This time it took only 330 feet of digging a 13-mile tunnel for King County's $1.8 billion waste water treatment plant before a second tunnel boring machine was sacrificed seized up. Earlier this month, the first machine broke down 340 feet under Bothell and is still out out of commission. The failed equipment has stalled not only the project, but resulted in nearly 70 layoffs too. Yet the county said the project is still planned to open fall 2011. And in case you weren't keeping score, that makes constructions crews 0 and King County dirt 2. more ›

Provided with limited information, the state's auditors still managed to unveil a few--okay, a lot--of big red flags within King County's financial system, including poor construction management (What's a statewide construction project and budget tracking system?), poor cash and inventory management (loose control of cash fares collected on buses, the tracking of ammunition inventory for the Sheriff's Office, and top-down oversight on cash receipts, expenditures, and assets), and many more potential opportunities for the County to abuse and misuse public resources. more ›