As our sister paper, the West Seattle reported, City Attorney Pete Holmes is suing the Protect Seattle Now Coalition for collecting what he believes is enough signatures to put the deep bore tunnel project to a vote on their referendum. He filed the suit the morning of March 29, just one hour after the organization filed 29,000 signatures with the City Clerk's office. He said referenda only apply to legislative policy actions, not administrative actions, and so this may not be legal.

Then, on April 13, Holmes sued again, this time to block citizens to vote for Initiative-101 after its sponsors turned in enough signatures. Holmes said that Initiative-101 "is beyond the scope of the local initiative power" that rests, instead, with the city's governing body (i.e., the Seattle City Council, which overwhelmingly support the tunnel).

The Seattle Channel, 21, aired a provocative show April 22 digging deeper into the Holmes lawsuit on its City/Inside Out with moderator C.R. Douglas who said that Holmes agreed to appear, then withdrew last minute. Appearing were prominent Seattle environmental attorney David Bricklin who is currently not legally involved in the tunnel, Drew Paxton a Sierra Club volunteer and Protect Seattle Now Coalition referendum signature gatherer sued by Holmes, and Elizabeth Campbell who organized Initiative-101.

Bricklin, Paxton, and Campbell spoke to our reporter since the show aired.

David Bricklin

On the show Bricklin said of the deep bore tunnel project, "I'm not trying to delay it. I'm trying to kill it."

"It really upsets me greatly that our state's governor, who used to head the Department of Ecology and was our Attorney General so blatantly trashes the state's premier environmental law," Bricklin told the West Seattle Herald today.
"She used to be the number one person in the state for SEPA (State Environmental Policy Act) enforcement. She knows that you cannot make decisions before the EIS decision."

He is referring to the Federal Environmental Impact Statement due out later this summer. When confronted directly by the West Seattle Herald, representatives from the city, county, state, and WSDOT have stated that the tunnel project cannot be legally declared a "done deal" until the EIS findings give the go-ahead. They have told us that they are preparing the north and south entrance/exit ramps to be in a position to quickly move forward once the EIS gives them the green light.

He believes that because of her background she knows that the state "could not possibly, lawfully have made a decision (to build the tunnel) two years ago," Bricklin insisted. "They couldn't do it then, and can't do it today. The state and city are required to wait until the EIS is done, then use that information, not just wait until the EIS is published and then we go ahead with the decision they made two years ago. The law is that they are supposed to use that information (from the EIS report) to make the decision. Not until they get that EIS and see what it has to say are they allowed to make a decision. It's just very upsetting to see the governor championing so vociferously such an illegal act."

Instead of a tunnel, Bricklin wants an additional northbound lane added to I-5, which he said is relatively inexpensive compared to the $4 billion tunnel. He wants the viaduct removed and enhanced surface transit in its place, which also opens the waterfront up.

"In terms of doing the comparison, with or without the tunnel you are still going to have a heavily trafficked road on the waterfront," he said. "Some people think the tunnel is a great idea because it will create this traffic-free zone along the waterfront, but even with tunnel you would have a four lane road there. Half the people will take that road instead of the tunnel because of the tolls. The tunnel will also result in more green house gas emissions.

"The governor says she is all about safety, but the tunnel project will keep this death trap (the viaduct) in the air at least three years," he added. "If they would wait to see the EIS statement and see the information in it, maybe the City Council come to their senses, but to say we already made the decision before this information came out, it's bad public policy and it is frankly illegal."

Drew Paxton

"The city is committed to being carbon neutral by 2030 and I don't understand the logic of how the tunnel gets us there," Paxton told the West Seattle Herald. "The governor has gone out and said the decision has already been made, but the law says the decision can only be made after Federal EIS. You can't have it both ways. They want to make it seem enivitable when there are a lot of questions, a lot of problems that need to be addressed.

"Our (referendum) trial is tentatively scheduled for May 13," said Paxton, who was named in Holmes' suit. "After initial arguments are made, the judge should rule on whether these agreements we ran the referendum on are able to go to the referendum process (to a vote).

"They're not suing us for money," he said. "Gary Manca, our lawyer, Scot Brannon and I being named as defendants. The national office of the Sierra Club stepped in to help donate money to help our legal representation.The mayor is the former Sierra Club Chapter Chair. He has gone on record as saying he still believes this should go to a vote. There is still a sense of gratitude that the movement succeeded, collected almost 29,000, almost double the number needed to reach the threshold. it still makes a very strong public statement, and one that will be tougher and tougher for public officials to ignore."

Elizabeth Campbell

"Who the hell is Pete Holmes to initiate lawsuits on his own, to go off and do this," questioned Campbell in her interview with the Herald following the Seattle Channel show. "Constitutionally and charterwise that is not the power he has. I believe the mayor or city council would have to give him permission, institute him to do that. We'll see how successful the referendum case is before we act (on Initiative-101). In plenty of court cases the judges have said initiatives should be voted on, without a predetermined outcome until its voted on.

"We had an advisory vote in 2007 on whether the tunnel or elevated should be constructed. It didn't allow the voter to isolate one or the other." Others point out that this vote was taken before the tolling fees were made public.

"Holmes is saying the initiative is overreaching and should not be valid," said Campbell. "Obviously we had a lawyer draft the initiative. Holmes is doing something 'legal' in order to accomplish a political objective. They are so wedded to the tunnel that they're willing to go out on a limb trying to prevent the public from having the vote. That's a serious thing to do."

You can view the Seattle Channel show by going to:

http://www.seattlechannel.org/videos/video.asp?ID=3061116