The job of council president is a largely ceremonial role for which even newcomers to the council are basically qualified. (Job requirements: making committee assignments; delegating legislation; cutting ribbons with giant scissors.) Filling it, then, is mostly a matter of politics. A few weeks ago, council members Peter Steinbrueck and Jan Drago (the former and current council presidents, respectively) recruited Jean Godden to run for the position; but no sooner had the former newspaper columnist entered the fray than council vet Richard Conlin said that he, too, was interested, pitching former Godden supporters Steinbrueck and Tom Rasmussen into the transportation chairman's camp. The pair's support, which became official last Friday, gave Conlin six (and thus nine, since such decisions are generally made by consensus) votes. Sitting in his anteroom—which featured a lovely (and plush) new carpet—Friday, Conlin said he hoped the council would be "more engaged and assertive" during his tenure than under his frequent adversary Drago's watch.

Conlin's victory clears the decks for Drago to chair the (ever more important) transportation committee, which Conlin has headed for the past four years. This week, the outgoing council president—along with her sidekick, Vice-Transportation-Chair-in-waiting Godden, plus Steinbrueck, David Della, and a staffer for Nick Licata—will venture south to San Francisco, where city planners will give them a primer on the elevated Embarcadero freeway, which was torn down and replaced with a surface street. Advocates for the so-called "no-replacement" viaduct option were encouraged by the trip, an impression Steinbrueck was doing nothing to discourage. Given that the state has only come up with $2 billion for the $4 billion-plus tunnel option, Steinbrueck says, "the fact that four council members are going down to look at a no-replacement option, rather than a tunnel, is significant."

Even as council members were packing their bags, however, a mysterious fourth viaduct option—a four-lane deep-bore tunnel under and across downtown—was making its way around council offices, although no one, including the waterfront business owners who allegedly came up with the proposal, was stepping up to claim responsibility. The new plan, which would bypass shaky waterfront soils and save downtown businesses from construction chaos, could cost significantly less than the waterfront cut-and-cover tunnel supported by the mayor. The catch? It would have to cross the Burlington Northern San Francisco railroad, which tunnels through downtown south of Pike Place Market.

Last week, in a column about the race for council president, P-I pedant Joel Connelly assailed former council president Steinbrueck, erroneously charging that, as head of the council, he waited too long before expressing support for troops in Iraq (something that happened under Drago's watch); linking him (falsely) to the 2003 Strippergate scandal; and accusing him of feuding "noisily but ineffectually with Mayor Greg Nickels" on issues like the Northgate neighborhood plan (which Steinbrueck actually helped improve). In an as-yet-unpublished letter, Licata defended Steinbrueck and compared Connelly to "old Joe Stalin," who "eliminat[ed] those who had irritated him from group photos, so they could conveniently disappear from history."