The Seattle City Council is trying to stop voters from, well, voting.
Mind you, they’re fine with you voting for them. After all, five council members are seeking reelection this August in the primary election. But what they don’t want you to do is vote—on that same ballot on which their names will appear—on whether the city should approve or reject state contracts to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct with a deep-bore tunnel.
The anti-tunnel campaign, Protect Seattle Now, contends that the public should vote. On March 29, the group submitted 28,929 signatures for a referendum that would place the proposed deep-bore tunnel on the ballot—12,426 more signatures than required. Meanwhile, anti-tunnel Initiative 101 is on the brink of submitting enough signatures to make the ballot, too. Proponents point out that the tunnel will cost at least $4.2 billion (including $930 million from Seattle), risks cost overruns, and, state studies show, would divert nearly two-thirds of viaduct traffic onto city streets.
But after working with the council over the past couple of weeks, City Attorney Pete Holmes filed a complaint in King County Superior Court on March 29 to keep the referendum off the ballot. “I declare that proposed R-1 may not be placed on the ballot because it is beyond the scope of local referendum power,” Holmes wrote.
At issue: a tunnel ordinance passed by the council on February 28 that authorized three agreements with the state pertaining to rights-of-way and utility relocations for the tunnel project. The referendum and initiative could nix those agreements. However, Holmes argues that ordinance is exempt from a citizen vote; he and the council contend it is an “administrative act,” not subject to a vote, because the ordinance follows through on resolutions and ordinances the council approved in 2009 and 2010. That may or may not hold water before a judge—the city charter says “any ordinance” is subject to referendum.
Whether or not Holmes can win, his willingness to oppose a public vote appears to stand at odds with his 2009 campaign rhetoric that vowed to put the public interest ahead of the political agendas of elected officials.
“It’s time for a City Attorney who insists that our elected officials’ priorities match our own,” his campaign website says. “Too often the interests of the people take a backseat in the City Attorney’s Office.”
And Holmes said in a campaign ad: “I’ll put the people of Seattle first as your city attorney.”
So what do the “people of Seattle” want in all of this?
The opposite of what Holmes wants to give them: a vote on the issue. Elway Research, a local polling firm, reported on March 28 that 55 percent of Seattle voters say we should vote on the tunnel, while only 40 percent say we shouldn’t (the poll also found that none of the options for replacing the viaduct—tunnel, new viaduct, or improving surface streets—has majority support).
Nevertheless, most members of the council have attempted to stop the voters from having their say. A couple of weeks ago, council president Richard Conlin circulated a document among his colleagues that considered ways to kill the initiative and referendum. One of the options: “Council could file the petitions and take no action on them,” thereby requiring proponents to assert their rights in court. This position has been no secret. Every council member except Mike O’Brien voted against a resolution on February 28 that would have let voters weigh in on the project.
Legal questions aside, a vote could come with a cost to the state. “If the agreements do not go into effect next week or are delayed for any reason from here forward,” state transportation secretary Paula Hammond wrote on March 28 in a letter to transportation leaders in the state legislature, “we estimate the cost impact to the project would be up to $54 million, and the schedule to open the tunnel would be delayed four months.”
A delay may be inevitable. As The Stranger went to press, a court schedule announced that a trial on the referendum is set for September 2012; Holmes’s office did not respond to questions before press time asking what happens to the tunnel ordinance—whether it remains intact or on hold—in the interim. 
Regardless of its ultimate replacement*, folks seemed pretty eager to toss the Deep Bore Tunnel into the dustbin of pollution history. 1,000 signatures a day in a cold and rainy month in generally apathetic Seattle? Pretty awesome.
*the removal of the viaduct for both plans looks like traffic management and closure in year one, demolition in year two. A couple of years to ditch the viaduct and prepare seems more than long enough to find a solution guided by science and real-world need. 🙂
Seattle is inept at the ballot box on transportation, transit and infrastructure issues.
The tunnel will be one of then biggest fiascos ever perpetrated on Seattle citizens. Boring a 54 foot wide hole through old town Seattle with it’s old brick buildings, shaky foundations, and after many core ground samples an unknown slurry . remember the Brightwater and the light rail cave ins– Not to mention all the commuter street traffic forever! Who’s idea, was this WSDOT, Xmayor Nickels?? The bigger Boston “big dig” tunnel finally ended up costing 30 billion What will this one cost!
Lenny Larson, No. Beacon Hill
Pete Holmes is a . . . .mofo!
