UPDATE

At 10:00 a.m. this morning, Elizabeth Campbell of Seattle Citizens Against the Tunnel turned in over 27,000 signatures to the City Clerk's Office to place Initiative-101 on a ballot for Seattle citizens to vote for or against the deep bore tunnel project.

"The tunnel is not a done deal, and the future of this project should be decided by the will of the people," she said.

SCAT collected 27,504 signatures, she said, and 20,629 must be validated for the initiative to pass.

Campbell said this:

This was a fairly easy validating process (...) It (signatures) would stop the tunnel once validated. It eliminates the city's right of way for the tunnel or any tunnel-like structure. Most of the right of way is city-owned.

I don't hate (the tunnel). I love something else more. I love capacity, I love mobility. I love the environment more. And I think the tunnel closes all that. It doesn't provide anything.

WSDOT and the city have worked overtime to create a sense that 'it's all over, it's a done deal.' It still have to go through the environmental revue. It's going to have to meet some court challenges coming up. And it has to pass through two initiatives if the other initiative makes it to the ballot.

(Initiative-101 and the Move Seattle Smarter Initiative)

The County is not going to count all the signatures until the end of February. We won't make it to the May ballot (...) The tunnel contract signing(is not) allowed under the Sate law.

I haven't heard from (the Mayor) but he's pretty busy and has his hands full with running the city. (She said this with sarcasm.)

They're not going to break ground by September. That will never happen. If they put out the final EIS (Environmental Impact Statement) in June, then that will have a period of comments, then the Record of Decision (follows), then another 120 days when it is open for challenge. There is no way they will get that done by September.

If Mayor McGinn is intent upon really stopping the tunnel, he (should not allow) the Department of Transportation and Department of Planning and Development (to continue) processing all the permits.

Below is a press release sent to the West Seattle Herald by Seattle Citizens Against the Tunnel.

Following the the end of its six month drive to raise 20,629 signatures in order to place the I-101 Stop the Tunnel initiative on the ballot, Seattle Citizens Against the Tunnel (SCAT) will be turning in over 27,000 signatures to the City Clerk’s office tomorrow, Tuesday, February 1st.

It is an historic moment in the debate over what to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct with. This moment comes just short of four years after the public's voting rights in this project were violated by the Seattle City Council, when they misled the public about the terms and nature of the vote on the tunnel in the March, 2007 tunnel vs. elevated election. It will come within hours of the City Council and WSDOT's attempts to further thwart the will of the people, their latest gambit to continue with the construction of the tunnel in noncompliance of Washington's environmental protection laws.

For the group and for me personally the campaign has been an interesting experience from a logistics standpoint, getting out the petition signers, it has been educational in terms of administering an initiative campaign, and it has been both instructive for our group and the public in terms of exercising our constitutional rights and in terms of all the SCAT friends and the public taking part in a participatory democratic process.

Over the next couple of weeks King County Elections will process the petitons and verify the signatures. At the conclusion of that process, if SCAT does not have enough votes, SCAT will have an additional 20 days to go out and gather a sufficient number of signatures to make up for any deficiency in valid signature numbers.

Given the stunning success of the signature drive to date however, both in regards to money raised and signatures acquired, there is little doubt that the voters in the near future will have a much deserved and rightful opportunity to vote on the tunnel project. In the end, it is the public who wins through Initiative 101.

An open invitation is extended to our supporters and friends to come and share the happy moment tomorrow - Hope to see you there!

Warm Regards,

Elizabeth Campbell

Seattle Citizens Against the Tunnel (SCAT) is a non-profit grassroots effort dedicated to ensuring that the voters will be able to decide the fate of the tunnel project, and to ensuring that a functional and environmentally sound alternative is chosen to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct. www.scatnow.com initiative@scatnow.com