I am absolutely ecstatic. Democracy wins.
I have been paying for this ponzi scheme for over five years in every way imaginable. Property tax, sales tax, every tax, and guess what? It wouldn't have come within 10 miles of where I live. I hope the taxpayers get a refund. I can't tell you how pleased I am. What a joke.
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Sound Transit suffers possibly fatal blow
By Seattle Times staff
DEAN RUTZ / THE SEATTLE TIMES
Both sides in the light-rail debate came to Tukwila last night for the City Council discussion and vote.
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The Tukwila City Council last night delivered a potentially fatal blow to Sound Transit's embattled light-rail project.
By a 5-2 vote, the council rejected an agreement with the regional-transit agency on the proposed light-rail route through the city.
"It's time to stop this runaway train," Councilman David Fenton said.
The Federal Transit Administration has asked Sound Transit to conclude the deal with Tukwila before it applies for badly needed federal money for the proposed $2.1 billion, 14-mile line from downtown Seattle to South 154th Street in Tukwila.
Metropolitan King County Councilwoman Julia Patterson, D-SeaTac, a Sound Transit board member, said the agency will submit the application anyway. But she also said the defeat could delay the project, drive up its cost and perhaps even kill it if federal funds are denied.
All seven council members expressed dissatisfaction with Sound Transit's decision to bypass the Southcenter area, Tukwila's commercial and employment core. Sound Transit's proposed "freeway" route through the city instead follows the east side of Interstate 5 and the north side of Highway 518.
"It just seems like a waste of money to spend it on a route like that," Councilman Jim Haggerton said.
But the two council members who voted for the agreement said that, in rejecting it, the city was reneging on a deal it made two years ago. They said Tukwila, population 17,000, had agreed to support the freeway route in return for Sound Transit's decision to drop a proposed route down Highway 99, which the city opposed.
Their arguments echoed those of Patterson. "This vote tonight is a matter of honor," she told the council. "It is a matter of keeping your word." She called the council's decision "a breach of faith."
Patterson cited a 2001 e-mail in which Tukwila Mayor Steve Mullet told Sound Transit the freeway route had the council's unanimous support.
The rejected agreement would have provided an outline for Sound Transit and Tukwila to follow as the transit agency seeks city permits for the light-rail line. Sound Transit negotiated it with Mullet and his staff; the Sound Transit board approved it last month.
But council members raised concerns when first presented with the deal three weeks ago, taking the city's administration and Sound Transit by surprise.
The issue put the small-town council in the regional spotlight and under pressure many clearly didn't welcome.
"I've run out of paper printing out e-mails," Councilwoman Joan Hernandez said.
More than 100 people from throughout the region crowded council chambers last night. Council members listened to more than an hour of public testimony from speakers from as far away as Shoreline and Redmond.
DEAN RUTZ / THE SEATTLE TIMES
Tukwila Mayor Steve Mullet jokingly tells council members last night that they need to read all the literature being handed them before they can vote on the light-rail proposal.
King County Executive Ron Sims, who is Sound Transit's board chairman, and Joni Earl, the agency's executive director, met with council members hours before last night's meeting in an unsuccessful bid to change their minds, or at least postpone the vote.
Without the agreement, Sound Transit can apply for permits from Tukwila individually, without any assurances of how the city will handle them. Patterson said the agency might invoke a provision of the state Growth Management Act that effectively prohibits local governments from blocking unpopular but necessary "essential public facilities," including regional transportation projects.
But she acknowledged Tukwila's vote could hurt Sound Transit's bid for $500 million in federal funds, nearly one-quarter of what it estimates the light-rail line will cost. The state's congressional delegation will need to do more "heavy lifting" on Sound Transit's behalf now, she said.
Last week Rick Krochalis, regional head of the Federal Transit Administration, said Sound Transit's path to federal money would be easier if it successfully negotiated an agreement with Tukwila. But he wouldn't rule out the possibility the agency could get the money without such a deal.
Sound Transit has said it hopes to break ground on the light-rail line later this year.
At the very least, the vote effectively kills Sound Transit's already-slim chances of receiving federal money in fiscal 2003, which begins Oct. 1.
Councilwoman Pamela Linder, one of two who voted for the agreement, said the light-rail line may still go through, but Tukwila's relations with Sound Transit will never be the same.
But other council members said circumstances had put them in a position to make an important decision affecting the rest of the region, and someone needed to stop a project that accomplishes little and costs a lot.
"Does it address the gridlock situation in Puget Sound? No," Councilman Fenton argued.
"Anything that costs $2 billion, it's got to get some of the people off the freeway," Haggerton said. Sound Transit's light-rail project doesn't, he added.
Kevin Shively, spokesman for the Transportation Choices Coalition and 1000 Friends of Washington, told the council that defeating the agreement would be a waste of $2 million Sound Transit spent on environmental studies of the freeway route.
"These are the kinds of wasteful decisions that leave voters shaking their heads," he said. The council's vote "may in fact kill the project altogether."
But supporters of light rail were outnumbered by opponents in the council chambers. Former Councilman Dennis Roberts urged the council to stand firm in insisting light rail serve Southcenter. "Getting people to where there's 30,000 jobs is a real benefit," he said.
Sound Transit officials say the agency has met all the requirements the Federal Transit Administration set for seeking federal money but two: the Tukwila agreement and a deal with King County allowing joint bus-rail use of the downtown Seattle bus tunnel.
The Metropolitan King County Council held a public hearing on that agreement yesterday, but postponed action until next week. Council Transportation Chairman Dwight Pelz, D-Seattle, said he has the votes to pass it.
Eric Pryne can be reached at 206-464-2231 or epryne@seattletimes.com.
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