I’m a supporter of the “don’t build anything and improve capacity” solution, but I’m not sure a public referendum is going to solve anything. The problem is that there isn’t a single solution that has a majority backing. If put to a vote, the tunnel option will fail. However, if put to a vote, so would the “improve capacity” option and the rebuild the viaduct option. No vote can possibly win. That’s why all this, “Let the people decide” rhetoric is a little puzzling. How do we move forward if the people can’t really decide? If we rely on a public referendum, this is a no win situation and we could find ourselves getting something much worse crammed down our throats by the state – namely another viaduct.
http://publicola.com/2011/04/01/holmes-m…
RE: Possible Seattle vote on the viaduct/tunnel project, etc.
Can citizens vote in this manner and actually stop a project which has been started..?
Listening to the governor and others talk today(Friday)–it strikes me that economic motives are still the primary driver here, just as, of course, an economic myopia of some sort produced the original viaduct itself! (But now we should, or we do know better…)
Governor Gregoire may be technically correct in insisting that 99 is a state road which will be primarily paid for by state monies, but I suggest that in this she is also substantially incorrect… Just as no self-respecting small town would allow the surrounding region to control its main street even after such has become a thoroughfare, so highway 99 functions today primarily as a local road, certainly not as a thoroughfare.
For example, Highway 99 may give regional access into and out of the city on the north and on the south, but such traffic should not need to go through the downtown. For travel from south region to north city, for example, I-5 is appropriate.
Or else is 99 primarily to serve local work-commuters who use it to schuss through the downtown just to get to the other side of the city? Or is it for West Seattle commuters… even without downtown access?
Also, doesn’t most port traffic go first to adjacent warehouses, and then out of the region (or reverse)–and if so, so why should there be significant port traffic north-south along the city waterfront? Or, if businesses from the south-industrial region need to deliver locally towards the north, maybe improved access points from I-5, such as at Mercer… this is what is most necessary.
If (hypothetically) certain outside and regional entities were to wish to spend money in order to beautify portions of Aurora Avenue North, the local communities there probably would not complain. (Is not the haphazard north-Aurora development itself, after all, a historic result of 99 and the viaduct, and largely unanticipated?) So to insist that a presently existing downtown waterfront arterial must be maintained, period, just because it is busy… strikes me as similarly un-planned.
It further seems clear to me that state’s interests in the larger design dimensions (at least) of this project must be distant. The governor was (and many Seattle-ites presently still are) strongly in favor of a replacement viaduct… as complete solution! The economic arguments only– these must have predominant weight for such individuals.
But the entity which cares most, ultimately, about 99’s business and aesthetic potential is certainly not the state, (though they receive revenues from thriving businesses) but this municipality itself, Seattle, and thus it remains entirely appropriate (it seems to me) that local interests should have the controlling input here–at least regarding one very short downtown stretch of 99. If the state at large is ready with some funding but the local entity hasn’t done adequate thinking, then that is a local shortcoming…
While I don’t have a simple alternative to offer, it does seem to me that the massive planning here still remains cosmetic (i.e., inadequately integrated as design within large-City-planning) as well as being something of a “quick fix” to the status quo (rather than an attempt at least at a transportation fix which might effectively work better with traffic flows twenty years from now…)
Paul Kragt (Queen Anne)
RE: Possible Seattle vote on the viaduct/tunnel project, etc.
Can citizens vote in this manner and actually stop a project which has been started..?
Listening to the governor and others talk today(Friday)–it strikes me that economic motives are still the primary driver here, just as, of course, an economic myopia of some sort produced the original viaduct itself! (But now we should, or we do know better…)
Governor Gregoire may be technically correct in insisting that 99 is a state road which will be primarily paid for by state monies, but I suggest that in this she is also substantially incorrect… Just as no self-respecting small town would allow the surrounding region to control its main street even after such has become a thoroughfare, so highway 99 functions today primarily as a local road, certainly not as a thoroughfare.
For example, Highway 99 may give regional access into and out of the city on the north and on the south, but such traffic should not need to go through the downtown. For travel from south region to north city, for example, I-5 is appropriate.
Or else is 99 primarily to serve local work-commuters who use it to schuss through the downtown just to get to the other side of the city? Or is it for West Seattle commuters… even without downtown access?
Also, doesn’t most port traffic go first to adjacent warehouses, and then out of the region (or reverse)–and if so, so why should there be significant port traffic north-south along the city waterfront? Or, if businesses from the south-industrial region need to deliver locally towards the north, maybe improved access points from I-5, such as at Mercer… this is what is most necessary.
If (hypothetically) certain outside and regional entities were to wish to spend money in order to beautify portions of Aurora Avenue North, the local communities there probably would not complain. (Is not the haphazard north-Aurora development itself, after all, a historic result of 99 and the viaduct, and largely unanticipated?) So to insist that a presently existing downtown waterfront arterial must be maintained, period, just because it is busy… strikes me as similarly un-planned.
