If you've been following the site in the last 48 hours, you've probably noticed a fight brewing between the mayor and the city council over the city's official legislative agenda---the list of priority items the city takes to Olympia each year. Ordinarily, the mayor proposes an agenda and the council amends and adopts it; this year, the council is starting with an agenda drafted by the council, not the mayor.

At first glance, the debate looks like a juvenile brawl over process (both sides want their own agenda to be the starting point for the city's list of priorities), but it's based in the same fundamental disagreement over the tunnel that has divided the mayor and council since his election: The mayor wants the legislature to remove a provision of state law putting Seattle-area taxpayers on the hook for cost overruns on the tunnel and to remove a cap on state funding for the project; the council's version merely asks the legislature to "defend Seattle and all Washington municipalities against any proposed legislation that would create a legal mechanism to shift the state’s responsibility for cost overruns on major state transportation projects to local governments."

Both the mayor and the council are attempting to gain the moral high ground in this seemingly arcane fight over process. Each side has accused the other of springing an agenda on them without adequate discussion. The council has said the mayor didn't send them his agenda until yesterday morning; the mayor has said the council decided to propose its own agenda without consultation from his office at the last minute.

So who's right? Staff for the city's Office of Intergovernmental Relations, the lobbying shop for the city, contend that Mayor Mike McGinn did send a list of his legislative priorities to the council on October 13, and that they were the ones who were surprised when Conlin sent out an agenda yesterday morning that did not dovetail with McGinn's. The office provided PubliCola with a copy of the email, titled "Draft Legislative items for discussion purposes," but not the document itself.

(The mayor's office itself did not respond to repeated requests for comment.)

However, council staffers give a different account. They contend that the council did not see a final version of McGinn's proposed agenda until yesterday morning, when the mayor formally transmitted the agenda to the council. Additionally, they say OIR asked the council for its final list of legislative priorities on November 10, telling the council they would deliver McGinn's final draft agenda in a couple of days. Then, they say, they saw nothing until yesterday---prompting Conlin to propose his own agenda at the last minute. (For its part, OIR blames the two-week delay on the snowstorm and holiday weekend). The council acknowledges that the mayor's office sent a list of general priorities in October, but say the lengthy list hardly amounts to a fully realized legislative agenda.

The two sides also disagree over what time the mayor sent his agenda to the council yesterday. In an email, a staffer for city council president Richard Conlin said Mayor Mike McGinn did not send his 2011 legislative agenda to Conlin until around 10:00 yesterday morning. However, OIR contends the mayor sent his agenda down around 8:15,  after receiving Conlin's agenda.

The two agendas differ in several ways: In addition to stronger language protecting the city from cost overruns on the tunnel, McGinn's version takes the position that the state should ban assault rifles; includes a request for full funding for the state's housing trust fund; and asks that the legislature ensure the new 520 bridge can accommodate light rail.