At a press briefing this afternoon, Mayor Mike McGinn said the budget the city council passed---which restored some programs he proposed for cuts and did not include his proposal to raise the commercial parking tax to 17.5 percent to pay for walking, biking, and transit programs---was "responsible" and "sustainable."

"Clearly, my budget had a different set of priorities" than the council's, McGinn said. "Clearly, I believe the commercial parking tax is an appropriate investment now, and they didn't choose that path, so we have some work to do to figure out transportation financing."

However,  McGinn said he did not support a proposal floated by city council transportation chair Tom Rasmussen to put a vehicle license fee of up to $80 on the ballot in August, calling that date "premature." McGinn said the city needs to wait for the results of a study being done by the Citizens' Transportation Advisory Committee 3 (CTAC-3) before deciding how much to ask voters for, and for what. He suggested that next November might be a more appropriate date. (That position, by the way, would appear to be in direct conflict with his insistence on a vote on light rail to Ballard and West Seattle, without any study, in the first two years of his administration). McGinn also said that he didn't know when he would push for a ballot measure to pay for the seawall, but that it could be in August, November, or in a special election earlier in the year.

McGinn also said that although his proposal to charge for parking on Sundays failed (the council opted, with McGinn's approval, to raise the maximum parking-mater rate to $4, study parking availability throughout the city, and extend meter hours until 8:00 pm), he still hopes they will approve charging for parking on Sundays in the International District and Chinatown, which are frequently overrun with long-term parkers during Seahawks games.

"I realize a lot of the public didn't like the idea of paid parking on Sundays [but] I'm concerned for Pioneer Square and the International District," McGinn said. "A lot of those retail businesses suffer when street parking is taken up by game day fans, which means that a lot of businesses don't have parking."

City council staffers said McGinn had not specifically broached the idea of Sunday metered parking in neighborhoods adjacent to the stadiums, but that Pioneer Square and International District businesses had expressed interest in the idea of time-restricted parking on Sundays, similar to the two-hour restricted zones in many neighborhoods on weekdays. That, however, would require additional funding for enforcement officers.