UPDATE: We’ve received word here at the SV from the Mayor’s office that they strongly disagree with the commentary below- and have asked that changes be made. We offered to post their email in full, and they agreed. So here it is.:
I just read your post http://www.sableverity.com/time-for-another-episode-of/ and would like you to correct two spots. You write “Just like he has always fought the waterfront tunnel–which he is still fighting, by the way–he will fight light rail on I-90. “
The mayor supports light rail on I-90 and on 520. It is inaccurate to write that “he will fight light rail on I-90.”
It is also inaccurate to write that the mayor is “still fighting” the waterfront tunnel. The mayor is fighting to protect Seattle residents from being on the hook for all cost overruns, as both state law and legislative intent currently stands. He respects the Council’s 9-0 vote to go ahead with the tunnel, though he thinks the tunnel is a bad choice for our city.
Could you please make these two corrections?
Thanks,
Aaron Pickus
Communications Staff
Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn
ORIGINAL POST
Well, another week has gone by; you know what that means… another town hall has been proposed by Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn.
This time Hizzoner wants us all to come together and Kumbaya over lightrail and the 520 bridge.
What’s that you say? We’ve already handled this regional transit issue?
Newsflash…we haven’t made any decisions if we haven’t made them the “McGinn way.”
McGinn fluffed up his chest feathers in a letter to Microsoft head Steve Balmer, inviting him to join in on a town hall with Microsoft employees.
Nevermind the voters approved putting light rail to the Eastside on I-90. No, no, the Mayor wants it on 520.
A classic case of the newbie throwing his power where it doesn’t belong. We have already debated, deconstructed, and most importantly decided the plan for light rail over Lake Washington.
It took ten years of meetings, forums, planning sessions and political wheeling and dealing just to get where we are now.
Now the City Council plans to study “redesign and operational changes”. I hope that doesn’t really mean they just want to rehash this and not make a decision that moves us closer to actual construction.
Newsflash: sometimes you have to make a decision and stick with it. Ten years is long enough.
Back to McGinn and his town hall.
It is a given that folks who want light rail on 520 or don’t want it on I-90 will be in the room, and they will be vocal-just like opponents of the tunnel replacement of the Alaskan Way Viaduct. The Mayor is counting on it.
Just like he has always fought the waterfront tunnel–which he is still fighting, by the way–he will fight light rail on I-90. Because he wants it on 520.
Will the mayor get what he wants? Will City Council get distracted by his rhetoric and push for a do-over? Will Balmer face off with McGinn in prime time?
Join me next week, same batty time, same batty channel, for another episode of …As Seattle City Hall Turns.
It never ceases to amaze me how anyone with no ideas of their own gets elected. Someone's pulling his strings on light rail on 520–oh yeah, that's your point. McGinn even had prior direction against the Alaskan Way tunnel idea (from Hell) because Seattle already voted NO on that or replacement of the viaduct– which leaves REPAIR. Otherwise it's about other people submitting ideas, and how well they are rated by other people….which isn't exactly leadership as I ever understood it.
Sounds like the Mayor's office has a HUGE problem with the word "fighting." Maybe its a Seattle thing.
Maybe if you used postponing, sabotaging, punting, studying, delaying, double-talking, misleading, or bloviating, it would be both factually accurate and more pleasing to the Mayor's office.