Deep-Bore Tunnel Cost Overrun is all Seattle’s, Says Sen. Kastama

by Michael van Baker on October 22, 2009

Seattlepi.com tipped me to news from the Dave Ross Show that at least one state lawmaker, Sen. Jim Kastama (D-Puyallup), doesn’t think Seattle will wriggle out of deep-bore tunnel cost overruns.

It’s a measure of how worried everyone is about the hot-potato tunnel project that no one wants to admit responsibility for its cost. In the face of a study that shows typical cost overruns at 30 percent or more, Seattle tunnel boosters have been downplaying the possibility that Seattle might be, legally, on the hook.

Rep. Judy Clibborn told Ross today the cost overrun requirement wasn’t a legal amendment, according to the state attorney general. “…[T]hat would seem to be trying to trick people into thinking that they’re protected when they’re not,” responded a bemused Ross. “It was a way to get three more votes and to get the tunnel bill passed,” explained Clibborn. “[...] We did whatever it took to get it.”

Ross spoke next with Sen. Kastama, who said that while he had been unaware that the amendment wasn’t legal, it didn’t make much difference to him, practically speaking. He assured Ross that the Senate Transportation Committee had already committed all it was going to to the project.

Knowing that transportation funds would be trending lower–along with gas tax revenues–Kastama said they “saw the need to cut significant funds in the transportation budget.” But while the state cut almost every other transportation project in the face of our $9 billion deficit, it did not cut the original $2.4 billion allocated for the Viaduct’s replacement.

The cost overrun amendment was a response to there being no money to pay for real projects across the state, let alone cost overruns on a single one. (For context, 30 percent of $1.9 billion for the deep-bore tunnel alone is $570 million, or a new total of $2.5 billion.)

And Sen. Kastama told Ross that he will “insist that Seattle come up with a way to pay” for any overruns. “Clearly, we could hold up the transportation budget and there’d be no transportation budget that would go forward…,” Kastama said.

Seattle voters are generally away that mayoral candidate Mike McGinn is skeptical about the need for the deep-bore tunnel. The Seattle Times reports that his opponent Joe Mallahan wants to build the tunnel even if Seattle has to shoulder substantial extra cost: “Sometimes a leader has to stand up and say, ‘Hey, it’s time to move forward.’”

Filed under Politics
  • bilco

    From the SeattlePI.com transcript:

    Kastama: “No, what I will do is this, is I will insist that Seattle comes up with a method to actually pay for it. As for the legality of that, I’m not willing to rule on that.”

    So this one lawmaker says, regardless of the legality, he’s going to ‘insist’ on Seattle paying for it. A nation of laws, not of men, anyone?

    Move along folks, nothing to see here.

  • Michael van Baker

    Hey, he’s on the Senate Transportation Committee, bilco. It’s not like he doesn’t have influence on who pays for what. His point is that even if the amendment is toothless legally, the state can still refuse to pay for overruns. If it comes to that, Seattle will be over a large deep-bore barrel.

    What I think is perhaps more important, and what he and Judy Clibborn agree on, is that the bill would not have passed without the “Seattle pays” provision to signal the state’s intent. So that’s a fundamental disconnect in government. Neither the majority of the Legislature nor of Seattle citizens agreed to that blank check.