Sullivan's legacy is a dividing line; Democrat steps out after 20 years on County Council

When Cynthia Sullivan wants to see the impact she's made during her 20 years on the Metropolitan King County Council, she likes to go up in a private plane over the county hinterlands.

Below her, she sees a line that delineates the outer edge of urban growth. On one side are the green pastures and forests of the agricultural and rural zones, on the other the cities and suburbs.

Perhaps more than any single individual, Sullivan shaped the growth-management policies that curbed sprawling development in the remote corners of the county and promoted high-density growth in and around existing cities.

She also played a leading role in building thousands of affordable homes and creating a system of mass-transit buses and trains intended to entice families into cities instead of onto "horse acres" in the country.

Sullivan, who lost her bid for a sixth term on the County Council, attended her last meetings of the council and the Sound Transit board last week. Bob Ferguson, who defeated her in the Democratic primary, will take office Jan. 5.

Ferguson defeated Sullivan much the same way she ousted Republican incumbent Scott Blair in 1983: by knocking on the doors of voters and portraying himself as the energetic and youthful agent of change.

Ferguson focused his attack on two issues: Sullivan's unflagging support for Sound Transit's light-rail plan, even after it went $1 billion over budget, and her reluctance to support trimming the County Council from 13 members to nine.

During the 34-year history of the County Council, only two members served as long or longer than Sullivan: Bill Reams, who was on the council 22 years before losing an election in 1989, and Paul Barden, a 20-year member who stepped down in 1993.

After a divorce, Sullivan was a single mother for half of her council career. A grandmother at 54, she is exploring other job opportunities. She lives in Seattle's Wedgwood neighborhood.

While Ferguson disapprovingly noted Sullivan's heavy reliance on campaign contributions from the development community, he did not seriously attack what may have been the defining feature of her career: her record on growth management.

Sullivan's departure from the council, which retains a Democratic majority, is not expected to lead to dramatic policy changes on land use or other issues.

A University of Washington-trained urban planner, Sullivan has a vision of growth management that was shaped in part by a train ride between Haarlem and Delft in the Netherlands in 1980. She saw compact cities separated from one another by large expanses of farmland without sprawling suburbs.

It was a vision she wanted to bring to King County, where zoning at the time permitted one-acre lots — and under certain conditions half-acre lots — all the way to the Cascade Mountains.

When she quit UW graduate school to run for the County Council, Sullivan called for preservation of open space and declared the county had become "a candy store for developers." Her election tipped control of the council to the Democratic Party, and two years later the council produced a comprehensive plan that restricted development across much of the county.

"Cynthia was talking about growth management and the need to have people living in cities, protecting rural areas, forested areas, agricultural areas, before it was in vogue. She was widely attacked for those views. Now they're a matter of county policies," recalled County Executive Ron Sims, who has been a close friend since she became the first elected official to endorse him as a County Council candidate in 1985.

Drawing the line

After the Legislature passed the Growth Management Act in 1990, Sullivan chaired a committee of county and city representatives that established an urban-growth line in King County that would define the limits of development for decades to come.

Workplaces, shopping centers and most homes were to be built on the urban side of the line. For the plan to work, Sullivan argued, there would have to be much higher densities and improved public transportation.

"If growth management fails," she said last week, "it's for two reasons: You didn't build housing where you need it — which is in urban centers — or you didn't build the transportation system to link up those urban centers."

Sullivan and fellow County Council member Greg Nickels, now mayor of Seattle, promoted a 1988 advisory vote on development of a rail transit system. Voters' overwhelming approval of the idea helped jump-start what became Sound Transit.

Sullivan's once-strained relations with developers improved as she supported city-sized developments on the edge of Issaquah and along Novelty Hill Road east of Redmond. Her relationship with slow-growth activists deteriorated.

"At the beginning of her career, the builders considered her Enemy No. 1. She was villainized by them. In the end they were her biggest supporters," recalled Martin Durkan Jr., a lobbyist who has represented property owners and developers.

One of her fiercest critics, former County Councilman Brian Derdowski, said Sullivan undermined efforts to toughen environmental regulations and supported allowing urban development in "areas that most people would shake their heads and say, 'No, this is not where you want to put it.' ...

"Every salmon in King County applauded Bob Ferguson's election," Derdowski said of Sullivan's election defeat.

Despite those criticisms, Sullivan was endorsed in this year's campaign by the Sierra Club and Washington Conservation Voters.

Judd Kirk, president of Port Blakely Communities, which is building the 3,250-home Issaquah Highlands development, praised Sullivan for taking "some very courageous stands" in favor of environmental protection in the 1980s, then showing the same courage in support of urban development in the 1990s.

As the daughter of a Teamsters Union organizer, Sullivan "realized development means jobs and housing," Kirk said.

"I remember once when I first met her, she said, 'I'm a jobs and housing Democrat.' Being a jobs and housing Democrat is what she stuck with."

Battle with Eyman

The council's chairwoman for the past two years, Sullivan was seen by some courthouse regulars as prickly or abrasive. Durkan said he always found her accessible, even if she didn't project "a warm, fuzzy feeling like a Ron Sims."

Her 1999 marriage to market researcher Jim Hebert "took a lot of vinegar out of her," one associate said.

Sullivan never shied away from a political fight. She was an unwavering advocate of health and human services and the rights of women, gays and minorities. As a Board of Health member, she helped pass rules requiring bicyclists to wear helmets, banning hazardous baby walkers and discouraging tobacco use by teens.

"Whether it's housing policy, key measures in health policy, growth management, transportation — it's hard not to see her fingerprints on a lot of this. She authored a lot of it," Sims said.

Sullivan has waged a running battle with tax-cut activist Tim Eyman, the sponsor of citizen initiatives that have sharply cut the county's income from property taxes and vehicle-license fees. An Eyman-backed initiative to reduce the council from 13 members to nine will be on the November 2004 ballot.

While she said his initiatives are crippling government's ability to provide public services, Eyman accuses her of a "mother-knows-best attitude. ... Pull out a Webster's dictionary and look for governmental arrogance and you'll find a picture of Cynthia Sullivan."

She makes no apologies for her stands.

"If you run a careful line in politics, you will never accomplish very much," Sullivan said. "Knowing what's right, to build a community and forge ahead because you know in the long run it's going to be the right thing to do, sometimes you lose office for doing it. I did it for supporting Sound Transit. I can only tell you I would do it all over again."

Keith Ervin: 206-464-2105 or kervin@seattletimes.com