Mayor Mike McGinn's budget remarks to the city council, which he just wrapped up, didn't veer significantly from his speech at Rainier Beach Community Center earlier this afternoon---until the end, when he told council members that it would be fiscally irresponsible to make a deal with the Museum of History and Industry that would allow the city to spend some of the money promised to MOHAI as part of its relocation from Montlake to South Lake Union to pay for one-time city services.

"We have to build a budget now that we can sustain," McGinn said. "In this regard, although some of you considered taking a loan from MOHAI to restore cuts, that just means we'll have to make cuts in the future," McGinn said.

Earlier this month, a city council committee agreed, over McGinn’s objections, to give MOHAI up to $47 million in state reimbursements for land owned by the city and for MOHAI’s current building, which will be displaced by construction of the new 520 bridge; McGinn wanted to keep up to $7 million of that money for the city, arguing that MOHAI got more money from the state than the city was initially led to believe and that MOHAI should share the wealth.

The deal, proposed by city council member Nick Licata and agreed to by MOHAI,  would rearrange the payout to MOHAI, allowing  the city to hold on to "several million dollars" of the $47 million for the next two years, releasing it to MOHAI in 2013, Licata said. It would pay for things like library collections, youth employment programs, and food banks.

In comments before the council, MOHAI director Leonard Garfield thanked the council for "staying with an agreement that will enable MOHAI to transform the armory building into a regional history museum without using any city funds."