Comments on Chopp Meets the Press

Your misuse of the bold tag makes the baby Jesus cry. :(

thought Jesus cries over war, hunger, disease, bigotry, death ... etc

bad joke Louise, try your brain out

meanwhile CA and OR are eating our shorts legislatively.

Wow, sounds like a whole lot of nuffin to me. What the hell are they doing? His answer to every question was "we're not really working on that right now"? Guess i won't hold my breath for anything good to come out of the massive Dem majority in Olympia. If they can't get support for the gun show loophole i have to ask what the hell kind of Democrats do we have in this state? Sounds like milquetoast city to me. not impressed at all.

http://www.kuow.org/mp3high/m3u/News/070207_db_chopp.m3u

KUOW interviewed Speaker Chopp at length about the Viaduct this morning. Yes, unfortunately, he talked about the need to make a better elevated design (not possible, in our opinion). But he also referred to the need for "transportation capacity" (note "transportation" rather than "vehicular") and reiterated that he is open to the "transit alternative" (ie transit+streets).

It's the Dept. of Transportation - WSDOT - they don't do transit - they do roads - on KUOW you expect him to say no to transit? The state will not tear down the Viaduct without capacity in place - they feel the need to insure that N-S travel to and through Seattle is not brought to a near standstill - they think they have a responsibilty to the whole state - for transportation, freight, business and just people in general - the way forward is to repair and prepare to live without the viaduct - don't build a 2500 rebuild and give up on a $5B tunnel that is the worst of all environmentally -

SHERWIN Wrote:
"the way forward is to repair and prepare to live without the viaduct"

Unfortunately, with that proposal, there is a likelihood that political and monetary pressures to invest in other needed areas will keep a repaired Viaduct in place for an additional 30 years or at least until the next significant earthquake brings it and the seawall down. Frankly, this is not a worthwhile consideration as it makes a bad and wrong assumption that people will be further concerned about investing in the corridor once they know that the Viaduct is repaired and safe for travel.

The surface/transit proposal is equally flawed. It would simply shunt much of the surrent Viaduct traffic onto mult-laned roadways that parallel Alaskan Way. It would impede pedestrian access to the waterfront in manner and ability that the current Viaduct has failed to do during its entire existence, and the limited land available after surface-transit road construction would possibly limit future transit considerations.

I do have to agree with others here, a cable stayed, "Bay" Bridge, if feasible, is the only reasonable proposal to these other alternatives.

---Jensen

Jensen,
While I personally agree with you that the BAY BRIDGE option should have been considered (no docs yet from WSDOT, btw) I don't think there is the political will to do the work to investigate it at this point. There is political exhaustion. (You have otherwise bright people like Westneat and Savage going around moaning that we just can't make decisions and hoping for a "man on horseback" to give orders.)

The Governor has boxed herself in: What will she do after the No/No vote? Just go ahead and ram through the Rebuild? I don't think so, if she wants to be relected. She'll be on the ropes. I don't think she'll have any choice but to go for some sort of de facto Repair.

She'll want political suport and cover.

It will be time for the Surface people to get behind the Repair so that their Transit options can be part of that package.

So, um.... WTF *are* their priorities, then?

From: Tim Eyman

In response to a public records request, we received this email from Brenda Galarza, the Records/Public Disclosure Officer for the Secretary of State on January 25th, 2007:

Public Records Request
January 16, 2007

8. Any reports or documents pertaining to suspected or verified criminal activity in the initiative process in 2006.
a. There is none.

In response to a different public documents request, we received this email from Brenda Galarza, the Records/Public Disclosure Officer for the Secretary of State on January 30, 2007:

"Pam Floyd searched her own email and all of Tina Clark’s email and did not find anything on I917 or I920 regarding signature problems or fraud."

Can someone tell me if the Republicans have the majority? It sure sounds like it.

David, I completely agree with your analysis that political fatigue has
overcome the debate, and it has always been my experience that fatigue invites and produces the very worst of choices and ideas.

I can't agree with the notion that a Viaduct repair will in turn lend itself to expenditures towards transit options. I think we'll be hard pressed to ask State citizens and legislators outside Seattle to fund options when they are fighting for tranportation money for their own districts. I also believe that given the number of critical projects that we require in the Seattle area, it will be impossible to accomplish future transit options without significant statewide financial input. I have to believe that once repaired, that state will wash it's hands of the Viaduct until use or Nature takes its toll.

I have stated repeatedly in this forum that as a city and society we must learn to do more with less; truly evaluate the money we spend with what we receive in return and hold ourselves accountable for how those monies are used. As a city, we have failed to do that. We have wasted the city's time, money and efforts and the efforts of WSDOT and state government pursuing fiscally irresponsible tunnel proposals or Viaduct options which are in themselves expensive and don't in any way reclaim the full expanse of the Alaskan Way corridor.

Difficult as it is, we need to overcome the exhaustion and re-examine our options. I, for one, would like all of us to take a step back and have the state and city invite recognized professional and academic urban planners and engineers from around the world to study and hold a symposium to address these issues. Having studied opinions originating outside the current localized debate would bring fresh ideas to the table. It would also give everyone time to catch their breath and reconsider alternatives.

Of course the qusetion is, would local egos would tolerate it?

---Jensen

While I appreciate Frank's background as a non-profit executive and advocate for the poor, I wish he would spend some of this political capital to move the agenda forward. Why work for a progressive majority if you are always going to run to the middle?

Frank Chopp is correct about the tunnel. The money to build the tunnel is not there, won't be there and if the viaduct was torn down to build a tunnel, the tax burden on the people in the city of Seattle would become such, that what is generally called "the average working person" in this state, would not be able to live here. Housing is already so expensive - in part due to the fact that we have the highest property taxes in the state - most working people no longer can afford to live on their own. It will only get worse
Besides, the tunnel is pushed most by the developers and the Downtown Business Association. So one has to ask: when did The Stranger's editorial board become friends with the DBA?
Also, I keep waiting - as do so many other people who have been screwed over by them - for a piece on Varnes Investment Properties by someone on The Stranger's staff. Right now, Insider Pages.com is doing more to protect (potential) renters from VIP than The Stranger is.
Forget Frank Chopp, Maria Cantwell and all the other pols you like to sit down with and feel important. Let's see some good old fashioned investigative reporting on Varnes. Your readers could benefit from that, more than telling them your opinion of Frank Chopp. But then again, I could be wrong.

Jensen,
Your idea for a wide-ranging competition should have been adopted in spring 2001.
Do you think that the Governor can afford tolead the way on that one? I don't.
It would have to be Chopp -- and he has bigger fish to fry such as making sure Washington Democrats are strong in 2008 to defeat the Republicans for the White House.
At this point the best we can hope for (and it is not a bad solution at all) is Sherwin/Steinbrueck's "Repair and Prepare."

Maybe I am wrong but I cannot see a political scenario in which we open up the formal debate to totally-fresh ideas, even though that is what the Governor did to the informal debate with her ill-advised non-action in December.

Jensen - the idea is to buy time - make it safer sooner, - the state has said we must do something - as Sucher says, they have painted themselves into a corner - the way out is to fix it and work for a consensus on the longer time horizon fix - FoS - PWC - AArts etc. will have to keep at it -

The tunnel will not happen and the rebuild is forever -

It's funny that Tim Eyman's post was at 9:11, since he hates America and all.

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