Here, in a nutshell, is what I find comical about the tunnel debate: We've apparently got the business community arguing that property owners should foot the bill for projects that benefit them and the lefty community arguing that they shouldn't—a complete reversal of the days when lefties in Seattle (remember the Commons debate) used to demand that Seattle property owners pay up.

Today, the anti-tunnel coalition of Sierra Club greens and social justice advocates who are pushing an initiative to make sure the city isn't liable for cost overruns, issued a press release condemning the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce and the Downtown Seattle Association. The anti-tunnel group, Move Seattle Smarter, was responding to quotes from House Speaker Rep. Frank Chopp (D-43, Seattle) that appeared in a PI.com article today: Chopp blamed the DSA and the Chamber for the overruns provision. (Chopp, of course, is the one who put the overruns provision in the legislation.)

Here's the PI.com:

House Speaker Frank Chopp said Tuesday that the cost overrun clause was added because city leaders assured lawmakers that Seattle would pay any overruns.

"There was public testimony by local folks in Seattle saying that they would assume all the costs above $2.8 billion (the state share of the funding)," Chopp said at a legislative forum sponsored by The Associated Press.

"It was very vivid testimony by the Chamber of Commerce and the Downtown Seattle Association."

Chopp is referring to testimony at a long-lost December 2008 meeting that PubliCola first reported on last month at which tunnel project stakeholders, including then-Seattle Chamber Chair Tayloe Washburn, support the idea of local interests paying its share on the tunnel project.

Now, here are the the sound bites from Move Seattle Smarter press release:

“The DSA and the Chamber do not represent the people of Seattle,” said Move Seattle Smarter spokesperson Drew Paxton.  “It’s clear they have only their own interests in mind and do not care how this legislation could financially impact Seattle taxpayers.”

Okay. Fair enough. It's a great class warfare moment, and the anti-tunnel initiative campaign is smart to run with it.

But here's what's funny. The provision actually says "Seattle property owners" not, as Move Seattle Smarter finesses it, "taxpayers."

Politically speaking, there's a significant difference between "property owners" and "taxpayers." And it used to be that lefty groups that pushed against big development projects like the tunnel (such as the proposed "Commons" park in South Lake Union back in the late '90s), demanded that the property owners who benefited from mega-projects should be on the hook.

Not so today. Evidently, the anti-tunnel contingent is now defending rich property owners who benefit from the tunnel project.

I've written this before, pointing out that Mayor Mike McGinn has tied himself to a populist, anti-tax crowd that is actually antithetical to his urbanist development goals:

McGinn’s emphasis on thriftiness has drawn an important faction into his coalition of greens and liberals—the Lesser Seattle crew. It’s an amazing political feat. The crowd that once pilloried the Commons and, later, belly-ached over the South Lake Union Streetcar and commercial development in downtown and South Lake Union as unfair government giveaways is now ardently—and amazingly—defending Seattle property owners against having to pay for a government project, the tunnel, that would benefit downtown property owners. Wow.

Here's Washburn at the December 2008 meeting:

The principles that should guide any regional funding program are very simple and none of these are rocket science. They’re basic principles that make this a credible program.  One, those who benefit from this investment should help pay for it. Many have noted and the press have noted, well, jeepers, if you open up the waterfront, they’re gonna be some beneficiaries. And they are darn right.

And he added: "[There are] a variety of ways in which the increased value associated with opening up the waterfront benefits property owners. And we should capture those. There are many conventional ways to capture that value in a regional transportation or a regional district and then capture the property, sales tax and other types of taxes that will be associated with this investment. So it’s a very logical thing to do."