Nick Licata (politician) - As An Activist and Writer

As An Activist and Writer

Prior to being elected to public office, he founded and published the People’s Yellow Pages (1973 and 1976), which listed community and political groups, and social and public services in Seattle. He applied the profits in starting The Seattle Sun community newspaper which served Seattle’s inner city neighborhoods and was published for 8 years 1974 to 1982.

Licata helped found the Coalition Against Redlining in Seattle. Redlining was the practice of banks not reinvesting the funds they received from low income neighborhoods in those communities. He testified before Congress helping to pass the Community Re-Invest Act regulating such banking practices.

Licata co-founded Give Peace a Dance in 1983 which for 6 years held a 24 dance marathon to raise funds to purchase TV ads promoting nuclear disarmament.

Licata was Co-Chair of Citizens for More Important Things, a group opposed to excessive public funding for professional sports stadiums. It wrote King County Initiative 16, collecting over 73,000 signatures to get it validated and placed on the ballot. It won at the ballot box but was voided by the State Legislature a week later. He later testified before Congress at the request of Congressman Dennis Kucinich on the financial drain that public funding of professional sport teams placed on municipal governments.

Licata is the author of Princess Bianca and the Vandals (2005), a children’s fantasy/adventure book dealing with environmental issues. He also wrote Every Politician Should Live in a Commune (2009) for Communities Magazine, based on his 25 years of living in PRAG House which is part of the Evergreen Land Trust.