A lawyer by trade, Jim Ellis (1921-2019) was a civic activist who helped transform Seattle and King County with his work to clean up Lake Washington, create Metro, and push for passage of Forward Thrust initiatives in the late 1960s. Emmett Watson, the venerable newspaper columnist, wrote in 1982: "The next time a national magazine, or a book, places Seattle among the top-ranked cities in America, as it surely will do, it is good to remember why that is. It is because of Jim Ellis." In this excerpt from Ellis's memoirs, he writes about Paul Seibert, who joined Ellis in the campaign to clean up Lake Washington.
PR Expert and Media Man
Paul W. Seibert was a close friend and a born spark plug of activity. Paul and his wife Betty had become our good friends during work together at the Municipal League and in the Lake Washington clean-up crusade.
Paul was raised in McMinnville, Oregon, in the 1920s and 30s, graduated from the University of Oregon, and served as an officer in the Coast Guard from 1941 to 1945. He moved to Seattle in 1945 to work for the Municipal League. He and Betty settled in the Fauntleroy Neighborhood of West Seattle where they raised two sons.
In addition to being a public relations expert, Paul served as the editor of the Municipal News from 1945 to 1952, when he joined Frederick E. Baker and Associates of Seattle as public relations director. In 1958, Joe Gandy, the founding President of the Central Association of Seattle, persuaded Paul to manage that organization as executive vice president. Joe said that finding Paul Siebert for this job was his "gift to Seattle."
Our friendship continued through Paul’s years with the Central Association, later called the Downtown Seattle Association. We talked frequently about the work of Mayor Gordon Clinton’s committee on rapid transit. Downtown leaders had been looking for a way to reverse declining transit ridership and the mayor’s committee believed that frequent downtown service by rail rapid transit could do the job. However, they also realized that expensive subway construction would be needed in the city’s geographical narrow waist between Lake Washington and Puget Sound. Such a system could not be financed entirely by local funds. This resulted in a telephone call from the next mayor, J.D. "Dorm" Braman to Senator Warren Magnuson and a successful effort to open the door to federal financial assistance.
By the summer of 1964, federal funding had been authorized by the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964. Maggie was confident that the Congress would appropriate sufficient funds to pay two-thirds of the cost of building a federally approved rapid transit system for the Seattle metropolitan area. Dorm and I believed that his dream of rapid transit had now become possible if we could achieve the state-required 60 percent "Yes" vote for the General Obligation Bonds needed to finance the local share of construction costs.
When I first mentioned the idea of a multi-purpose capital crusade to Paul, he was intrigued. But after the news of available federal financial assistance made rapid transit feasible, he jumped on board with both feet. He believed our idea for a major capital improvement program just went from good to fantastic! He felt the the region’s most vital need was transportation and the obvious missing link was rapid transit. He told me he thought this effort could be the center piece of our capital crusade and the perfect subject for a major speech to Downtown Rotary. He felt we should prepare for that carefully and now.
Public information strategy was Paul’s special talent. Mary Lou [Ellis, Jim's wife] and I listened intently and then followed his lead. Paul thought we should first talk to media management on a confidential basis and see if they would hold off public comment until after the speech was made. In October, we met with the managers of the large radio and television stations and the county newspapers to see if they would be willing to support such a huge civic effort. Every reaction was positive. John Fournier of the Valley newspapers was enthusiastic, as was Bruce Helberg of the Bellevue Journal American. The conservative president of KIRO, Lloyd Cooney, got excited about the idea of a simulcast opportunity. Although this was never actually done, it did reflect the encouraging enthusiasm we needed. Attitudes toward Metro had changed in Renton, Kent, and Auburn during the years following their rejection of Metro transit authority in 1958. The population was growing rapidly. Metro had become familiar and was no longer thought of as a "monster." Paul wanted to keep the idea confidential until members of the public could all hear it at the same time. In a later era, this might not have been possible, but in 1965 it was accepted by our local media.
Paul and I presented our vision separately to Seattle’s two metropolitan newspapers. We met first with Dan Starr, the publisher and CEO of the Hearst owned Seattle Post-Intelligencer (P-I) and its editor, Lou Guzzo. We were escorted up to Starr’s office where he met us at the door, shook hands, and pointed us toward a large, overstuffed couch, opposite Lou. Then taking a seat behind his desk he did not say another word throughout our presentation. As we explained our plan, Lou Guzzo interrupted frequently with comments like, "What a super idea and just what Seattle needs!" When we finished, I asked if the P-I would support us, and our eyes turned to Dan. I was concerned that he had not asked any questions. He leaned forward in his chair, looked me straight in the eye and with a rising voice said, "I’ll tell you what the P-I will do. We’ll go balls out for this thing!" I replied with a huge grin, "That’s terrific, that’s great!"
Both men were as good as their word.
The following day, Paul and I met with Ross Cunningham, editorial editor of The Seattle Times. Ross was the voice of the paper on things political, subject to onsite approval by a member of the Blethen family who owned the paper. We were escorted into Ross’s spartan office: a desk, table, and a couple of straight-back chairs. After cordial greetings, Ross sat down, began puffing on his pipe, and now and then asked a question. After maybe 25 minutes, we finished and waited for his reaction. He tapped his pipe a couple of times on the side of the ash tray, looked at us and said, "I’ll be back in a minute." Ross walked a couple doors down the hall to a Blethen office. After not more than three or four minutes he returned from this conference with Mr. Blethen. He leaned back in his swivel chair and said it was a magnificent idea and would be a wonderful thing for the city. Ross said The Times would give a kick-off, assign Walt Woodward to cover my speech and to follow me for a week after it was delivered. It would also print a story every day about unrolling the project. He said that once the committee was finally appointed, did its job, and made its recommendations to voters, the paper would decide what to oppose and what to support.
This was better than we had hoped for, and I reacted with, "Thank you, Ross! This really gives us a boost!" Ross Cunningham and The Seattle Times were as good as their word.
