A Note on Seattle Governance
Did you know that being the Mayor of Seattle is a dead-end job? It is said that no Mayor of Seattle has ever gone on to statewide elected office; in 1969, Mayor d'Orma Braman took an appointment to Nixon's Department of Transportation, which might be the highest any of them ever managed.
It will take some digging to get the real story on that old claim, but digging is also the key to understanding the latest example of why the job is a political career killer.
To bring you up to date on the Dumbassed Dig, it is enough to simply say that Bertha remains broken↑, officials are still arguing not just over whether and how to fix the drill, but are also trying to consider the dangers of trying to either extract the drill or repair it in place versus the financial loss of simply leaving her where she is.
Nobody says they'll do that, as far as I know. But there is also widespread cynicism by which it's also what many expect.
Sydney Brownstone↱ of The Stranger tries to explain the bureaucratic situation:
And government being what it is, local government being what it is, and Seattle government being Seattle government, what we come to is an overpriced bureaucratic circle of indecency:
As to actually dealing with the problem?
I bet now the council members who have been around long enough to remember wish they'd built the fucking monorail the first three times they were told to do so. Because when it comes to actually dealing with the Dig and Bertha, we're past the point where people argue over which of the obvious things that need to be done should be done and have moved on to interbureau political warfare.
Okay, that's a gross mischaracterization of "warfare". It would be more accurate to say the city and state Departments of Transportation are having a slappy fight while dead Bertha waits dreaming.
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Notes:
Brownstone, Sydney. "What We Learned at Yesterday's City vs. State Fight over Bertha's Rescue Pit". Slog. 13 January 2015. Slog.TheStranger.com. 13 January 2015. http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/ar...s-city-vs-state-fight-over-berthas-rescue-pit
Did you know that being the Mayor of Seattle is a dead-end job? It is said that no Mayor of Seattle has ever gone on to statewide elected office; in 1969, Mayor d'Orma Braman took an appointment to Nixon's Department of Transportation, which might be the highest any of them ever managed.
It will take some digging to get the real story on that old claim, but digging is also the key to understanding the latest example of why the job is a political career killer.
To bring you up to date on the Dumbassed Dig, it is enough to simply say that Bertha remains broken↑, officials are still arguing not just over whether and how to fix the drill, but are also trying to consider the dangers of trying to either extract the drill or repair it in place versus the financial loss of simply leaving her where she is.
Nobody says they'll do that, as far as I know. But there is also widespread cynicism by which it's also what many expect.
Sydney Brownstone↱ of The Stranger tries to explain the bureaucratic situation:
Pit bad? No, pit good.
That about sums up much of the two-hour Washington State Department of Transportation briefing in front of the city council yesterday, in which council members peppered the state with questions about a strongly worded letter the Seattle Department of Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities fired off last week. In it, city officials expressed alarm over the fact that language about "risk of a catastrophic failure" disappeared from a draft report by rescue pit engineers with no explanation.
Shouldn't city agencies have been contacted about concerns related to a potential "catastrophic failure"? Why weren't they? And why did the language change? Did "risk of a catastrophic failure" refer to the pit's impact on the viaduct? Did the Washington State Department of Transportation tell the contractor to stop digging in mid-December because of this risk?
WSDOT's Todd Trepanier hardly disguised his irritation with the letter and the city council's subsequent line of questioning. "There never has been, and there is currently not, any risk of failure," he said. "That is a gross mischaracterization of that word ‘catastrophic' in the report."
Earlier, Trepanier stressed WSDOT's disappointment with SDOT's actions: "To send this letter, to provide it to the press before we were able to respond, is not in keeping with the partnership we established with the city, the county, and the port, and needlessly escalates public fear," he said.
According to the state, Seattle transportation officials went into the tunnel project's shared database, cherry-picked the report, then cherry-picked the language in it. The draft report listed action items needed in order to keep excavating. WSDOT says the language that changed dealt with stabilizing soil between support columns around the hole. When the report's authors—rescue pit engineers—noticed that the grouting between those columns ("piles") had not been fully completed, they issued a report warning about "repair as we go" excavation and the potential for "catastrophic failure."
