When reached by phone in Philadelphia today, Mayor Mike McGinn called yesterday's city council resolution validating Council President Richard Conlin's signature on a state document "meaningless" and said his next step will be meeting with Governor Christine Gregoire to hash out the details of the city's role as co-lead on the Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement.

"[The council's] resolution doesn’t purport to approve the completeness or accuracy of the environmental impact statement," McGinn said. "So they’ve admitted what I accused them of—they have no authority to approve the EIS, which means it's a fig-leaf resolution for advancing their favored option—the deep bore tunnel."

Conlin has said his intent in signing was to retain the city's power as co-lead with the state, after McGinn told the Washington Department of Transportation he needed another week to review the document. (Meanwhile, Conlin admitted yesterday that he still hasn't read the EIS; McGinn said today that he has).

So McGinn's fight with city council comes down to defining the city's power as a co-lead on a multi-billion dollar project. Conlin argues he's retaining that power, McGinn says he's signing it away. "Nobody from the city has approved the draft EIS and yet it's now progressing to public comment by people who haven't even read it," stressed McGinn. "So what does it mean to be co-lead on this project if the city doesn't even have to approve a draft copy in order for it to advance? Since we didn't approve the draft, do we get to approve the final?"

McGinn has a meeting scheduled with the governor to elucidate the city and state's roles as co-leads on the project. He wants the state to agree on what happens when the final EIS comes out and how the state will proceed on identifying and resolving environmental issues. He says that otherwise, "our issues with the draft will pale in comparison to the final EIS if we don’t figure out how to settle disputes from a threatening and bullying WSDOT and curb the tunnel-at-all costs approach by council."

Conlin couldn't be reached today for comment. On another note, the mayor stopped short of stating his worst nightmare with Conlin as mayor, but I bet I can guess.