Despite impassioned (and sometimes overheated — sorry, Drew Paxton, but the city council is not “stand[ing] on the wrong side of history” by delaying a potential tunnel referendum for a few weeks) rhetoric from tunnel opponents this afternoon, the council voted unanimously to delay putting a tunnel referendum on a citywide ballot until after a judge has ruled on whether the referendum is legal.
Prior to this afternoon’s vote to delay putting the referendum, which would overturn three agreements between the city and state on the deep-bore tunnel, on the ballot, tunnel opponents argued that the council was obligated to put the measure on the ballot now, not later.
“You are under an obligation, as members of the city council, when a referendum is presented to you with a sufficient number of signatures … to place that measure on the ballot,” Gary Manca, attorney for the anti-tunnel group Protect Seattle Now, told the council. By not putting the measure on the ballot immediately, Manca said, “You are breaking the law.”
Paxton, head of Protect Seattle Now and the local Sierra Club’s political committee, waxed democratic: “No matter what means is used to silence the city’s voting public on an issue, there is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come, and that time is now. … How long will you stand on the wrong side of history?”
O’Brien, who personally collected hundreds of signatures for the referendum, said he wanted to “acknowledge the process that citizens are engaging in now [and] the hard work that a lot of citizens have gone through …. to express their voice and try to have their voices heard.” However, even O’Brien ultimately voted to put the referendum on the back burner until a King County Superior Court judge can rule on the lawsuit. The judge, Justice Laura Middaugh, has agreed to expedite the suit against the referendum, pledging to rule before May 24, the deadline for a tunnel referendum to go on the August ballot. The council’s last meeting before that deadline is May 23.
