Still wishing that The Stranger's lopsided forum on the tunnel was more balanced? I'm with ya. C.R. Douglas, the Seattle Channel's political host, was going to moderate and the pro-tunnel camp was invited. They refused to show up.

But tonight you get your lopsided pro-tunnel counterbalance!

At 7:00 p.m., Seattle Channel will play pro-tunnel interviews with Seattle City Council Member Tom Rasmussen and Ron Paananen, the Washington State Department of Transportation's tunnel project manager, along with clips from the anti-tunnel camp. Before that, our 90-minute tunnel forum runs at 5:00 p.m.

Why did Rasmussen and the state agree to talk about the tunnel when, a couple weeks earlier, they refused? When originally asked to discuss the tunnel at Town Hall, WSDOT officials said they had to skip the tunnel forum "because we are in the middle of a public comment period on the environmental analysis" that runs until December 13. And then they recorded this segment with the Seattle Channel December 2, the day after the tunnel forum—during the period that they, uh, couldn't talk about it. As for Rasmussen, he said he couldn't comment at the forum because he hadn't read the environmental report. But he had boned up on the document (over 1,000 pages in all) between that night and the next day. He's such a fast reader.

Rasmussen hasn't returned calls to comment. And WSDOT project manager for the tunnel, Ron Paananen, sent an email saying, "I am in Olympia right now, but will respond to your question when I return this afternoon."

Even folks who disagree with The Stranger on the tunnel think that the state and council should have shown up. This morning on KUOW, Crosscut's Knute Berger said, "I just think the council should man up and have sent somebody up there or WSDOT should have sent someone up there." Seattle Times editorial board member Joni Balter—and enthusiastic tunnel advocate—said to Eli Sanders on the show, "Your argument that a city council member, and I don't know why they blew you off, or a DOT member should have gone to the event—of course that's true."

Let's not be totally naive here. We know why pro-tunnel folks didn't want to attend the main forum—the mayor was going to be there and Council Member Mike O'Brien would be there. O'Brien, in particular, is an expert on the state's impact report, and he'd be pointing out the tunnel's flaws that the state has no solution for (like most of the viaduct traffic won't use it). Rasmussen and Paananen wanted the final word without giving critics refute their claims—and now the have that chance on TV.