Now that the big questions are settled—(a) Did City Attorney Pete Holmes have legal authority to file a lawsuit to stop a tunnel referendum? No. (b) Was Holmes correct that a tunnel vote would be illegal? No. (c) Does Holmes think people should be voting on this thing at all? Obviously not.—Holmes’s office is at the center of another question.

Should Holmes have assigned the same lawyer fighting the tunnel election to write the language that appears on the ballot?

City lawyer John Schochet, who was the leading signatory on briefs filed in King County Superior Court and made oral arguments this month, sent an email to city staff today with a draft of the language he developed to submit for the ballot this August.

“Mr. Schochet has spent two months arguing that giving voters a say on the tunnel ordinance would be illegal,” says Scot Brannon, a member of Protect Seattle Now and one of the defendants in the lawsuit. “It will be hard to keep that mindset from bleeding into language he crafts for a ballot title. At best, there’s the appearance of a conflict of interest.”

Holmes’s office disagrees. “John Schochet is one of several assistant city attorneys—including Bob Scales who, with Cartlton Seu, is advising the mayor on viaduct/tunnel issues—who collaborated to come up with the most appropriate language possible in this instance,” says Holmes spokeswoman Kimberly Mills.

It’s hard to say if it makes a big difference. Schochet’s draft is technical and doesn’t address the meaning of the judge’s decision—should the council make the final tunnel decision alone or should the council leave room for voter input?—but I’m not sure that can be unpacked in a brief ballot title. Here’s the draft Schochet sent around:

PROPOSITION 1 The Seattle City Council passed Ordinance Number 123542 entering into agreements related to the Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement. Voters filed a sufficient referendum petition, and the King County Superior Court ruled that only Section 6 of that ordinance was subject to a public vote.

Section 6 states: The City Council is authorized to decide whether to issue the notice referenced in Section 2.3 of each Agreement. That decision shall be made at an open public meeting held after issuance of the Final Environmental Impact Statement.

Should this ordinance section be:

Approved
Rejected

17 replies on “Conflict of Interest? City Lawyer Who Sued to Stop Tunnel Ballot Measure Tasked with Writing Tunnel Ballot Title”

  3. Do you vote to recall Richard Conlin, Sally Clark, Sally Bergshaw, Tim Burgess, Jean Godden, Bruce Harrell, Tom Rasmussen, Pete Holmes, and every other politician who thinks the people of Seattle are better seen and not heard?

  4. Section 2.3:

    2.3 The PARTIES understand that environmental review of the proposed PROJECT is underway at the date of this Agreement and agree that only preliminary design work and other work outlined in 23 CFR 636.109(b)(2) may proceed under this Agreement prior to issuance of a Final SEPA/NEPA Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) and federal Record of Decision (ROD). If an alternative other than the Proposed Bored Tunnel is selected, this Agreement will be terminated pursuant to the provisions of Section 28 of this Agreement. If the Proposed Bored Tunnel is selected, the remaining work under this Agreement other than preliminary design work may proceed no sooner than after issuance of the ROD and only after WSDOT and the City Council each provide notice to the other that it wishes to proceed with the Agreement. WSDOT will provide Notice to Proceed 2, which authorizes final design and construction, to the Design Builder only after issuance of the ROD.

    So if I’m reading this correctly (which I’m probably not), approving Section 6 means the City Council can decide not to issue notice thereby halting construction the tunnel, and rejecting Section 6 means the City Council is bound to issue notice thereby making them unable to halt construction of the tunnel.

    Or does rejecting a section of the Agreement invalidate the entire thing?

  5. I don’t know about his mindset “bleeding” into the language, but schochet is the term for a ritual kosher slaughterer.

  7. @6 Section 6 is the mechanism to proceed with the agreements (and hence construction of the tunnel). The council would decide this alone — no chance of veto by the mayor and no chance of referendum by pesky voters.

  12. No more a conflict of interest that it is to have members of the Mayors staff take a leave of absence in order to run the “block the tunnel” initiative, with the financial and legal backing of several non-profit groups that backed the mayor.

    So this person gets to name the initiative, big woof, keep cherry picking arguments.

  13. People tend to vote “no” on things that are difficult to parse. That title is as legally precise and as clear to a non lawyer as, say, the iTunes terms of use.

  14. I see no problem with the wording of the measure as its approve/reject options are not opposite of the intent, meaning people cannot be fooled into voting yes when they mean no. The problem is is that the measure itself has no weight. The thing was as badly written as one of Eyman’s initiatives, which seems fitting seeing as he is now siding with the mayor (Eyman’s sugardaddy sponsors be damned).

  16. @14 tell that to New Jersey, who just got told to fund schools and obey their state Constitution like we will be by year’s end.

    Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.

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