I'm sitting outside the mayor's office, where McGinn just made a statement to reporters (and a large contingent of the public) about King County prosecutor Dan Satterberg's decision not to prosecute SPD officer Ian Birk and a determination by the city's firearms review board that Birk's shooting of Native Amercian woodcarver John T. Williams was not justified. I'll have more on that meeting---which was largely taken over by angry members of the public---shortly. (In short: McGinn said he was "frustrated" with King County's decision, but he couldn't don anything about it and added that he wasn't allowed to say if he supported the firearms review board's recommendation that Birk be stripped of his badge.)

In the meantime, the mayor's conference room is being cleared for another meeting---this one between McGinn and a dozen or so folks who signed a letter asking the mayor not to veto three agreements between the city and the state on the deep-bore tunnel. McGinn plans to send a veto letter down to the council tomorrow, and the council is expected to overturn the veto shortly thereafter by an 8-1 vote.

The lengthy letter, signed by 17 stakeholders---including representatives from Pike Place Market, the King County Labor Council, the Manufacturing Industrial Council, the Downtown Seattle Association, and several neighborhood groups---urges McGinn not to veto the agreements.

Arguing that the deep-bore tunnel will create thousands of jobs, avoid dumping tens of thousands of cars on city streets, allow downtown buildings to stay open, and create a "once-in-a-generation opportunity to open up the central waterfront into a magnificent park for Seattle citizens and visitors, pedestrians and cyclists," the letter concludes,

The City Council has taken 10 months, retained its own independent experts on key topics, had 18 public meetings and conducted extensive due diligence of its own leading up its adoption of the Ordinance. The Ordinance has many provisions which protect City residents, ensure that the City will not be responsible for any Tunnel overruns should they occur, and otherwise ensure that the City will be at the table on every key step of the planning and construction process. As this is a state project which could proceed with or without the city’s permission or approval, all a veto would accomplish is to take away the protection and guarantees the Ordinance gives the City – in our opinion, a veto would not be a good idea.

The meeting, which the tunnel proponents requested, is closed-door, but I'll be talking to the tunnel proponents afterward.