Which still didn't make a ton of sense to most other people in the room ....
That about sums up much of the two-hour Washington State Department of Transportation briefing in front of the city council yesterday, in which council members peppered the state with questions about a strongly worded letter the Seattle Department of Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities fired off last week. In it, city officials expressed alarm over the fact that language about "risk of a catastrophic failure" disappeared from a draft report by rescue pit engineers with no explanation.
Shouldn't city agencies have been contacted about concerns related to a potential "catastrophic failure"? Why weren't they? And why did the language change? Did "risk of a catastrophic failure" refer to the pit's impact on the viaduct? Did the Washington State Department of Transportation tell the contractor to stop digging in mid-December because of this risk?
WSDOT's Todd Trepanier hardly disguised his irritation with the letter and the city council's subsequent line of questioning. "There never has been, and there is currently not, any risk of failure," he said. "That is a gross mischaracterization of that word ‘catastrophic' in the report."
Earlier, Trepanier stressed WSDOT's disappointment with SDOT's actions: "To send this letter, to provide it to the press before we were able to respond, is not in keeping with the partnership we established with the city, the county, and the port, and needlessly escalates public fear," he said.
According to the state, Seattle transportation officials went into the tunnel project's shared database, cherry-picked the report, then cherry-picked the language in it. The draft report listed action items needed in order to keep excavating. WSDOT says the language that changed dealt with stabilizing soil between support columns around the hole. When the report's authors—rescue pit engineers—noticed that the grouting between those columns ("piles") had not been fully completed, they issued a report warning about "repair as we go" excavation and the potential for "catastrophic failure."
Which still didn't make a ton of sense to most other people in the room ....
And government being what it is, local government being what it is, and Seattle government being Seattle government, what we come to is an overpriced bureaucratic circle of indecency:
So, what did we learn?
- SDOT still hasn't gotten a full explanation for the language changes.
- WSDOT staff saw those changes, or at least they signed off on them.
- We still don't really know why "risk of a catastrophic failure" was deleted.
- The rescue pit is roughly 20 feet away from the nearest bent (a viaduct support structure), and Council Member O'Brien is pretty worried about that.
- WSDOT is pissed that SDOT went through its drawers.
- The city council is trying to make peace between the two levels of government.
- SDOT has a mid- to long-term contingency plan for shuttering the viaduct. It's also hired independent engineers, CH2M Hill, to get another opinion on whether dewatering and Bertha's rescue threaten the aging structure.
- SDOT still hasn't gotten a full explanation for the language changes.
- WSDOT staff saw those changes, or at least they signed off on them.
- We still don't really know why "risk of a catastrophic failure" was deleted.
- The rescue pit is roughly 20 feet away from the nearest bent (a viaduct support structure), and Council Member O'Brien is pretty worried about that.
- WSDOT is pissed that SDOT went through its drawers.
- The city council is trying to make peace between the two levels of government.
- SDOT has a mid- to long-term contingency plan for shuttering the viaduct. It's also hired independent engineers, CH2M Hill, to get another opinion on whether dewatering and Bertha's rescue threaten the aging structure.
As to actually dealing with the problem?
I bet now the council members who have been around long enough to remember wish they'd built the fucking monorail the first three times they were told to do so. Because when it comes to actually dealing with the Dig and Bertha, we're past the point where people argue over which of the obvious things that need to be done should be done and have moved on to interbureau political warfare.
Okay, that's a gross mischaracterization of "warfare". It would be more accurate to say the city and state Departments of Transportation are having a slappy fight while dead Bertha waits dreaming.
____________________
Notes:
Brownstone, Sydney. "What We Learned at Yesterday's City vs. State Fight over Bertha's Rescue Pit". Slog. 13 January 2015. Slog.TheStranger.com. 13 January 2015. http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/ar...s-city-vs-state-fight-over-berthas-rescue-pit