Tunnel foes will try to get public vote on the project

A citizens group filed an initiative Thursday to seek a public vote in February on the proposed Highway 99 tunnel.

But the initiative may face a competing ballot measure from another group of environmentalist and social-service activists who want to stop the tunnel, as well.

The idea of an initiative has surfaced as tunnel opponents Mayor Mike McGinn and Councilmember Mike O'Brien are running out of options to change the terms of the $2 billion project, which would replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct with a deep-bore tunnel.

O'Brien proposed five amendments to a resolution the council plans to vote on Monday that would affirm the council's support for the tunnel. But he said he doesn't think any of his amendments have enough votes to pass.

"I cannot tell you that I have five votes on any one," he said, adding that council members, though open-minded about some of his ideas, are hesitant to take his side. "I think they're frankly a little nervous of me. Am I trying to be nefarious and undermine the tunnel?"

The rest of the council is determined to move ahead with the project. The resolution expected to pass Monday would express commitment to the tunnel but put off a formal vote on agreements with the state until early next year.

O'Brien's amendments seek to force the state to come up with promised funding for transit, remove a provision from state law that says Seattle-area property owners must pay any cost overruns, give the city access to negotiations with contractors and study how tolling will affect traffic downtown.

He also wants to insist on a "firm commitment" from the Port of Seattle, which is supposed to contribute $300 million to the project but has not said how it will come up with the money.

Seattle Citizens Against the Tunnel, or SCAT, filed its initiative Thursday. Backers need to gather more than 20,000 valid signatures in the next six months, but they hope to do it in three months to get the initiative on the February 2011 ballot.

Former mayoral candidate Elizabeth Campbell, who filed the initiative on behalf of SCAT, said she supports rebuilding the viaduct on the waterfront.

"I prefer the elevated," she said. "I like the view."

If it passed, the initiative would bar construction, operation or use of Seattle property for a Highway 99 tunnel.

Campbell's is a separate effort from a referendum threatened by another group of activists led by local Sierra Club leader Brady Montz and Tim Harris, executive director of the homeless newspaper Real Change.

A Real Change representative was at the initiative filing Thursday and even spoke in support of it. But Harris said later that was a misunderstanding and his group hasn't decided whether to support SCAT's effort or launch its own initiative.

"It would suck to have two initiatives," he said, adding that his group hasn't even finished the language on an initiative they are considering.

Campbell has a long history of opposing the tunnel, but with little success. This is her second attempt to get an initiative on the ballot, and she has sued the state Department of Transportation to try to block the project.

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