Jolt
Afternoon Jolt: Today's Sore Loser? Richard Conlin
Today's (sore) loser: City council president Richard Conlin, who did backflips on his blog yesterday to make the case that an August referendum on the tunnel means nothing, and that most people in Seattle don't care about the issue anyway.
Taking pains to point out that only 19,000 of the 29,000 signatures referendum supporters turned in were ruled valid, Conlin wrote, "a coalition of organizations led by Mayor McGinn paid a signature gathering firm $58,000 to gather 19,000 valid signatures." Technically, that may be true, but those 19,000 voters represent a sizeable portion of the city's population (and probably wouldn't be thrilled at having their signatures dismissed as irrelevant, or paid for, by the city council president).
The judge agreed with City Attorney Pete Holmes that this ordinance and the three agreements were not subject to referendum."
The vote, Conlin continued, will be on "two sentences from that ordinance (of 140 pages)," concluding, "It is not clear what the vote on this ballot measure would actually do, but it clearly would not either stop or advance the tunnel project."
Factually, that's true: Even if voters overturn those two sentences, the referendum won't itself stop the tunnel. But a victory for the anti-tunnel side would send a strong message to city officials that voters don't want a tunnel.
And it also would enable tunnel opponents to hold another referendum in the future on the ordinance it forces the council to adopt. The referendum asks voters whether the city council should be required to pass an ordinance moving forward on the tunnel after a final environmental impact statement is adopted; that ordinance is what would be subject to referendum.
That'll be another opportunity, in other words, to demonstrate that Seattle residents don't like the tunnel Conlin supports.
Taking pains to point out that only 19,000 of the 29,000 signatures referendum supporters turned in were ruled valid, Conlin wrote, "a coalition of organizations led by Mayor McGinn paid a signature gathering firm $58,000 to gather 19,000 valid signatures." Technically, that may be true, but those 19,000 voters represent a sizeable portion of the city's population (and probably wouldn't be thrilled at having their signatures dismissed as irrelevant, or paid for, by the city council president).
The judge agreed with City Attorney Pete Holmes that this ordinance and the three agreements were not subject to referendum."
The vote, Conlin continued, will be on "two sentences from that ordinance (of 140 pages)," concluding, "It is not clear what the vote on this ballot measure would actually do, but it clearly would not either stop or advance the tunnel project."
Factually, that's true: Even if voters overturn those two sentences, the referendum won't itself stop the tunnel. But a victory for the anti-tunnel side would send a strong message to city officials that voters don't want a tunnel.
And it also would enable tunnel opponents to hold another referendum in the future on the ordinance it forces the council to adopt. The referendum asks voters whether the city council should be required to pass an ordinance moving forward on the tunnel after a final environmental impact statement is adopted; that ordinance is what would be subject to referendum.
That'll be another opportunity, in other words, to demonstrate that Seattle residents don't like the tunnel Conlin supports.
