City Hall
Conlin Cancels Tunnel Meeting; tells PubliCola a Vote on Tunnel Would be "Cynical"
Three minutes before council members were scheduled to hold a controversial meeting to vote on a resolution that could have scuttled a public vote on the deep-bore tunnel, council president Richard Conlin canceled the meeting.
City council member Mike O'Brien, the council's only tunnel opponent, says he and his staff "were literally just finalizing what we were going to talk about and three minutes before the meeting, Conlin walked in in a T-shirt and said it was canceled." Yesterday, O'Brien objected to Conlin's proposal to hold a separate council meeting just to vote on the resolution, arguing that the last-minute meeting violated the spirit of public process.
This morning, Conlin told PubliCola that he saw the meeting as "an attempt to provide for a more rational process." However, he said that the council generally doesn't like to hold meetings without public notice, and decided to let the city's legal briefs, which are due today, speak for themselves.
Conlin also took issue with PubliCola's characterization of his resolution as a "cynical" attempt to scuttle a public vote, arguing that "it's transparently cynical to portray a vote on these two sentences"---Section 6 of the tunnel agreements, which was the only section King County Superior Court judge Laura Gene Middaugh ruled last week is subject to the referendum process---"as a vote on the tunnel. That's absurd."
[pullquote]Conlin also took issue with PublICola's characterization of his resolution as a "cynical" attempt to scuttle a public vote, arguing that "it's transparently cynical to portray a vote on these two sentences"---Section 6 of the tunnel agreements, which was the only section King County Superior Court judge Laura Gene Middaugh ruled last week is subject to the referendum process---"as a vote on the tunnel. That's absurd."[/pullquote]
"We're perfectly happy to have those two sentences stricken."
Middaugh will rule on whether Section 6 can go on the ballot by itself, or whether putting that section on the ballot will require a separate referendum, on Friday.
Staff for city attorney Pete Holmes now reportedly plan to clarify the council's intent to adopt an ordinance to move forward on the tunnel in their legal briefs, which are due at the end of the day today.
Holmes' spokeswoman Kimberly Mills said she could not discuss any advice Holmes' office gave the council.
ORIGINAL POST FOLLOWS.
The city council is about to meet to discuss a resolution, walked on to the regular council agenda by council president Richard Conlin yesterday, that could short-circuit a referendum on the deep-bore tunnel. (The details are fairly arcane, but essentially, the resolution would clarify that the council intends to issue its notice to proceed with the tunnel via a future ordinance. Effectively, that could force tunnel opponents to propose a referendum on that ordinance, instead of the one the council has already adopted---killing the current referendum and forcing tunnel opponents to start over from scratch).
No public comment will be allowed at this morning's meeting, which was announced at yesterday afternoon's full council meeting, less than 24 hours in advance.
Yesterday, Conlin justified holding the hasty meeting (council members had not even seen the legislation he proposed when they voted to hold the meeting today) by saying that the resolution simply answered a question posed by King County Superior Court judge Laura Gene Middaugh: Namely, when the council adopted the section of the tunnel agreements saying they planned to issue a notice to proceed on the tunnel in the future, did they intend to do so by resolution or by ordinance? The short timeline, he said, is justified because the next court hearing is this Friday.
However, here's what Conlin had to say when Mike O'Brien, the council's lone tunnel opponent, attempted to walk on legislation putting the tunnel referendum on the ballot back in February:
"Our normal council procedure is that resolutions or legislation is introduced at one meeting, it’s referred to committee, committee reviews it, in most cases if it’s a fairly important piece of legislation the committee will take two meetings to review it and then report it back to the council. That gives ample opportunity for people to actually take a look at it, have public comment, have the opportunity to think about it for a while and actually come to some conclusions as to what it is they want to do. ... So at this point it was introduced, wasn’t on the agenda, no text was online. I don’t know if it’s online today, but it certainly hasn’t been online for any of our minimum notice requirements that we normally try to observe. ...
