King County Council Member Larry Phillips sent a letter to Governor Chris Gregoire yesterday saying that his participation in a committee to monitor the deep-bore tunnel project was contingent on the county being exempt from paying any overruns.
As I mentioned a few minutes ago, today is the first meeting of the boringly-named-but-controversial Alaskan Way Viaduct Program Oversight Committee (AWVPOC) that pulls together elected leaders from around the state to monitor the deep-bore tunnel project. The elephant in the room is a question of who will pay for expenses that exceed the tunnel budget. The state passed a law to say it won’t. Now Phillips, chair of the county’s transportation committee, is taking the same position:
My participation in the AWVPOC is conditional on King County being held harmless by the state of Washington and any other participating jurisdiction for any cost overruns associated with the Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement project for which King County is not directly responsible as a contracting entity.
In his letter (.pdf), Phillips also notes that the state has hampered the county’s revenue to help pay for transportation improvements:
The transit improvements part of the agreement was premised on enactment of new state legislation to fund the improvements through a .1 % countywide Motor Vehicle Excise Tax (MVET) to be authorized by the state and enacted by King County. Unfortunately, the legislature did not enact this funding source
So for the record, the state has passed legislation to avoid paying cost overruns. The county council’s transportation leader says the county shouldn’t pay cost overruns. The Seattle City Council is, what, fine with cost overruns? Opposed to paying them? Let’s put it in writing.
If kindergarten taught me nothing, it’s this:
When everyone else but you shouts “NOT IT!”, you’re IT, even if you didn’t publicly acknowledge as much.
@1, when you get called “IT” that way you just don’t play. Because they can’t make you. And they can’t beat you up and steal your lunch money, because they have no power at all to do that.
So you quit crying and get on the swingset.
At least, that’s how we kicked it at Northwest Montessori.
ALSO if paying the remotest bit of attention to ANY public works project in the last EVER taught me nothing else, it’s this:
1) Every project is underestimated, because making real estimates is hard, and if you’re honest and come back with a number that’s too high, you can’t get approval to do it. Once the project is half done, you can revise, and ask for whatever overages you want, and no one has the leverage to say “no” anymore. (are we really going to STOP building a tunnel when the hole is already dug?)
2) Every vendor without a no-bid contract got theirs by underbidding, hoping to make up the difference with overage clauses. A pretty safe bet, given #1.
@2, Sure, but in this case if we start building a tunnel, we’re definitely playing the game. Which is the point of this post – this is the only time we’ll have in the process where we have any kind of choice whatsoever.
@4, but we’re not going to be building it. We’re going to be over on the swingset, relocating utilities and fixing the seawall, stuff we wanted to do anyway.
@gloomy gus–do you honestly think we’re going to get out of the tunnel being built?
@6, this is about that odd deal with which legislators bought hick votes to get at least one bill passed, by pretending they could make Seattle property owners pay for cost overruns. We’re going to get out of having to pay for overruns; nobody serious is more than pretending to worry (and mislead busy voters into worrying) about that.
But to your comment, truly the real goal has always been only to get out of the tunnel being built. Sadly, by faking a primary interest in the cost overruns, our newly elected mayor’s made it especially unlikely that, once he does finally quit beating this dead horse, we could ever gain enough legitimate high ground to seize control over what sort of state highway should go in here.
Got $10,000?
Cause that’s what you’re going to pay – per household – if you live in Seattle.
Rent or own – the tax will come out of your hide for the cost overruns.
And if they get their way, you won’t even be allowed – which is illegal – to vote on it.
Unfortunately I think that tunnel proponents have allowed their enthusiasm for the project to overwhelm any sense of fiscal prudence. Has there ever been another large public works project conducted in this manner, with no party acknowledging responsibility to pay for cost over-runs? Generally municipal projects are the ultimate responsibility of municipalities and state projects the ultimate responsibility of the state government. In this case we have a state project in which the state has capped their financial contribution in advance. The Seattle city council, with the exception of O’Brien has taken the very odd stance of being unconcerned about having to pay for cost overruns on the tunnel should the state refuse to lift this cap. They say openly that they take this stance because they want construction on the tunnel to continue, which is a bit like someone saying that they don’t want to balance your checkbook because it would interfere with them buying so many things (that they can’t afford). The point of fiscal prudence is to do it BEFORE making major expenditures so as to manage risk.
* “balance their checkbook” I mean
The sky might fall.
90% of these projects go over budget. McGinn doesn’t want the city to pay for the overage. Gregoire doesn’t want the state to pay for it. Philips now says the county won’t pay for it.
Clearly, the solution is to ask the feds for money. 😛
They will extend the toll for more years, as many as it takes.
during the 2009 city campaign, Senator Katsama, D-Puyallup, spoke in defense of the deep bore and had this formulation: if deep bore costs were higher than expected, the state transportation budget would be adjusted in Olympia to reduce other King County projects to cover the difference. of course, that assumes that the state is not so tax adverse that there are other projects to cut.
note that the language of the deep bore legislation is ambiguous; it calls for the property owners in the Seattle area who benefit from the deep bore to pay for the difference. there are two groups of property owners who will benefit: those who take or benefit from bypass trips through downtown Seattle and those who own land next to the current AWV that will have more value after it is demolished. the first group is widely spread out in a three-county area; the second group is concentrated within a few blocks. hard to capture.
it is very good that Councilmember Phillips made the point about the one percent MVET; that is why Executive Sims was excited about the agreement. the agreement has already been broken.
Phillips is raising a straw man that doesn’t even exist. No lawyer for anyone has suggested the county pay. I think the governor will just say fine, you don’t want to be on the committee to make some stupid point, fine, see ya, thanks for the input.
I think he just wants the attention…