the City Transit Commission; led the fight to expand the Port Commission from three to five elected members; secured the election of municipal and traffic judges; prodded the Seattle School District into reforming its civics and social studies curriculum; arranged for the first evaluation of municipal finances and operations by an independent private accounting firm; drafted Seattle's first noise control ordinance; and promoted the installation of sprinklers in the city's older, wood-framed schools.

The League maintained this level of activity into the 1960s. Again, it was James Ellis who laid down the League's most important challenge when, in 1966, he delivered a speech entitled "The City-A Cause Waiting for Rebellion." He challenged the community to take control of its own accelerating growth through a comprehensive program of capital improvements, including rapid transit and new parks, roads, and civic facilities. The proposal was soon augmented with additional ideas, such as that for a "county domed stadium," and became known as Forward Thrust." Forward Thrust bonds for a total of $334 million were passed by the voters in 1968 for virtually all of the projects, with the notable exception of rapid transit.

(In 1960, Jim Ellis was rewarded with the League's first "Outstanding Citizen" Civic Award for his accomplishments. He won it again in 1968 for his leadership of Forward Thrust. In 1989, the League, gave Ellis his own Civic Award: the James R. Ellis Regional leadership Award, to commemorate a lifetime of civic achievement.)

In 1968, the League finally won its 2-year battle to create a home rule Charter for King County. This created the nine member elected County Council and the County Executive seat, and it allowed department heads to be appointed rather than elected. The decade ended in a flurry of activity on behalf of a County Ombudsrnan's Office; a County hearing examiner system; a household tax to help subsidize Seattle Transit; and, as a token, of the' "good old days," a grand jury investigation into vice, graft, and payoffs in the Seattle Police Department

Transportation problems headed the Municipal League's agenda, for most of the 1970s, beginning with its research into proposals for the I-90 bridge and a proposed Bay Freeway between I-5 and Seattle Center. The League scored major victory in 1972 when the voters delegated management of a county-wide transit system to Metro. Its most impressive accomplishment of the decade, however, was the revelation of massive irregularities in the design and budgeting of the proposed high-level West Seattle Bridge. The League's first findings spurred a grand jury investigation that culminated in the conviction of the city engineer and two powerful State legislators for corruption.

In 1972, ever vigilant of good government, the League joined with many civic organizations to promote Initiative 276, which created the Public Disclosure Commission, open meeting laws, and the reporting of campaign contributions. Also that year, the League challenged a city proposal for $40 million in bonds to repair bridges, and when voters rejected the bonds, it helped the city to find $8 million in unspent funds to do the job. It also investigated irregularities in Seattle's attempt to acquire a computerized financial system, which led to sweeping reforms in city purchasing proposals.

In 1973, the League advocated election of Freeholders to draft a new City Charter, but the panel split over whether to create City Council districts (an issue that had also divided the League in 1911), and the proposed Charter failed. The League rebounded in 1977, helping to win passage of four out of five proposed amendments to update the 1946 Charter it originally helped to write. As the decade closed, the League lent its support to the Seattle School District's desegregation plan and it promoted revision of Seattle's Comprehensive Plan.

The Municipal League Today

In the 1980s, the Municipal League of Seattle branched out with an Eastside chapter, reflecting the growing population and clout of communities east of Lake Washington. As in the past, the League lent its voice to transit battles. In 1985, Executive Director Stephen Foreman launched a new Public Agenda program and revamped the design of League publications.

General volunteer interest and attendance at committee meetings had greatly declined from the heyday of the 1950s and 1960s. Now, volunteers wanted to specialize in certain issues, and were less inclined to give administrative support. As a result, the League focused more on its products than on committees.

Issue Watch, Issue Brief, and Public Access publications tracked emerging issues and key players in King County. Thanks, to the Public Agenda program, the League’s membership boomed again, with up to one hundred new members joining a month.

In 1984, the Municipal League Foundation was reactivated (from its initial startup in 1973), allowing supporters and granting organizations to make tax-deductible contributions to the educational work of the League. By 1988, the Municipal League of Seattle and the Eastside Municipal League merged to become The Municipal League of King County. As a leading advocate of regionalism, the League felt that an effective, streamlined,, and inclusive countywide organizational structure was needed to surmount parochialism and involve the burgeoning north and south County regions.

The League took on jail overcrowding, of Seattle reorganization on, King County's Comprehensive Plan, and a study of the homeless mentally ill. By the late 1980s, growth and transportation, perennial League topics, were at the forefront of debate and study. The Growth Challenge project, launched in 1990, featured a series of forums and design projects to explore new models of growth management.

