In response to yesterday's news that the city council voted to ratify council president Richard Conlin's signature on the supplemental draft environmental impact statement for the deep-bore tunnel (Conlin signed after Mayor Mike McGinn declined to sign, saying he needed another week to review the document), McGinn, calling from the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Philadelphia, told PubliCola:

It's not unexpected, although it doesn't really clarify anything. As you may recall, the city attorney said that Richard Conlin had no authority to approve an EIS on behalf of the city. ... So they've said that what they want to do is move forward as co-leads [equal partners on the tunnel project]. We don't actually have a co-lead agreement with the state, either. So the position of the council on the EIS is about as clear as their position on cost overruns. They've engaged in doublespeak on cost overruns and they're engaging in doublespeak on the EIS.

The question now is how we're going to proceed on the final agreement, given the difficulties we've had on the draft. Just like with cost overruns, I'm trying to try to protect the city on the EIS, to make sure we have a full and complete environmental  impact statement that adequately and accurately measures the potential environmental damages to the city from the project, so that we can action to prevent it. The city council insists on pushing ahead without having even read [the EIS] without understanding the potential consequences. … The tunnel proponents are just pushing ahead at all costs without a thorough review.

Basically, McGinn's latest tack appears to be: The city doesn't have an agreement with the state to serve as co-lead on the EIS (something the council, by the way, denies ); Conlin's signature on the document is meaningless; therefore, we are not and may never have been co-lead on the project.

However, where McGinn plans to go from here is anyone's guess; when I pressed him repeatedly at a recent press availability to explain what he plans to do in response to the council's decision, he didn't have an answer, saying only that he'd "called on Conlin and the council to respect the process."