Harshly dismissing the mayor’s office, the Seattle City Council’s parks committee voted today for a bill that will likely hand the Museum of History and Industry up to $7 million from a land deal with the state. The museum insists it needs that money for a move to the armory building on the southern shore of Lake Union.
“This city council said we have had enough,” said committee chair Sally Bagshaw. “We have to get MOHAI moving on construction.”
Striking at a larger point, City Council Member Tom Rasmussen said, “I am concerned that no one is going to be confident with the city if every time an administration changes, everything is back on the table again. There needs to be confidence in city agreements.”
Mayor Mike McGinn had argued that proceeds from the sale of parkland where MOHAI sits should be retained by the city to help save services amid next year’s budget shortfall. The museum already got $40 million in exchange for the condemnation of the building, where the state must pay for property consumed by the 520 Bridge expansion. McGinn said the museum should get no more.
However, the council passed a law last year authorizing MOHAI to negotiate with the state and collect money for the land, and the mayor’s office oversaw two agreements earlier this year that granted MOHAI proceeds of the building and the land.
Today, the mayor’s office made familiar arguments and dismissed claims that MOHAI would close its doors without the money as a “myth.” But the council also shot down several of the mayor’s claims. For instance, the mayor’s office has said MOHAI’s need for off-site storage and offices were new request, part of a ballooning project. But council president Richard Conlin said, “That has always been part of our discussion here and I am sure that it’s on the record of park meetings.” And last week, senior advisor to the mayor Tim Killian told The Stranger that MOHAI “knew the $40 million was coming” but “they did not reveal it until after they had reached this agreement with us for the land deal.” MOHAI director Leonard Garfield instead told the council today that the museum only learned it would get $40 million for the building in July (the month after the parks department, under McGinn’s watch, signed an agreement saying MOHAI could collect up to $7 million).
In a display of force that showed the council will not only pass this out of committee, but as a full council, seven of the nine council members showed up at the meeting today. Six voted to override the mayor’s proposal (O’Brien abstained) and forward the bill for a final vote on Monday. If passed, MOHAI would get $7 million from sale of the land where it now sits.
Rasmussen takes a dig at McGinn after the jump.
Most acerbic were comments from Rasmussen. “I am concerned about a pattern with this administration,” he said. “I think it is very divisive. It happened with tunnel and State of Washington. The mayor says that if [the state doesn’t] give money to the tunnel, we can give money to refugees and immigrants. It’s a pattern on behalf of the administration to pit the haves against have-nots. To me, this is strike two. It is misleading and it divisive. It is not a strategy that is going work with me and I hope it is not a strategy that works with the rest of the council.”
I know this post is getting really long here, but I want to point out a distinction Rasmussen isn’t making. While I agree with him overall—the city should honor its contracts or risk losing faith from partners in negotiations—MOHAI is different than the tunnel. MOHAI, a cultural institution of doubtless worth to the city but still a private enterprise, benefits from an ordinance passed by the council and followed-up by agreements intended to be codified in law. In contrast, the tunnel project is a deal with the state, a government and not a private entity, and the city has passed no law to build a tunnel. There is no contract for the tunnel. There are only meaningless resolutions predicated on information about the project that we don’t have. The council may have made up its mind, but that’s not a contract. When former Mayor Greg Nickels did agree to the tunnel in a nonbinding agreement in 2008, it was on the condition that the state pay cost overruns—a deal the state broke a few months later. If anything, the state is the one being “misleading and divisive” on that issue.
I am really starting to like Rasmussen!
If this is indeed an unprecedented budget situation in uniquely bad economic times, it doesn’t seem unreasonable for the city to take unprecedented actions to shore up the budget. We don’t want to see the city acting like this in normal economic times, but that’s an issue for then, not now.
It also seems a bit ironic that our ostensibly left-wing mayor seems like a much better budget hawk than those to the right of him — of course, I think that’s because this isn’t a left-vs-right issue, but a establishment-vs-not-yet-establishment issue.
Okay. Give them the money but cut MOHAI out of the city budget. They clearly don’t need our annual subsidies with their windfall and fancy new $20 million staff office building.
But think about this, too, Mr. H:
The gov couldn’t convince the legislature *not to* fuck with the overrun deal, and the mayor couldn’t convince the council *to* fuck with the MOHAI deal.
Limits of executive power.
Congrats to the Sally Bagshaw on this one. The Council’s “REJECT” stamp is a sign that the Mayor’s office needs to clean up its act and start paying attention to its relationship with a strong council super-majority of Bagshaw, Conlin, Burgess, Rasmussen, Clark, and Godden with occasional help from Licata and Harrell. This vote again shows O’Brien to be a weak McGinn clone as he summons only a timid “Abstain” in support of his mayor.
I guess Mayor McGinn thinks they dont need the money at all because theyre not going to move, because he’s personally going to block the construction of the new 520 bridge.
Thems some smart thinking in them thar brains.
We obviously can’t afford the Billionaires Tunnel.
And yet, even though that is many many times LARGER than the MOHAI money, Council refuses to face reality about that one.
It’s good to see we have grown-ups on the 2nd floor babysitting the folks up on 7. Way to go City Council! And way to not vote “no” O’Brien!
MOHAI wins the lottery! $47 million, all of which is paid for by Washington taxpayers. But the idea that we might have some say in how that’s spent is off the table.
Thank you city council for abdicating that responsibility.
If we start questioning secret back room deals by previous mayors and councils nobody will trust our secret backroom deals anymore!
Personally, I want people who are elected and accountable to voters to make decisions about the allocation of public resources to public institutions. In a public process too. Not really the Seattle way though, is it?
I have to say I generally agree with the mayors positions, but this was a bad call.
There is no two ways around, the mayor is wrong, wrong, wrong. I question the ability of someone to be a mayor who doesn’t understand basic contract law and instead relies on emotional scare tactics to try to get his way.
@codswallower, That might have been true, if this was just a grant or simply money that the state was giving to MOHAI just for being MOHAI, but the state is giving this money as compensation for MOHAI losing it’s building and land. MOHAI could have stayed at its Montlake location indefinitely had the State not wanted to widen 520 and needed that land.
Plus, MOHAI built its building with pretty much its own money and donated it to the city… shouldn’t they be allowed to get something back for what they have built there?
Also, isn’t it part of representative politics that we trust those we elected to make some decisions for us? That means “back-room deals.” Perhaps I can leave my job and friends and family and spend my time going to every deal the city council and the mayor’s office makes. Just to make sure my money is being spent (the $0.001 of most deals that is what I put to the pot) wisely.
I’m with McGinn on this one.