In the tug of war between Seattle neighborhoods and City Hall, neighborhoods are likely gaining an advocate in the City Council’s newest member, Sally Clark.

Clark, who attends her first regular council meeting today, most recently worked as an executive at Lifelong AIDS Alliance. But she also carries the credentials to comfort community activists, who at times have felt dismissed by Mayor Greg Nickels and his aggressive development proposals.

Clark, 39, receives rave reviews for her work under Jim Diers, the charismatic former director of the city’s Department of Neighborhoods. On the council, she will chair a newly created Neighborhoods and Economic Development Committee, which she says will occasionally meet outside City Hall to promote civic involvement.

"I don’t think our productivity increases if we meet out in Greenwood, but it helps with access and transparency," Clark said.

Clark served as the city’s top liaison to Southeast Seattle for three years. In that time, she distinguished herself as an advocate for community goals, such as new sidewalks, the Mapes Creek Walkway in Rainier Beach, and a new city park on Hitt’s Hill, the site of a former fireworks factory.

"She did a great job identifying resources for neighborhoods and helping to make things happen," said Dawn Blanch, a Rainier Beach activist.

Clark wins additional praise for working with opposing camps in the debate over whether to run a new light-rail line along the street or underground through the city’s Rainier Valley.

"We’re pretty big Sally fans down here," says Darryl Smith, president of the Rainier Chamber of Commerce and a Columbia City activist. "It would’ve been easy to get dragged one way or another [in that debate]. But Sally showed an ability to listen to both sides and be a bridge between a lot of neighbors."

The council voted Jan. 27 to have Clark fill the vacancy created by Jim Compton, who resigned to teach and write in Romania and Egypt. Clark was selected from a field of 98 applicants.

Clark, who is white, was seen as somewhat of an underdog as council members expressed interested in using the appointment to add racial diversity to the council. The other five finalists were racial minorities.

During interviews for the job, Clark told the council she wants to help create jobs and more training opportunities for Seattleites who "will never work on genetic mapping or on the 7E7."

She wants to encourage development that preserves neighborhood character. And she wants to bolster pre-school, after-school and mentoring programs to help working families.

"There’s no question she has a strong community focus," said Diers, adding that Clark is "energetic, smart, has a good sense of humor and works really well with people."

Clark grew up in Portland, her father a professor of periodontology and her mother a stay-at-home mom. She graduated from the University of Washington, where she was active in student journalism.

Clark was editor of Seattle Gay News before she became communications manager for the Chicken Soup Brigade, an agency that provided services to people with HIV/AIDS.

She then went to work as an aide to then-City Councilwoman Tina Podlodowski, where she focused on public safety, health and neighborhood planning.

"She listens more carefully to people who disagree with her than those who agree," Podlodowski said.

As Podlodowski neared the end of her City Hall tenure in 1999, Diers hired Clark. After Nickels won election in 2001, he fired Diers, and a year later Clark’s Department of Neighborhoods position was eliminated in budget cuts.

Shortly after, neighborhood leaders griped that Nickels had trampled carefully crafted community plans in the Northgate area and the University District.

Clark finished a master’s degree in public administration at the UW, writing her thesis on civic engagement. She worked briefly as an aide to Metropolitan King County Councilman Bob Ferguson before Podlodowski became executive director at Lifelong AIDS Alliance and brought Clark on board as director of community resources.

Clark says she intended to run for the City Council or Legislature one day. When Compton resigned last month, Clark jumped at the chance to win appointment to a rare vacant seat.

Although steeped in neighborhood activism, Clark is hardly a knee-jerk not-in-my-backyard type.

She supports more densely developed neighborhood business districts, saying, "We have to if we are going to keep our commitments around preserving open space outside our cities."

She’s careful not to take a firm stand yet on many other issues, such as public investment in South Lake Union, subsidies for KeyArena, and how to pay for a $4 billion tunnel to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct.

Some see Clark as a swing vote on the council who would shift the power balance toward either Jan Drago’s pro-business philosophy or Nick Licata’s more populist camp.

Clark, who lives near Seward Park with her partner, a labor lawyer, says she’s doesn’t see herself pigeon-holed. "I get along with both of them. I don’t see myself fitting neatly into either camp."

