Potential mayor's office conflict leads Seattle to reopen sea-wall bids

A potential conflict of interest in the Seattle mayor's office will force Mayor Mike McGinn to reject all the bids for Seattle's sea-wall project and start over, the mayor announced Friday.

A top McGinn adviser, Chris Bushnell, is married to a marine biologist who works for a company included in one of the bids for design work, McGinn announced in a news release.

McGinn has asked the Ethics and Elections Commission to review the case. Bushnell's wife was not part of the bid and wouldn't do work on the sea wall.

The city will lose about four weeks by starting over. The mayor's office will remove itself from the bidding process and hand it over to the Seattle Department of Transportation.

Bushnell was a close political adviser to McGinn during his campaign.

He started in the office a week ago and makes $110,000 a year as a policy adviser.

McGinn's proposal two weeks ago to have voters decide whether to raise their property taxes to pay for a new sea wall was the first major announcement of his new administration.

The announcement has drawn criticism from the Seattle City Council for not being thought through enough.

Some City Council members are concerned the proposal could be an effort to undermine plans to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct with a tunnel — a project McGinn opposes.

In the new request for bids, the city intends to add criteria about speed and public involvement because McGinn wants to do the sea-wall design work as quickly as possible.

Emily Heffter: 206-464-8246 or eheffter@seattletimes.com