City council members---who have spent more time lobbying legislators in Olympia this session than in any previous year---say the senate transportation committee, headed by frequent transit foe Mary Margaret Haugen (D-10), seems unlikely to authorize counties to pass a $30 emergency license fee for transit unless it includes a public vote. (Last month, state Rep. Mike Armstrong, R-12, signed on to the house version of the bill, but only on the condition that it go to a public vote; the bill ultimately passed without Armstrong's support).

The temporary (two-year) fee is aimed at staving off devastating cuts at King, Pierce, and Snohomish County transit agencies; without it, King County Metro alone faces service cuts of 600,000 hours, or 17 percent. As written, the legislation allows counties to simply impose the fee (again, on a temporary, two-year basis). If the counties had to put the fee to a vote, it could be a year or more before it takes effect---far too late to do anything about the impending service cuts.

"It's only a two-year fee," says council transportation chair Tom Rasmussen, who pleaded his case last week to a skeptical Haugen. "It isn't going to help us during the short term if we have to take it to voters."