News
Godden Opponents Support Larger License Fee
Yesterday---staking out the rightmost position on the potential vehicle license fee to pay for transportation---city council member Jean Godden proposed a $40 fee skewed heavily toward road maintenance and away from transit, bike infrastructure, and sidewalks. Godden all but came out and mocked her colleague Mike O'Brien's 12-year, $80, transit-heavy plan. (O'Brien's proposal essentially mirrored a plan proposed by the Citizens Transportation Advisory Committee, a group of business representatives, environmentalists, and community members who deliberated for seven months to come up with the proposal).
Council transportation chair Tom Rasmussen has a compromise $60 proposal that keeps the transit allocations in proportion with the CTAC proposal.
Contacted by phone today, both Maurice Classen and Bobby Forch, Godden's two main opponents in next week's primary, said they would support larger investments in transit, and a larger fee overall, than what Godden has proposed.
SDOT manager Forch has positioned himself as "the progressive in the race," and King County deputy prosecutor Classen has been racking up the business endorsements Godden herself once enjoyed. Pushing for a smaller, more roads-heavy fee could be a play by Godden to win back support from some of her erstwhile backers in the business community.
"I'm with the $80" proposal, Forch said. "I understand the need for maintenance, but I really think we need to be articulating the value of making those [transit] investments."
"I don't see the rationale for dropping it to $40 and throwing everything into roads when we have [the] Bridging the Gap [levy], where so much of the percentage is spent on roads already," Classen said. "From a social justice perspective, in the long term, investments in transit benefit everyone."
Classen, who wrote a blog post last month explaining his support for the $80 fee, says he might consider Tom Rasmussen's $60 proposal, but that "I haven't really reviewed it enough to say for certain."
The city council, meeting as the Transportation Benefits District board, seems likely to rewrite the proposals made by the CTAC III group, although there remains little consensus on what their compromise proposal might look like. The board will have a public meeting and take testimony at City Hall tomorrow evening at 5:30.
Council transportation chair Tom Rasmussen has a compromise $60 proposal that keeps the transit allocations in proportion with the CTAC proposal.
Contacted by phone today, both Maurice Classen and Bobby Forch, Godden's two main opponents in next week's primary, said they would support larger investments in transit, and a larger fee overall, than what Godden has proposed.
SDOT manager Forch has positioned himself as "the progressive in the race," and King County deputy prosecutor Classen has been racking up the business endorsements Godden herself once enjoyed. Pushing for a smaller, more roads-heavy fee could be a play by Godden to win back support from some of her erstwhile backers in the business community.
"I'm with the $80" proposal, Forch said. "I understand the need for maintenance, but I really think we need to be articulating the value of making those [transit] investments."
"I don't see the rationale for dropping it to $40 and throwing everything into roads when we have [the] Bridging the Gap [levy], where so much of the percentage is spent on roads already," Classen said. "From a social justice perspective, in the long term, investments in transit benefit everyone."
Classen, who wrote a blog post last month explaining his support for the $80 fee, says he might consider Tom Rasmussen's $60 proposal, but that "I haven't really reviewed it enough to say for certain."
The city council, meeting as the Transportation Benefits District board, seems likely to rewrite the proposals made by the CTAC III group, although there remains little consensus on what their compromise proposal might look like. The board will have a public meeting and take testimony at City Hall tomorrow evening at 5:30.