No text was provided, it was not made available to the public. So to me, this does not really fit the standards for transparency and a democratic process. You know, as Mayor McGinn reminded us, the old politics was the power brokers and the elites going behind closed doors to decide what’s best for us. They decided things for their special interest and not the public interest. Well, I have a bad taste in my mouth about the way this resolution is being introduced. To me it feels like it meets more the behind closed doors and not having the public given a full chance to actually participate in the discussion. That’s not the council’s practice. We operate in the sunshine and in the open, we’ve had 20 meetings with ample opportunity for public comment, and I think that approving this resolution wouldn’t at this point would be totally counter to those principles of sunshine and openness. "
City council member Mike O'Brien, the council's only tunnel opponent, says he and his staff "were literally just finalizing what we were going to talk about and three minutes before the meeting, Conlin walked in in a T-shirt and said it was canceled." Yesterday, O'Brien objected to Conlin's proposal to hold a separate council meeting just to vote on the resolution, arguing that the last-minute meeting violated the spirit of public process.
This morning, Conlin told PubliCola that he saw the meeting as "an attempt to provide for a more rational process." However, he said that the council generally doesn't like to hold meetings without public notice, and decided to let the city's legal briefs, which are due today, speak for themselves.
Conlin also took issue with PubliCola's characterization of his resolution as a "cynical" attempt to scuttle a public vote, arguing that "it's transparently cynical to portray a vote on these two sentences"---Section 6 of the tunnel agreements, which was the only section King County Superior Court judge Laura Gene Middaugh ruled last week is subject to the referendum process---"as a vote on the tunnel. That's absurd."
[pullquote]Conlin also took issue with PublICola's characterization of his resolution as a "cynical" attempt to scuttle a public vote, arguing that "it's transparently cynical to portray a vote on these two sentences"---Section 6 of the tunnel agreements, which was the only section King County Superior Court judge Laura Gene Middaugh ruled last week is subject to the referendum process---"as a vote on the tunnel. That's absurd."[/pullquote]
"We're perfectly happy to have those two sentences stricken."
Middaugh will rule on whether Section 6 can go on the ballot by itself, or whether putting that section on the ballot will require a separate referendum, on Friday.
Staff for city attorney Pete Holmes now reportedly plan to clarify the council's intent to adopt an ordinance to move forward on the tunnel in their legal briefs, which are due at the end of the day today.
Holmes' spokeswoman Kimberly Mills said she could not discuss any advice Holmes' office gave the council.
ORIGINAL POST FOLLOWS.
The city council is about to meet to discuss a resolution, walked on to the regular council agenda by council president Richard Conlin yesterday, that could short-circuit a referendum on the deep-bore tunnel. (The details are fairly arcane, but essentially, the resolution would clarify that the council intends to issue its notice to proceed with the tunnel via a future ordinance. Effectively, that could force tunnel opponents to propose a referendum on that ordinance, instead of the one the council has already adopted---killing the current referendum and forcing tunnel opponents to start over from scratch).
No public comment will be allowed at this morning's meeting, which was announced at yesterday afternoon's full council meeting, less than 24 hours in advance.
Yesterday, Conlin justified holding the hasty meeting (council members had not even seen the legislation he proposed when they voted to hold the meeting today) by saying that the resolution simply answered a question posed by King County Superior Court judge Laura Gene Middaugh: Namely, when the council adopted the section of the tunnel agreements saying they planned to issue a notice to proceed on the tunnel in the future, did they intend to do so by resolution or by ordinance? The short timeline, he said, is justified because the next court hearing is this Friday.
However, here's what Conlin had to say when Mike O'Brien, the council's lone tunnel opponent, attempted to walk on legislation putting the tunnel referendum on the ballot back in February:
"Our normal council procedure is that resolutions or legislation is introduced at one meeting, it’s referred to committee, committee reviews it, in most cases if it’s a fairly important piece of legislation the committee will take two meetings to review it and then report it back to the council. That gives ample opportunity for people to actually take a look at it, have public comment, have the opportunity to think about it for a while and actually come to some conclusions as to what it is they want to do. ... So at this point it was introduced, wasn’t on the agenda, no text was online. I don’t know if it’s online today, but it certainly hasn’t been online for any of our minimum notice requirements that we normally try to observe. ...
No text was provided, it was not made available to the public. So to me, this does not really fit the standards for transparency and a democratic process. You know, as Mayor McGinn reminded us, the old politics was the power brokers and the elites going behind closed doors to decide what’s best for us. They decided things for their special interest and not the public interest. Well, I have a bad taste in my mouth about the way this resolution is being introduced. To me it feels like it meets more the behind closed doors and not having the public given a full chance to actually participate in the discussion. That’s not the council’s practice. We operate in the sunshine and in the open, we’ve had 20 meetings with ample opportunity for public comment, and I think that approving this resolution wouldn’t at this point would be totally counter to those principles of sunshine and openness. "
