Former Seattle Mayor McGinn sets record straight on secret security biking myth

In 2010, Clarence Eckerson Jr., filmed then-Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn biking to work for streetfilms.org. After the film aired, Eckerson remembers seeing a Seattle-based website claiming McGinn was followed by a fleet of black SUVs.

“I can testify that there was nobody near us,” Eckerson said on McGinn’s podcast “You, Me, Us, Now with Mike McGinn.” “Unless they were invisible, there was no security detail following us.”

McGinn said those types of rumors were “a big issue for me for four years.”

Related: City has ‘never really’ tackled infrastructure problem efficiently, former Seattle mayor says

McGinn said he started his mayoral campaign as a bike-riding activist who cared about the environment. He even handed out “Mike Bikes” stickers that included a picture of him with a bike helmet. It was a good campaign move.

“But then when I got into office I was in the middle of what came to be called the ‘war on cars,’” he said.

And with that came new scrutiny of McGinn’s “weird” tendency to bike everywhere. So rumors and online forums sprouted up claiming that McGinn never actually biked, instead having his security team pick him up around corners and carry his bike from place-to-place.

McGinn did his best on the podcast to set the record straight.

“I did drive. I did have a car and a driver. They did take me places because in the course of my day it was not always feasible to bike everywhere,” he said. “But I really insisted on biking first thing in the morning. If my first event of the day was at City Hall, 45-minute bike ride. It gave me time to think, got my exercise in. I probably biked home about half the time. But there were times I would bike somewhere, do an event and then the car would scoop me up and take me somewhere. So that’s how that crazy rumor started. Because people would see that. They would see me put my bike on the car. There was so much craziness around the bike.”

McGinn said that security teams did want to follow him around or protect him while he biked.

“They wanted to follow me around and I told them, ‘No, that’s crazy,’” he said. “That just defeats the whole purpose. I think my security guy spoke to the (Seattle Department of Transportation) guys. I think he had all of the SDOT traffic cameras that were on my route linked up to his computer. So they did really care about trying to keep track of me.”

McGinn said the scrutiny is all part of being in public office.

“Nobody questioned motivation when I was a neighborhood and environmental advocate,” he said. “But as soon as you become elected, you’re totally suspect. Your motivations must be bad and you must be not telling the truth. It actually took me a while to actually accept that that’s the way it was. You couldn’t protest to people, ‘Oh, come on, I’m still the same person.’ There was no use being defensive about it.”

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