The Seattle Times editorial board insists that “Seattle must move forward on tunnel now,” despite concerns that current legislation would leave Seattle on the hook for cost overruns from the portion of the project being built by the state. We simply can’t afford to delay any further, argues the Times, not even to fix and/or clarify an unfair and possibly unenforceable provision that could cost local taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.
And yet, when it comes to the salaries and benefits of unionized King County government employees, it is suddenly the interests of taxpayers that is the cause of urgency, with the Times arguing that there just isn’t time to study the comparative wages of government workers with those in the private sector:
Governments have a tendency to study matters to death. A study feels like a delay tactic, a way of hoping healthier revenues return and the heat vanishes from the need to reduce worker costs.
See the difference? Big, expensive highway project worth billions of dollars of private contracts — the most expensive alternative of any Viaduct replacement option proposed — and the Times throws caution to the wind, local taxpayers be damned. But the livelihoods of unionized, government workers… well, we just can’t afford to take the time to study if they really are as pampered and overpaid as the Times implies. (Or perhaps, we can’t afford to learn the results?)
So yeah, it’s hard to believe that the virulently anti-labor Times truly has the taxpayers’ interests at heart in demanding union concessions, when it seems so eager to hang us out to dry on tunnel cost overruns.
Pssst. It could be two different people with two different opinions.
Troll @1,
Unsigned editorials represent the official opinion of the board as a whole. It is the institutional position of the paper.
The Times opinion piece is schizo.
They actually agree with McGinn — Seattle should not be on the hook and the law is flawed; they say the law chould be changed. they ignore that it’s not changed yet and the proponents like Kastama do want to stick it to Seattle.
They ignore that building any major project on an unconstitutional or unenforceable law is a recipe for WPPS like years of litigation and financial meltdown. “Hello? Bondholders? Um, see we don’t have to pay you back we just got an opinion from our State Supreme court we didn’t have authority to stick Seattle with the cost overruns. Moreover, you were on notice of that illegality so you can’t look to Seattle for cost overruns. On the other hand, you can’t get a judge to force us, the state of washington, to raise taxes; and you can’t levy the entire states tax receipts so you are totally fucked, as in WPPS!”
Seeing that writing on the wall, the bond investors worry about that before they buy in and price the bonds accordingly which means even higher costs and basically this thing has unsound finances at its core and can’t be done at all for that reason.
Now, have there been any other projects in this town with lousy finances? didn’t the Times join in pointing out lousy finances, the lack of a revenue stream, and killing other projects and demanding clarity and transparency and a sound finance plan?
here’s the simpler double standard Goldy. Transit projects have to mere super high standards, road projects don’t . Transit must be fully bfunded before we commit, roads, not so much. Because that gusher of gas tax money for roads is there, and we have to spend it, so we build roads, right?
The bridge between Copenhagen and Malmo Sweden is ten miles long and has a train on it. That’s a permanent bridge. Over there they know if you’re going to the cost of building a major piece of transportation put a train on it to benefit everyone, not just drivers. And toll like hell. And pay for it. And make it permanent, not a disposable floating bridge with a life span of just 50-65 years that we’ll have to do over not too far into the future. Our entire transportation planning is screwy and anyone who looks at Europe or China can tell you that. The Times is here advocating starting a project that is not financeable, has limited utility, uses up the underground space we’d need for high speed rail, and commits us to the outmoded car-only model of freeways rather than the kind of integrated vehilce/transit/bus/train corridors we need. Some thing that actually would be worth getting into a deep bore tunnel for.
Why the surprise? The Times has a business section but not a labor section.
Goldy; As much as I hate agreeing with the Times (in part), I submit that the Times is right about at least one thing: the way to kill amy project in this town isn’t to vote it down, it’s to submit it out to yet another study – over and over again.
We’ve been waiting for a quarter-century to replace the 520 bridge, and I can’t even begin to count the number of designs/studies/proposals it has gone through. At this rate we will still be arguing over the design/financing of the thing a half century from now, assuming it doesn’t sink on it’s own first with considerable loss of life in the process.
I’ve got my own gripes about the design. So do lots of other people, for competing reasons. The lack of a light rail option on the bridge is a big part of my problems with the design. But it we don’t act soon, the possibility of significant federal funding will be gone, perhaps for decades, as taxpayer revenues get sucked into the big sinkhole hole caused by the clean-up costs after the Republican’s wild party. It’s now or never.
I understand you’r pointing out that the Times’s position against taking time for additional study has two results: in one instance it’s in favor of building a bridge which has been studied over and over again; and in another instance it’s a rush to cut government employee wages without looking closely at the costs and consequences. It’s the latter instance (cutting government employee’s pay) where the sense of urgency if false and manufactured – there is no valid reason why we couldn’t wait two or three months for such a study.
rhp @5,
The problem is, by acceding to the project without objection, McGinn gives up an leverage he has to force a change in the enabling legislation. It just strikes me as a bit unwise and untenable to have the state managing a multibillion dollar construction project for which it is not responsible for overruns.
It is official: Goldy has discovered that the Seattle Times Editorial board suffers from schizophrenia.
Democrats pull ahead in the generic Congressional ballot.
http://tinyurl.com/msmbo2
And, per Ron Brownstein (National Journal), if the US continues to create jobs in the next eight months at the same rate we did in the last four months, in 2010 more jobs will be created than in eight years of Geroge W. Bush. Easy to believe, it seems to me.
http://tinyurl.com/4mbygf
@6
Goldy
I might be more respectful of McGinn’s position had he not waited till after the last legislative session was over to make his veto threat. Was he even lobbying the legislature during the last session?
And of course, the interesting thing that never gets mentioned. All government employees are taxpayers too.