Bob Young: 206-464-2174 or byoung@seattletimes.com

A decade ago, Seattle embarked on an ambitious neighborhood-planning effort. A fundamental goal of this process was to empower neighborhood residents, businesses and government to identify and protect what is great about our neighborhoods while preparing for growth and change.

Over the course of the past 10 years, we have indeed seen remarkable changes across Seattle. The 38 plans have steered much of the growth and change; but some changes, the plans could not have anticipated. Have investments in housing, transportation, parks and other amenities been consistent with neighborhood plans? Why or why not? How can we improve the plans for the future?

Simply put: It’s time to check in on the neighborhood plans.

For example, dramatic growth in Belltown has created an exciting urban neighborhood. The opening of the Olympic Sculpture Park is a wonderful "front door" to that neighborhood and provides much-needed open space. This density was planned, but we struggle to keep up with service demands, like more police officers.

Stable residential neighborhoods like Wallingford and Ravenna are growing roughly the way their respective plans anticipated; but with development concentrated along arterials come additional traffic pressures, frustration over lack of parking and realization that our existing parks and open spaces may not be adequate.

Where I live in Southeast Seattle, change has been no less dramatic. Construction of Sound Transit light rail cuts down a Rainier Valley that will be hit in a few years by a construction boom that will reshape the community. Neighborhood plans in Rainier Valley emphasize economic development and education, but the affordability of housing for working families may be the valley’s — and Seattle’s — biggest long-term challenge.

Many neighborhoods are already taking the initiative to update their plans. For example, South Lake Union is on its way to becoming Seattle’s next large-scale urban community. Neighbors there are remaking their neighborhood plan to take into account the changes in property ownership and development unknown 10 years ago. Roosevelt is also ahead of the curve — reviewing its neighborhood plan in anticipation of the changes Sound Transit’s Phase 2 light-rail station will bring to the Roosevelt business district.

Some neighborhoods, like Wallingford, reached their residential growth targets early on, while others still lag. The economy has gone through both boom and recession in 10 years. We’ve voted for and dedicated new parks, libraries, community centers and housing. We’ve changed zoning in ways that should accommodate new neighbors and businesses, but may also threaten the historic character of our neighborhoods in the name of progress. Above us, the Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC) is poised to announce revised growth targets that will bring more residential growth than originally anticipated in the plans.

With the new PSRC "crystal ball" numbers on the way and the changes from the past 10 years, we need a coherent approach to checking in on how the 20-year neighborhood plans are matching up with reality at mid-life. We need to know if the visions of "good growth" articulated in the plans and the steps laid out to make it happen with grace still make sense.

There are three principles against which to measure the freshness of the plans:

• Affordability. Median home prices in Seattle are stabilizing, but the majority of sale prices and the cost of new residential construction are beyond the incomes of too many residents. We are losing young and lower-income families to places like Renton and Issaquah. As they leave, our schools lose students, our neighborhoods lose diversity and the fabric of our city changes. Seattle has always been at the forefront of addressing the housing needs of our residents. Our neighborhoods must have the right mix of housing.

• Safety. Neighborhood crime and the feeling of safety are real indicators of quality of life. As Seattle grows, other safety concerns arise — such as pedestrian safety. Seattle voters agreed that new sidewalks, crosswalks and bike lanes are a priority when we approved the "Bridging the Gap" levy last fall. Those resources must be invested wisely in our neighborhoods.

• Sustainability. Seattle is at the cutting edge when it comes to concern for our air, water and land. However, with climate change and its impacts now daily news, we must plan for these challenges at the neighborhood level. This means smarter water management, improved design standards for buildings and encouraging fewer car trips for basic needs. There are examples throughout Seattle of best practices in action (like Ballard’s "carbon neutral" campaign), but a comprehensive plan to improve neighborhood-level sustainability is critical to our future.

Seattle’s approach to neighborhood planning a decade ago was a national model in deputizing citizens as planners — and in ensuring their ideas would be carried out by committed partners in government.

But time flies, and it’s time we made sure that our plans reflect the challenges and opportunities of the future. All of us have a stake in the future of Seattle. Working together, we can get things done.

Sally J. Clark, a member of the Seattle City Council, chairs the council’s Economic Development & Neighborhoods Committee.