Mayor McGinn Denounces Conlin's SDEIS Signature, WSDOT "Pressure"

Council President Richard Conlin

Yesterday at 5:38 p.m. I got an email from the City Council announcing that "Seattle City Council President confirms next phase in Alaskan Way Viaduct environmental review,"and that Council President had signed the supplemental draft environmental impact statement (SDEIS) so the city could "remain as co-lead on the [...] project."

The problem with this "git-r-done" mentality is that it doesn't follow the established process and contravenes the city charter. The official signatory for the SDEIS would be Peter Hahn, the chief of Seattle's Department of Transportation. And Hahn reports to Mayor McGinn, who had told him not to sign yet--not the Council. The City Council has no authority in the matter, an upset Mayor McGinn told The Stranger last night.

The City Council's predictably defensive email goes on to explain that the deadline for signing was yesterday, and nothing was happening:

The Director of Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) had a scheduled appointment with the state to complete this task. This date has been known to all parties since early July. Yesterday, the Mayor requested more time to review the SDEIS.

It may sound like the deep-bore tunnel SDEIS has been sitting around since July, but as Publicola reports, the city was given just a few days to review it and hand back:

Hahn says McGinn’s office just got the SDEIS, a “three- to four-inch thick binder,” on Monday, giving the mayor insufficient time to review the document.

Mayor Mike McGinn

At a 10 a.m. press conference this morning, Mayor McGinn explained that he believed that WSDOT's Ron Judd had given him an extra week to review the SDEIS, as he's currently neck-deep in budget deficit reduction in preparation for the two budget speeches (one in southeast Seattle, one in Council chambers) next week. Hahn told Publicola that Judd had then reversed himself and demanded a sign-off by 4 p.m. yesterday.

With no one else around willing to do the deed, Conlin summoned up the spirit of Al Haig and took up the pen. This morning, Mayor McGinn declared that signature invalid, and that since the deadline had been missed without an agreed-upon extension, Seattle was no longer, legally, co-lead in the Viaduct replacement project. Of course, he added (and I paraphrase), it's not like it felt like we were co-leads to begin with; WSDOT was always driving the project.

McGinn called upon Conlin to rescind his signature today, and for Governor Gregoire to recognize that Conlin's signature was inappropriate. He wanted to make it clear that no legal action is being threatened, but that Conlin's action was simply not legal and cannot stand, based upon what he's heard from his own legal adviser Carl Marquardt and from what he says was an equally surprised City Attorney, Pete Holmes.

What this means for the project's progress seems to be exactly nothing--but it does shake your (none-too-firm) faith in city government when elected officials manufacture end-runs around the city charter, and claim that they only disregarded the law because they wanted to keep a project on schedule. As Mayor McGinn noted, environmental impact statements get challenged more often than not, and frequently on substantive grounds, as WSDOT well knows.