Council Loses Its Last Liberal -- Margot Blacker Is Proud Of The Legacy She Leaves In Shaping Downtown Bellevue

BELLEVUE

There is a gleam in Margot Blacker's eyes as they sweep across the elegant and simple living room of the historic F.W. Winters house, a little stucco home she helped save on Bellevue Way Southeast.

"I was criticized about spending money on this," said the outgoing Bellevue city councilwoman. "But it will be here in a hundred years."

For more than two decades, Blacker has been a fixture of Bellevue government, first as a new resident fighting to ban billboards and other signs, later as a member of the planning commission that shaped today's downtown, and for the past eight years as a member of the City Council.

On Monday, after countless meetings, endless pages of government documents, more than enough political battles, Blacker, who did not run for re-election, closed out a career of community service.

Her retirement marks the end of an era of progressive politics in Bellevue that - for good or bad - continues to have a profound effect on the Eastside's largest city.

City Hall was a much different place when Blacker was elected in 1989. She took a seat among a group of like-minded council members, including Jean Carpenter, Terry Lukens and Cary Bozeman.

A majority on the seven-member council, they launched an aggressive affordable-housing program, beefed up the city's social services, poured money into parks, promoted transit, and created a program to retrofit the city with bike lanes and sidewalks - much of which carried a heavy price tag and led the city to raise taxes annually.

"We did a lot of things that today's council wouldn't think of doing," Bozeman said.

But for the past two years, Blacker was the lone liberal on the board - a label she dislikes but a role she thought had to be filled. "My liberal label comes from my willingness to spend money now because it might not be there in the future," she said.

Reared in Regina, Saskatchewan, Blacker's accent still reveals her Canadian roots. She moved with her family to Bellevue's Northtowne neighborhood in 1969, partly because of the city's strong schools and party because her husband was tired of commuting from Seattle to his job at Paccar.

After years of getting involved in city issues as a resident, Blacker was appointed to Bellevue's planning commission in the mid-1980s, where she stayed until she joined the council.

As the political mood in Bellevue and the country began to shift, Blacker saw ally after ally leave, replaced, for the most part, by council members with a different agenda: reining in the size and scope of government.

As she looks back, Blacker says it was an understandable backlash to the more free-spending ways that had prevailed in Bellevue.

"Did we spend too much?" she asked. "Yeah, we probably didn't sharpen the pencil enough in the old days. But did it pay off? You bet."

Blacker points out that among other things, she and her colleagues' legacy includes one of the best collections of parks around and a storm-water system that is the envy of the region.

A personal triumph for her was getting the $500,000 to restore the Winters house, which now serves as the headquarters for the Bellevue Historical Society that Blacker helped found.

But the council began to change in 1994, when Bozeman stepped down and a young, idealistic conservative named Ron Smith won election.

Smith said he considered running against Blacker in that race but eventually ran for an open seat instead. He's glad he did.

"Philosophically, I said I have to go after Margot," he said. "The irony is that I've learned a lot from her.

"When you look back at other councils and their investments in the infrastructure and the parks, I have been fortunate to inherit that. So I can't throw stones."

But the current council has gone about changing many of the things it didn't like. Members eliminated an employee head tax, and they haven't raised property taxes two years running.

They've gotten rid of regulations requiring developers to include low-income units in large housing projects and replaced it with a loan program to help people buy a first home. And millions of dollars once earmarked for sidewalks and bike lanes have been shifted to make room for more cars on the city's clogged streets.

Last month's election held no major changes for the council. And newcomer Connie Marshall, whom Blacker endorsed, is no challenger to the council's conservative philosophy.

Blacker, who will become president of the Bellevue Historical Society, said she still plans to take an active role in the city, especially on issues she cares deeply about.

"She may be the last one, but politics is a pendulum," said Lukens, a former mayor. "And you don't know when you'll see it change."

J. Martin McOmber's phone message number is 206-515-5628. His e-mail address is: mcom-new@seatimes.com