It further seems clear to me that state’s interests in the larger design dimensions (at least) of this project must be distant. The governor was (and many Seattle-ites presently still are) strongly in favor of a replacement viaduct… as complete solution! The economic arguments only– these must have predominant weight for such individuals.
But the entity which cares most, ultimately, about 99’s business and aesthetic potential is certainly not the state, (though they receive revenues from thriving businesses) but this municipality itself, Seattle, and thus it remains entirely appropriate (it seems to me) that local interests should have the controlling input here–at least regarding one very short downtown stretch of 99. If the state at large is ready with some funding but the local entity hasn’t done adequate thinking, then that is a local shortcoming…
While I don’t have a simple alternative to offer, it does seem to me that the massive planning here still remains cosmetic (i.e., inadequately integrated as design within large-City-planning) as well as being something of a “quick fix” to the status quo (rather than an attempt at least at a transportation fix which might effectively work better with traffic flows twenty years from now…)
Paul Kragt (Queen Anne)
Sounds like Seattle needs some newly elected City
Council members. Hope the current batch of idiots find themselves out of work.
And yes, the motivation for the tunnel is economic. From a transportation and technical perspective it makes no sense. If the voters in Seattle don’t take a stand to shut this thing down or obstruct it into oblivion it will steamroll forward.
At that point the public will find that the budget is a pile of trumped up BS and the (already known) costs are much greater than they are being told. But sadly it will be too late to stop because it will cost too much to stop the project (they are already making this claim). Yes, your governor and her pals are setting you up for this scenario. Work hard to kill this thing.
Let me explain this slowly … the public should never – EVER – under any circumstances – be allowed to vote on something as complicated as whether to build the DBT, or whether to rebuild the viaduct, or whether to go with the surface-only option … the public is mostly (in fact, I’d guess 90+%) ignorant about the technical merits of this issue. That’s why we elect people whom we rely upon to make informed decisions. And I know that’s going to piss off all you anti-DBT folks here, who are, I’m guessing, less concerned with what is good policy, and more concerned with advancing a particular agenda (or two). Still, deal with it. Truth hurts, but its still the truth.
Yes, I support the DBT (notwithstanding the hatchet job done in last week’s Stranger, which while raising some legitimate concerns, still also gave short-shrift to the good reasons to build the tunnel). So yes, (pissing many of you off more), I also support the grown-ups’ effort (City Attorney lawsuit) to thwart the initiative. Thank god the adults (Governor Gregoire, Executive Constantine, 8/9 Councilpersons and so on) are getting on with this, in spite of Mayor McGinn’s childish – and disingenuous – opposition. I respect people who oppose the DBT consistently – we can agree to disagree. I don’t respect McGinn’s dishonest approach to this difficult issue; speaking of voting or such, where’s the recall petition? I’ll sign; maybe even twice.
Seriously, all we need to do is look at San Francisco and the Embarcadero. It is a great model to follow. If it worked so well for them, something similar should turn out well for us. This all seems very straightforward to me.
At this rate, the only thing that would get people to move in this city is an earthquake.
Pathetic.
Oh, and until those signatures are verified, I wouldn’t go counting your eggs.
“his willingness to oppose a public vote appears to stand at odds with his 2009 campaign rhetoric that vowed to put the public interest ahead of the political agendas of elected officials.”
Depends on WHOSE public interest and WHICH political agendas you agree with, I suppose.
The public interest of those who agree, support and would benefit from the Alaska Way tunnel WOULD be supported while the political agenda of the mayor, an elected official you might have noticed, would not.
Your argument is nothing but a strawman.
@16: The heart of the Port of Seattle and industrial tenants is also south of downtown. What traffic is there on the Viaduct? Tourists going to the waterfront and the stadiums and residents going to Fremont and Wallingford. Industrial traffic is already at street level.
Who needs a tunnel to bypass downtown? Who needs a new viaduct north of Sodo?
Build a new Viaduct from Safeco Field southward. Improve access to I-5 and traffic flow on the surface by grade-separating the railroad crossings (you can wait 10 minutes or more at a crossing when they’re doing a switching operation or you drive all the way to the Edgar Martinez Dr. overpass and cross there). In fact all the surface streets in the industrial area between I-5 and WA-99 and Safeco Field and the West Seattle Bridge are terrible, with lousy maintenance and poor planning throughout the grid.
As far as traffic from West Seattle to downtown and beyond, wouldn’t an improved Sodo street network with a new Viaduct to Safeco Field suffice? I live in West Seattle and while being able to bypass I-5 traffic if I ever want to go to the Woodland Park Zoo would be nice it’s not essential.
We have got to be the dumbest city on the planet. We would screw up a wet dream.