Mayor Mike McGinn said today that he would support a referendum against the proposed Alaskan Way tunnel if the city council doesn’t place several conditions on its agreement with the state for tunnel construction. Specifically, the groups pushing a potential referendum want the agreement to say construction can’t move forward unless the state legislature removes a provision in state law putting “Seattle-area property owners who benefit” from the project on the hook for any cost overruns.
“I think if the public wants a say on whether we should be at risk for cost overruns, they’re entitled to it,” McGinn said this morning. “It’s common and usual in this city to ask the public if they want to vote on big-ticket items, so this is clearly the type of thing the public is used to getting a vote on.” Referendum backers would need 16,503 valid signatures to place a measure on the ballot.
City council members have considered designating the legislation adopting an agreement with the state an “emergency,” which, under city law, would allow them to thwart any potential referendum.
When I asked if he was concerned that the state legislature would take away the $2.4 billion it has pledged to spend on the tunnel if the city delays the project, McGinn pointed out that voters in Seattle overwhelmingly rejected a 2005 proposal by Tim Eyman to overturn the 9.5-cent gas tax adopted by the state legislature that year. At the time, the campaign against repeal centered on the fact that Seattle would lose $2 billion to replace the viaduct if Eyman’s measure passed.
“The people of Seattle voted to retain that gas tax because we got $2 billion,” McGinn said. “I think it would be highly inappropriate for the state to take away that money when it was the citizens of Seattle that voted it in.”
But if Seattle citizens already voted in favor of spending that $2 billion to replace the viaduct in 2005, why should we have another vote now? Didn’t we already say we supported spending state dollars to replace the viaduct?
No, McGinn responded, because “at the time, it was only identified as Alaskan Way Viaduct and seawall replacement; there was no particular option” identified. (Of course, the two primary options at that time were a tunnel and a new viaduct, and McGinn certainly didn’t support a new viaduct. A rebuilt viaduct is no longer on the table.)
The larger issue, McGinn said, is that the state legislature shouldn’t be able to blackmail the city into accepting the tunnel by threatening to withdraw funding.
“When the politicians in Olympia don’t think they’re going to get their way, they start threatening the voters. That’s what they’re doing—they’re threatening us,” McGinn said. “The politicians are supposed to listen to the voters, and if the voters want a say on cost overruns, they should have it. Elected officials shouldn’t threaten to take [funding] away because they’re not getting their preferred alternative.”