In the 1990s, League study committees looked at growth management, transportation, water supply, the merger of Metro and King County governments, and the Port of Seattle. in February 1991, the League published a report titled "King County Governance Reform" that helped define the debate about merging the King County Council and Metro. The League played a vital role in orchestrating the call for reform, which resulted in voter approval of the merger in the fall of 1992.

The League has monitored the merger of Metro and King County to ensure that when it is complete at the end of 1995, citizens will have a more efficient and accountable government. In August 1994, the League released a report on the regional policy committees, calling for better cooperation between King County elected officials and city officials and for more inclusive regional decision making.

The League's Governance Committee also assisted the Shoreline and Vashon corn unities with their Shoreline's options for governance. residents voted to incorporate in the fall of 1994, making it the fourth largest city in the county, and the League published a Voter's Guide in early 1995 to assist the citizens of Shoreline with choosing their first city councilmembers.

In response to concerns about declining voter turnout at the polls the League's Foundation launched a creative program during the 1992 elections aimed at educating the county's future voters. Voices on Tomorrow's Elections (V.O.T.E.) taught the electoral process to fifth and twelfth graders and "registered" the students so they could cast a Special Youth Ballot on election day.

The League's Port of Seattle Study Committee issued "Enhancing the Port of Seattle's Accountability to the Public" in May 1993. The report made several suggestions for how the Port could better work with its customers and constituents to set goals and priorities. The League met with Port officials and staff in April of 1995 to review the implementation of its recommendations.

In May 1994, the League's Foundation issued "Are We Going Dry? An Examination of Regional Water Supply and Governance." The report, the result of a 15-month examination of the adequacy of the region's water supply, received wide spread recognition for its detailed and unbiased analysis of a controversial topic.

During the 1990s, the Foundation's publication, Issue Watch, provided nonpartisan analysis of several complex issues, including: emergency preparation; panhandling; airport expansion at SeaTac; city council election by district or proportional representation; education reform; the King County Library System; growth management; health care reform; the homeless; regional jail siting; affordable housing; regional trails; and wetlands.

In December 1993; the League revived Municipal League News, which is now published 10 times a year and keeps members informed about League activities and policy matters of interest to King County residents.

Looking Ahead

As the League looks forward to the 21st Century, it faces complex challenges and opportunities. More nonprofit organizations are competing for financial support, volunteer hours, and membership base. As special interest groups' multiply on both sides of the centrist Municipal League, their spirited voices occasionally drown out the nonpartisan, consensus-based voice of the League. With this proliferation of causes to support and activities to join, is there a role for the Municipal League in the 21st Century?

The question answers itself: There is more need for such an organization than ever before. The alternative is community politics defined and dominated by extremes, by a political system where the squeaky wheel gets the grease. The Municipal League looks beyond special interests and analyzes policy problems with the interests of the citizens and open, efficient, and accountable government in mind.

The challenges of growth, social need, corruption, government waste, and the abuses of power are not artifacts of the past. The problems of mass transit, urban sprawl, environmental degradation, poverty, and homelessness have not been solved; indeed, they have no permanent solution.

The future of King County depends upon the region's ability to achieve and maintain agreement on a common set of values and goals for self-government, economic development, and social improvement.

At a time when people are distrustful of elected officials and government, there is all the more need for an independent voice of responsibility that holds local government accountable to its citizens. The League has been critiquing politicians, analyzing issues, shaping policy decision for 85 years and it has developed a hard earned reputation for thoughtful, thorough, high-quality, nonpartisan work.

In the coming years, the League will continue to engender civic spiritedness throughout the region and to build a community of public-minded citizens dedicated to maintaining civil discourse and to solving the complex policy matters that will shape our region’s destiny.

Mission Statement

The mission of The Municipal League of King County is: to promote good government that is open, effective, and accountable in order to improve the caliber of public officials and the quality of public decisions, and to assist our community to identify and efficiently solve its problems and reach its goals through active and broad-based participation of citizens in government.

We aspire to serve the public interest through the voluntary involvement of 311 citizens of our community and to encourage the development of civic leadership. To accomplish this, the League:

• Serves as a leader in development of standards for good government;
• Monitors government at local, municipal, county, and state levels and makes recommendations for fixing responsibility and improving accountability;
• Serves as convener and mediator among disparate interests where the public interests are at stake;
• Conducts and sponsors objective, independent studies on important regional issues;
• Educates members and the public through its publications and forums;
• Objectively evaluates candidates for public office and publishes its findings;
• Studies and reports on local and statewide ballot measures of special interest to the citizens of King County, and takes positions for or against such measures when appropriate; and
• Acknowledges and awards outstanding public officials, agencies, and organizations that contribute to our community.

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