and Tim St. Clair

There is $500 million worth of city street and bridge repairs that have been ignored too long and Seattle City Council President Jan Drago says it is time to get to work on that.

"The next four years, the focus needs not to be on big capital development, but on maintenance, both major and routine," she says. "The era of big capital budgets is over for a while as far as I am concerned. We need to focus on the smaller things that are more realistic for us to deal with. Huge transportation projects are in front of us, our total needs for these are literally billions and billions of dollars."

Drago, seeking her fourth term, says there is a backlog of sidewalk construction projects, particularly in the north end from 85th Street northward, as well as in West Seattle.

It costs about $500,000 to install one block of traditional concrete curbs and gutters. She favors new natural drainage systems with bioswales and permeable pavement, such as what is being installed in the new High Point. It's also feasible to do this in established neighborhoods, she said.

For example the 16th Avenue South Park bridge across the Duwamish needs to be replaced, Drago said. King County owns it but the adjacent unincorporated area will one day be annexed by Seattle. When asked if the county and the city could strike a deal in which each would pay half the cost to replace the bridge, Drago said that's been "in discussion for a long, long time."

She says the council's role should become more oversight and accountability and it should work with the community.

"Style and process is my issue," she said in an interview last week. "I don't disagree that the mayor has turned his back on neighborhoods and neighborhood groups."

She thinks her agenda is similar to Nickels', especially about economic development issues.

"I disagree with his style," she said.

Drago favors a more collaborative approach. She said the mayor's office does little more than a courtesy phone call to the council just before holding a press conference or releasing news of some new project or issue from Nickels.

She said the council has not been involved in the mayor's neighborhood business district strategy. So far, most of Nickels' attention has been on big developments like South Lake Union.

When asked about the viaduct, Drago said she doesn't know where the city's portion of the money to replace the viaduct will come from. At the beginning, there was some optimism that the city could get $2 billion from the state, more from the Army Corps of Engineer, some from the state and then the city would come up with the rest.

But the mayor, she said, never discussed the matter with Sen. Patty Murray. Then Nickels said he accepted the responsibility to find the money by January of 2007, but "the picture is not optimistic today."

The city owns the seawall, which also must be replaced. That means it's to the city's advantage to go with the cut-and-cover option to replace the viaduct as the seawall because the bayside wall of the tunnel could double as a section of the seawall.

The closure of the viaduct for repair, replacement or because an earthquake destroys it is a critical problem, she says.

"When the viaduct is not open, West Seattle is the most highly impacted area in the city" while the northern parts of the city have more transportation corridors to I-5 and downtown.

On the other hand, the Spokane Street Viaduct is a city-owned structure and plans have been in the works for a long time to widen it. That's part of the $500 million maintenance and construction backlog, Drago said.

The monorail remains a concept she supports, but perhaps in a scaled down version, leaving out the expensive and contentious downtown portion. The first phase of monorail construction ought to be built from King Street Station to West Seattle, she said. Then build from Westlake Center to Ballard.

Drago co-chaired, with Councilman Nick Licata, the council's monorail committee, which she described as "the longest, most focused thing I've ever done."

The council withdrew the city permitting process from the project until the monorail financial package is checked.

She's not so certain that another public vote on the monorail is necessary.

Drago said her opponent, former mayoral assistant Casey Corr, was in favor of the monorail earlier in the campaign when he was running against Richard Conlin. Now Corr opposes the monorail.

She also charged Corr was for the South Lake Union streetcar previously but now opposes it.

There are an increasing number of business people now blaming the monorail for a loss of political support from Eastern Washington for state money to make other transportation improvements in Seattle.

The Seattle business community ultimately wants state money to help pay for the city's transportation problems, but Drago says if Initiative 912 passes and the Legislature-passed gas tax increase is rescinded, there won't be any state money available.

She says the business community thinks the monorail could cause Eastern Washington voters to kill the gas tax hike, so the best move would be to kill the monorail as soon as possible.

Rebekah Schilperoort can be reached at bnteditor@robinsonnews.com and Tim St. Clair can be reached at tstclair@robinsonnews.com