[2] Seattle City Light was the first electric utility in the nation to become greenhouse gas neutral (2005)[3] and has the longest-running energy conservation program in the country.

[8] In 1957, City Light was one of 17 utilities to join the Washington Public Power Supply System (later named Energy Northwest), a municipal corporation, to combine resources and build facilities.

[12] The 2016 official fuel mix statistics by the state of Washington for Seattle City Light show approximately 88% hydroelectric, 5% nuclear, 4% wind, 1% coal, 1% natural gas, 1% biogas.

Due to the reliance on hydroelectricity, itself dependent on consistent snowpack and melting seasons, City Light occasionally purchases supplemental power using its emergency funds.

[14] The utility owns and operates a total of seven hydro facilities: Seattle City Light residential customers currently pay about 10–14 cents per kilowatt-hour of electricity.

At the time, Vickery had been exploring the possibility of running for mayor, and his appointment was a calculated political move by Uhlman in an attempt to forge an alliance with him and prevent a future electoral challenge.

In his role as superintendent, Vickery was tasked with reducing City Light's budget through wage cuts and work speed-ups, which proved deeply unpopular with employees.

In addition, Vickery helped craft a successful affirmative action program for women to use as experience that would position himself as a progressive in future electoral ventures.

[7] As City Light was unable to be shut down and local 77 failed to gain support of the broader union, the electricians were forced to settle for a contract with worse working conditions.

[17] In 1973 City Light hired Clara Fraser, a socialist feminist activist, as a training and education coordinator tasked with redesigning an affirmative action program to integrate women into the electrical trades.

[18] Fraser created an all-female electrical trades trainee (ETT) program in which the women were to be given two weeks of physical and classroom instruction and allowed membership, as well as their own bargaining unit, in the IBEW local 77 as soon as they began.

In July 1976, City Light was ordered by a court to reinstate six of the eight terminated women, pay them damage fees, and make them eligible for apprenticeship programs.

CERCL membership grew rapidly over the course of the 1980s and pressured the Seattle Human Rights Department to investigate discrimination cases that had previously been met with inaction.

A set of 19 manhole covers with relief maps of Downtown Seattle were designed by city employee Anne Knight and installed beginning in April 1977 to aid with wayfinding.

[23][24] Knight's covers use raised symbols to represent local landmarks, including the now-demolished Kingdome, that are labeled with a key on the outer ring of the manhole.