Council’s Clark on Deep-Bore Tunnel: "What Debate?"

What is it about being a proponent of the deep-bore tunnel that so often creates the impression that you’re still rehabilitating from a nasty stroke? (This is not to say there aren’t reasonable tunnel advocates–just that they aren’t well-quoted.) This morning’s Seattle Times brings an go-go-gadget-tunnel editorial aside that is dumbfounding in its logical discontinuity.

Sadly, the person coming off non-compos mentis, momentarily, is City Council member Sally Clark, who otherwise impresses with her grasp of the issues. Here, she is is defending the Council spending $15,000 on its own lobbyist, rather than rally behind the McGinn administration.

“We don’t trust him on the viaduct,” said Councilmember Sally Clark. “None of us wants to give the idea (to Olympia) that there is any kind of debate left on this decision.”

As Sally Clark surely knows, there is sometimes nothing but debate on the tunnel decision. I suspect that what she means to say is that the Council is no longer debating the decision–which creates a representative gulf between them and the rest of Seattle. (I recall James Surowiecki writing: “The important thing about groupthink is that it works not so much by censoring dissent as by making dissent seem somehow improbable.”)

The truly disturbing disconnect, though, is that while the Council is spending extra money on appearing a united front for Seattle–when five minutes with Google provides ample evidence to the contrary–the Legislature itself is divided. As I’ve written before, there’s a profound Olympian schism that means, far from being a “done deal,” there is no agreement on how the tunnel will be paid for.

Here, we can return to the Times editorial board

To McGinn’s credit, a troubling clause in state legislation supporting the tunnel says cost overruns must be paid by Seattle-area property owners who benefit from the project. That vague language should be changed. Trouble is, opening the legislation may be tantamount to undoing the tunnel.

I have to differ with the Times‘ characterization of this as a “troubling clause.” Given the likelihood of cost overruns, and the state’s rapidly emptying coffers, it’s a bit like reaching to sign a 30-year-mortgage on a new home whose price can be reset to any amount decided upon by the contractor.

At basis, there are two different points to consider: One is who is legally responsible for cost overruns associated with the tunnel project. But the other is simply pragmatic–can any of the parties afford it? The desperation with which all parties have scrambled to reduce their exposure to the project’s risk suggests not.