This post has been updated with comments from Mayor Mike McGinn’s legal counsel and spokesman.
City attorney Pete Holmes said in a statement this afternoon hat city council president Richard Conlin did not violate the city charter by signing a supplemental draft environmental impact statement on the deep-bore tunnel. (Mayor Mike McGinn, who wanted another week to look at the document, maintains that Conlin violated the city charter by signing the document, because the charter reserves that right for the mayor; Conlin said the city attorney’s office told him it was fine for him to sign.)
Conlin’s signature is OK, Holmes said, because it merely affirms the city’s intent to remain as co-lead on the tunnel replacement project, retaining a seat at the bargaining table with the state department of transportation.
“His signature does not certify that the SDEIS meets the legal standards for a EIS,” Holmes said. “Because Conlin’s signature does not purport to certify the adequacy of the SDEIS, it is not an affront to the executive authority of Mayor Mike McGinn. The signature neither binds the City nor impedes the mayor’s powers.
“Conlin’s signature will have the effect that WSDOT and the City Council want it to have consistent with other laws.”
However, McGinn’s head legal counsel, Carl Marquardt, said tonight that Conlin’s signature line on the SDEIS says he’s signing “on behalf of the city of Seattle,” so he is overstepping his bounds as council president and going beyond expressing the city’s intent to remain as co-lead on the project.
“If you look at the document itself, it says we are issuing an EIS on behalf of the city Department of Transportation and the city of Seattle, and Conlin is signing off on it, so it’s something more than what Pete Holmes is describing,” Marquardt said.
City council viaduct oversight committee chair Sally Bagshaw introduced legislation this morning that would “ratify” Conlin’s signature. The legislation says that given that it is city policy “that the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) continue to act as co-lead” on the project, “the City Council ratifies and confirms Council President Richard Conlin’s signature on the Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement as signifying the City’s intent to remain co-lead.
If the mayor’s office is right, it’s unclear what McGinn can actually do. Marquardt acknowledged that the council didn’t know what action McGinn could potentially take. “It’s not clear to us what the implication of [the ordinance] would be,” Marquardt said. McGinn spokesman Aaron Pickus acknowledged that the mayor could veto the ordinance, but that would have little impact against a united (or nearly united) city council, which could overturn any veto.
“You’re jumping ahead,” Pickus said. “In order to start talking about whether the mayor’s going to veto or not there has to be an ordinance on his desk, and there is not yet.”
