Not causing the mayor to swoon.
  • Not causing a mayoral railgasm.

At Mike McGinn’s late-afternoon press conference yesterday, held in response to Gov. Christine Gregoire's proposed preferred alternative for the new 520 bridge, the mayor stressed the importance of keeping the future in mind.

“This is a 75 to a 100 year project and it’s important to take the time to get it right,” McGinn said. “The governor says that the new plan is ‘light rail ready,’ and it is not.”

McGinn noted that in the past, the decision that a project was “light rail ready” has been made too hastily, and the city has had to suffer the consequences. (He was presumably referring to the downtown bus tunnel debacle, when the wrong type of "light rail ready" rail was installed and had to be ripped out later.) He does not want to make the same mistake with the 520 bridge, which is why he feels that waiting “a year or longer” to perfect the plan and work out the kinks is worth it. Although McGinn reiterated several times how “appreciative” he was about the way the Washington State Department of Transportation and the governor worked on the design, and said his office would continue to be “as collaborative as they can,” he is not happy with the preferred alternative as is.

“More work needs to be done,” McGinn stated. “We are not well-served in saying that all the work has been done.”

McGinn's concerns with Gregoire’s "preferred alternative" are in three major areas: The project is not light rail ready from the start; he's not satisfied that questions about the protection of natural areas have been resolved; and he's still worried about the impact a new six-lane highway will have on the Montlake neighborhood.

When asked if he was willing to compromise in any of these three areas in order to move things along, McGinn remained firm:

“There’s still work to be done," he said. "I believe there is still time for us to do more work and make changes to the plan. Again, I think this is evidence that if you dig in and start looking at alternatives you can make changes. I don’t think this is an issue of who’s willing to compromise. I think this is more an issue building the best bridge for our future.”

McGinn then shifted his attention to a new policy that limits travel expenses, training, and out-of-state conferences for city officials. The directive mandates that “travel outside city limits should be carefully evaluated for the benefit provided to the city and should be restricted wherever possible.” It prohibits travel by city employees outside the state without written approval from the Mayor’s Office (the Mayor expressed his surprise that such a policy wasn’t already in place). He confirmed that the policy change was prompted by (now ex-) Seattle Parks Superintendent Tim Gallagher’s high-profile, tax-payer-funded trip to Australia for a conference this month. The mayor explained that the new directive is addressing the need to avoid unnecessary expenses; it’s not a blanket ban on all travel.

When asked if it should instead be a blanket ban on travel to Arizona, the Mayor laughed.

“That is a wonderful plan,” he said, referring to his already-stated dislike for Arizona's controversial new anti-immigrant law. “I wouldn't travel to Arizona at the moment. Last night when I got home, my wife said to me, how was your day? And I said to her, 'I’m boycotting Arizona.' And she said, ‘How would anybody know?’"

Sounds like our commenters aren't the only ones who find McGinn's solo Arizona boycott a little underwhelming in terms of civic leadership.