Comments

1
If someone went to city hall to file such a city initiative I wonder how fast people would freak out.
2
So, what you’re saying is that the Mayor should be paying for the maintenance of the parks he pushed through and that we now can't afford maintain?
3
Dominic, your coverage of this issue is the best in the City, period. You should get a Pulitzer on this.
4
Completely unhelpful rhetoric about a serious problem.

Knute Berger? Please.
5
Dominic, your coverage on this issue is the most monomaniac in the City, period. You should get a Razzie for this.

You may return said Razzie when an cartoon image mocking McGinn appears in your column.

And a humble caution aside: Dominic, you may think you made the mayor, and that therefore he should do as you please; but he'll stab you in the back the moment it suits him to do so.
6
@2) What are you talking about? If anyone should be paying for the parks levy personally, it's Richard Conlin. He's the one who pushed it through in 2008 without a maintenance fund like the maintenance fund in the 2000 parks levy. If you want to blame someone other than Conlin--which it sounds like you're grappling to do--perhaps you can take aim at Beth Purcell, who the council (under the leadership of Conlin) named chair of the Parks and Green Spaces Levy Citizens’ Advisory Committee. But that doesn't really make sense, obviously. She not to blame for the council's legislation. Maybe voters who passed the parks levy can accept the measure they approved (unlike the voters who never signed on to a tunnel with an open-ended checkbook). And fortunately for the voters, the costs of paying for a handful of parks is comparatively minuscule. The annual operating costs for the parks are about $160,000; that's nothing compared to the potential 34 percent overruns (which at best is unaccounted for and at worst falls on the city) on the state's $2.8 billion responsibility for the tunnel.
7
Whoa. First a non-snarky link to Nicole Brodeur & now Knute Berger?
8
Dom, when are you going to end the suspense and just tell us where you stand on this whole tunnel thing?

A city awaits.
9
I agree Conlin needs to jump in the shadowboxing fray on this. Maybe he thinks engaging on this will further legitimize the alt-media controversy machine. Maybe he supposes the mayor's behind the focus on him. At this point: so what? Tough titty, as my mama used to say. If he doesn't do it himself or (better yet) get somebody to do it who can play whack-a-mole right back, the fear being whipped up among the public might get past the point where it can be soothed.

Personally, I couldn't care less if the tunnel gets stymied. Surface/transit would be fine by me. I'd be sad if the viaduct crumbled with people on it, but not surprised if everybody bickered right up until that happens. And I'm not worried the overrun thing is enforceable, think it's dumb to throw down on rural legislators over a non-issue, and believe in the long run we can well afford the project no matter what.

What matters to me here isn't infrastructure or mayor-vs-council or omigodwecantaffordit, but whether from here on out, the most skillful fearmonger wins. Public policy decided by cowing the opposition. If public discourse is all gonna be hollow outrage and fingerpointing and page hits and gotcha, I swear to god I'll give up paying attention to local affairs and devote myself to getting Colton whatsisname to gay-marry my nephew from prison.

So seriously, Conlin or somebody needs to hold his nose and join the fray.
10
It's bad enough seizing on a populist BS conceit like suggesting politicians pay for their decisions out of their pockets, but to borrow it from Knute Berger of all people!? What's next? Quoting Joel Connelly with a charge of "social engineering" when it happens to support your side?

Quoting one passage here:
Instead he's playing a game of chicken—another one of his urban farming initiatives, I suspect—with the state. He's betting that when the bill comes, Seattle will be able to go toe-to-toe in court or the legislature and make the state pay the bill. It's a risky gamble.

OK, I'll try not to cringe as I repeat the phrase, but where exactly is the "risky gamble"? It has been well-established from the likes of City Attorney Pete Holmes that the state cannot compel the city to pay for cost overruns. So suppose there are overruns and the city refuses to pay. One risk is that the project just sits there until the state ponies up. Why should we Seattle taxpayers be quaking in our boots over that?

I can see how the state might try to cut corners on other parts of the project it's on the hook for to make up for tunnel overruns, but this is where Nick Licata's "lock-box" legislation has the potential to protect the city.
11
gloomy gus @9:
What matters to me here isn't infrastructure or mayor-vs-council or omigodwecantaffordit, but whether from here on out, the most skillful fearmonger wins. Public policy decided by cowing the opposition. If public discourse is all gonna be hollow outrage and fingerpointing and page hits and gotcha, I swear to god I'll give up paying attention to local affairs and devote myself to getting Colton whatsisname to gay-marry my nephew from prison.

So seriously, Conlin or somebody needs to hold his nose and join the fray.

Well-stated, gloomy gus. Listen, I'll put my contempt and disdain for Richard Conlin up against any other Seattle voter's contempt and disdain for Richard Conlin. Richard Conlin would be my first nominee for the "Slimiest Seattle Politician Award." But at this particular stage of this particular debate, complaining about Conlin is like complaining about the weather (if we actually had weather worth complaining about).

The question is, are we serious about protecting Seattle taxpayers from the side effects of cost overruns, like Nick Licata's bill might do? Or are we just using the specter of cost overruns as a convenient smokescreen for our real agenda, which is to kill the tunnel project?

It's obvious here that Dominic is up to the latter, and it's sad to see him use the same fearmongering and rhetorical kicks in the shins that get used by our foes when the infrastructure project in question happens to be a mass transit project. It's sad to see the alleged good guys stoop to the level of the Richard Conlins and Knute Bergers of the world when we think doing so supports a green agenda.

And frankly, I don't believe that subjecting this tunnel project to death by a thousand needles even does advance a green agenda.
12
Let's do an initiative.

That would be fun!
13
It has been well-established from the likes of City Attorney Pete Holmes that the state cannot compel the city to pay for cost overruns.


Thank goodness Pete Holmes says we're OK on the issue.
14
Surface Transit was so ECB.

It's a terrible idea. I like walking downtown. I like visiting the stores there. I don't want to wade through a sea of cars and trucks all backed up waiting to turn left.

Is it possible to be for the tunnel and also for Mayor McGetNothingDone on the cost-overrun issue?

And what's with the State Leg? I don't want to fund some po-dunk road in the middle of shit-kickerville, but I gladly pay because I know the road will improve the State's economy.

Most of the money for the tunnel will come from Seattle-Area residents one way or another.
15
It's childish and distracting to talk about making a politician pay for cost overruns just because you don't like that politician.

But if you want to talk about killing the tunnel project — or more precisely, taking the tunnel off life support and letting it die of natural causes — then you're talking about something.

This project does not pencil out. The numbers are phony and the only way it will get built is to build up enough momentum to make it seem like fait accompli -- because it will cost far more than we're even discussing here. Even the supposed cap on how much the state will pay is a sham. Olympia will lift the cap once it becomes politically impossible not to. When that hole is half dug and billions in emergency dollars are needed to finish digging it, the state will pay more and more and more, as will the city of Seattle. By then everyone will say we have no choice.

And if we can bring all that to light now, and thus let it die due to inherent non-viability, then it frees up a billion dollars of Seattle's money to build transit. Not to mention what the state could do with their share. But be serious when you talk about it; enough of this silly personal attack and hyperbole.
16
@15 - you're new to politics in Washington State, aren't you?

Please wait...

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