This video was created by a member of Friends of Seattle. We now share it with you.

In January 2009, downtown elites and members of the Seattle City Council drank champagne to celebrate the agreement to build a deep bore tunnel to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct.

In this agreement (see the PDF) between the City of Seattle, King County, and the State, the State said it would work to get the County the authority it needed for an motor vehicle excise tax (MVET) to raise over $200 million for transit. Two years later, the State has not kept this promise.

We need transit to make the Viaduct replacement work for everyone, not just people who can afford champagne.

Before the City Council ratifies an agreement with the State about the tunnel project, the Council must have answers to these nine questions:

1. Why did the state cap its contribution to the tunnel at $2.4 billion and make Seattle taxpayers responsible to pay for cost overruns?
2. How can the City Council protect Seattle taxpayers from paying for cost overruns on the project?
3. How can the city manage a state project to prevent cost overruns?
4. Given the cap in state law, how would the state legally pay more than $2.4 billion for the project?
5. Why has the state shifted risk on the performance bonds away from itself and the contractor and onto Seattle?
6. What is the cause of cost overruns on other megaprojects? Is it as proponents claim due to delay? Are there other causes?
7. What is the state doing differently here than on other megaprojects to prevent overruns?
8. What will happen if the tunneling machine gets stuck underground? Who will pay? How will it be resolved?
9. If Seattle has to pay for cost overruns, how would the city pay for them? What taxes would the City Council raise, or what programs would it cut?

UPDATE: We should point out that we saw these questions on an e-mail circulated by the mayor's office to the media. We agree it is essential that the Council have answers to these questions, and so we're asking them here.

Although we vociferously opposed the City Council's proposal to repeal the commuter tax (aka head tax), we did not prevail, and the Council voted 8-1 to repeal the tax. Below is Richard Conlin's response to our most recent lobbying email about the topic.

Thank you for your message about the repeal of Seattle’s Employee Hours Tax (‘Head Tax’).  The Council approved this repeal by a vote of 8 to 1 on Monday, November 23, Councilmember McIver voting no.  The tax was repealed for four reasons:

1.      While it was originally designed to complement the parking tax in raising funds for major transportation projects under the Bridging the Gap program, the parking tax is generating more income than had been anticipated, and the planned Bridging the Gap investments are fully funded using the parking tax alone.

2.      Seattle is the only jurisdiction in Washington that requires businesses to calculate three different taxes (gross receipts, square footage, and employee hours).  The first two generate more than 95% of the business tax revenue.

3.      During the Council’s deliberations on economic recovery, repeal of this tax was singled out by the business community as a high priority.  They consider having a tax on employees the wrong signal to send when we are hoping to put people back to work.

4.      Numerous organizations also noted that the paperwork is painful for very modest results, especially for organizations that have many part-time employees and many employees who use alternative modes of transportation.  The President of Antioch University Seattle, for example,  wrote in support of repeal, noting that it took about two weeks of employee time to survey staff and calculate the tax exemptions – for a tax payment of $866.

The repeal of the head tax will not have any impact on planned pedestrian and bicycle improvements.  These funds are not dedicated to bicycle and pedestrian improvements, and in fact this tax was intended primarily to support larger projects, although a small portion has been used for ped/bike projects.  While it could be used for more such projects in the future, there is no guarantee of that, and it was neither in the design or the arguments for the tax.

No pedestrian or bicycle improvements that are planned for the period 2009 to 2014 will be affected by the repeal of the tax, and I would not support it if it would put those projects in jeopardy.
Projects which could be funded from the head tax are fully funded by the parking tax revenue, which is bringing in more revenue than projected, and more than enough to make up for the loss of the head tax revenue.

I sponsored the amendment that exempted employees who used other than SOV's.  It was cosmetic -- to provide a defensible rationalization rather than any expectation that it would impact modes of travel.  This was not part of the original legislation, and there is no evidence that it has any impact -- it is not a large enough amount to make it worthwhile for the employer to subsidize alternative modes, and does not go directly to the employee to encourage them to use alternative modes.

There are numerous options for funding future ped/bike improvements, and this is a small and not ideal possible source of funds.  Something more directly connected to transportation would be much better.  Councilmembers are looking for the appropriate funding mechanism, and we will work with the new administration to design one that will provide the appropriate funding.

Council President Richard Conlin

Seattle City Hall

600 Fourth Avenue, Floor 2

PO Box 34025

Seattle, WA 98124-4025

(206) 684-8805

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