Rice Will Try Something Else Seattle’s ‘Mayor Nice’ Decides Not To Seek Third Four-Year Term

What made Norm not run?

Neither boredom nor fatigue nor disappointment nor scandal but a desire to try something new, even though he doesn’t know what it will be, Mayor Norman Blann Rice said Thursday after announcing that he had decided against running for a third four-year term.

Upbeat throughout a half-hour news conference, Rice said he discussed the move with his wife, Constance, the president of North Seattle Community College, while on vacation in Jamaica in February.

“It was a very tough decision, but I think it was the right decision,” he said.

Rice, 53, disappointed when he failed to land an appointment as President Clinton’s secretary of housing and urban development, said his future could lie in the public, private or nonprofit sectors.

“Those options will come. I think they’re unlimited … I know I have them but I haven’t chosen a course of action right now,” he said.

“I’m not worried about whether I have a job or don’t have a job or I’m giving up one without a clear indication of something in hand,” he said. “I’ve never had to look for a job, and I don’t think I’ll have to this time, either.”

Rice’s achievements include crime reduction, a 20-year comprehensive city plan and a $500 million program - mostly with private funds - to reinvigorate the downtown retail core with projects ranging from a symphony hall to a flagship store for the Nordstrom clothing chain.

Key issues now facing the city, he said, include what to do with the old Sand Point Naval Base on Lake Washington and a $160 million redevelopment of the Holly Park lowincome housing project.

In a letter to City Council President Jan Drago, Rice said the city was on solid financial footing following cuts in real growth of government of about 80 percent since 1990.

“Crime has reached its lowest level in 16 years. Investment in our downtown is paying dividends as increased tax revenues bring in more money for police officers, parks and street repairs,” he wrote.

“I feel that we’re on a rising curve and that’s always a better time to leave than on the downward slope. There’s a slippery slope there,” Rice told reporters.

“It felt like a good time to pass the torch on to someone else, but I want to make it very clear to everybody I haven’t died today,” he said, “and I’ll be around. My term doesn’t end until the end of this year.

“But I felt it was also a good opportunity to direct a lot of my energies towards the things I am passionate about … social equity, economic opportunity, environmental stewardship.”

He said he didn’t know whom he would favor for a successor or whether he would even make an endorsement in what is likely to be a crowded field.

A day earlier, City Council member Jane Noland said she would run regardless of whether Rice sought reelection.

Noland, a former Peace Corps volunteer and day-care center worker who has served three four-year terms on the nine-member council, praised Rice for his “help to revitalize the downtown and his wonderful support for schools,” but said she would stress neighborhood safety and street cleaning as well as school improvements.

“I don’t know, but I think I like this better,” with him not running, she added.

Had he run again, Rice probably would have been heavily favored. No scandal or major criticism has tainted his eight years in office and he has been a leading spokesman for urban interests.

The city’s first black mayor, Rice has sometimes been called “Mayor Nice” because of his genial nature and refusal to use negative campaign tactics. In November 1995 he won a televised “Funniest Mayor” contest with a routine in which he gurgled the words as if talking under water.

He was an early front-runner for the HUD post in President Clinton’s second-term cabinet but was passed over at the last minute.