Dear Editor:

It is a travesty for the 8th County Council District of West Seattle to witness someone so dishonest as Janet Drago appointed to warm our seat on Council through the year 2010. And robbery that she will walk away with roughly $100,000 or our money for the privilege!

Readers may recall that it was Drago who conspired with Tim Ceis of the now-rejected Nickels regime to rig the February 2007 vote of citizen preference for a Viaduct replacement. That vote should have been an honest competition between a Rebuild or a Tunnel. Drago and Ceis-Nickels knew they had a loser in their Tunnel. So they conspired to structure the vote such that any outcome would be inconclusive.

Anyone can read Drago's public admission at http://www.orphanroad.com/aggregator/sources/5

Remember that quirky two-part vote in March of 2007, where voters of Seattle said “No” (to an elevated, by 57 percent) and “Hell No” (to a tunnel, by 70 percent)? Splitting it into two was a Drago idea — and it made all the difference. “Had it been a single vote, tunnel vs. elevated,” she now says, “we [tunnel supporters] would have been dead on arrival.”

The Governor mandated that Seattle vote over the options (something City leaders didn’t want to do), but failed to imagine just how clever ballot drafters could be. Drago knew voters were opposed to the more expensive tunnel (polls showed that), but she also knew they were opposed (though not as heavily) to the elevated option. A split vote would send them both down. “I presented the idea to [Deputy Mayor Tim] Ceis and it took him about two seconds before he said perfect,” remembers Drago. And perfect it was for the script she was writing. “We lived to see another day,” she says proudly.

So Drago-Ceis-Nickels succeeded in diverting Viaduct planning to where it now stands in an unfunded, reduced-capacity $4 Billion+ tunnel. Their dishonesty cost them their gravytrains. Somehow Drago finaggled a way to hang on to pad her retirement.
I am in disbelief how someone so duplicitous can now "represent" the 8th Council District. Drago should resign today.

Signed,

Craig Keller