Nick Licata was elected to five terms on City Council, serving from 1998 to 2015. During his time in office, he chaired committees covering areas including parks, public safety, human services, and arts and culture. He served as Council President from 2006 to 2007. In his college years at Bowling Green State University, Licata was student body president and president of Students for a Democratic Society before earning a degree in political science in 1969. He then moved to Seattle to attend graduate school at the University of Washington, where he received a masters degree in sociology in 1973. Licata was a longtime activist in the community, helping to found the Coalition Against Redlining; Citizens for More Important Things, which campaigned against excessive public funding for sports stadiums, and Give Peace a Dance, a nuclear disarmament group. He was a founder of The Civic Foundation and the Friends of Westlake Park, and he was a member of the first board of directors for the Capitol Hill Housing Improvement Program. He worked as an insurance broker for 17 years prior to his election to City Council.

In 2003, Licata published the childrens book Princess Bianca and the Vandals, and in 2016 after leaving Council, he wrote Becoming a Citizen Activist. In 2012 The Nation named him the Progressive Municipal Official of the Year. He was the founding chair of the national municipal policy network Local Progress.