Give Or Take A Billion

At 2:30 p.m. today, March 13th, the Seattle City Council is holding a hearing with members of the Washington State Department of Transportation and the Seattle Department of Transportation concerning the controversial Alaskan Way Viaduct program.

Grace Crunican and Bob Chandler of SDOT and Ron Paananen of WashDOT are expected to be questioned by council members about funding issues with regard to Team Nickels' increasingly questionable replacement choice for the earthquake damaged waterfront highway.

The question we are most interested in seeing answered is whether the mayor really has all the funds he claims he does. Facing increasing skepticism that he will be able to come up with more than $4 billion for the costly project, Nickels' office on Feb. 13th sent a letter to thousands of Seattle voters touting a "refined" plan that would, in the first stage, cost "$3 billion to $3.6 billion," of which, the letter claims, $3.2 billion are already dedicated. That's interesting, because according the Washington State Department of Transportation's website, only $2.4 billion in available funding has been dedicated to the project. That's about a billion dollars difference between what the mayor is saying and what WashDOT claims, and the clock's ticking on the project. Last week, the state legislature moved to kick this process into overdrive and force the city to act on its replacement project by the end of the year. Seattle voters will likely be asked to vote on the project in November, 2007.