At a press conference this morning held in the lobby of the Port of Seattle, Governor Gregoire announced that two bids have come in at, or under, the budget set for the SR 99 bored tunnel design-build competition.

Gov. Chris Gregoire, Washington Transportation Secretary Paula Hammond, and Alaskan Way Viaduct and Seawall Replacement Program Administrator Ron Paananen made the announcement to a crowd filling the lobby and wrapping around the balcony of Port employees, union members, and other tunnel supporters, if applause is an accurate gage. Many sported small yellow pins that said "Enough" which translates to "enough with the delays and let's move forward with the project."

Appearing with the Governor, Hammond and Paananen were KC Executive Dow Constantine, City Councilmembers Tom Rasmussen and Richard Conlin, Rep. Reuven Carlyle of Ballard, Port CEO Tay Yoshitani, and others. No sign of Mayor McGinn, however.

"Today I am proud to announce the two bids to build the deep-bore tunnel are both at or bellow the price we set in our contract, not one dollar more," Gregoire said to huge applause. "The existing viaduct frankly is just plain too old, damaged. Ever since that earthquake in Nisqually in 2001 we've known it's got to go. Either we replace it or Mother Nature will take it down. We evaluated nearly 90 replacement alternatives, and have taken eight of those to environmental review. We are staying on time and on budget. It's about jobs we desperately need today. We will build the tunnel now and the jobs of tomorrow will power our region."

She said this will not disrupt people's lives by shutting the viaduct down during construction.

"The new tunnel will improve public safety, will withstand a major earthquake, and prevent diversion of over 100,000 cars onto city streets and I-5.

"Delay is not an option. We are serious about getting this project done on time and on budget. The debate must end. We are going to build a tunnel (...)"

"While we are reviewing technical proposals there is a lot of work going on through the Environmental Impact Statement's public comment statement," said Secretary Paula Hammond. "That begins today. It's a 45-day progress. From there we issue a final Environmental Impact Statement. We send it to the Feds and wait for the record of decision that will come we hope by early July (...) We're not going to let up. We're going to get this project built on time and on budget."

"If I was to get a piece of legislation that said the citizens of Seattle will bear the cost of any overruns I will veto it," said Gregoire. "If I was to get a piece of legislation that said citizens of the State will bear the cost of overruns I will sign it. What would cause a tax overrun? Delay. that is the only reason to have a cost overrun."

The West Seattle Herald asked Gov. Gregoire, "I've heard quite the opposite of what you said from our readership in West Seattle, There are no exits to downtown, costs estimates have been going up and you're not including interest on the loans we need in these difficult economic times. So we're talking $8 billion to $10 billion, not $2.8 billion or $3.2 billion."

"There's a lot of misinformation out there," responded Gregoire. "I battle it every single day. The misinformation about the statute that allegedly says the people of Seattle will pay. It doesn't say that at all. I fight against the idea that if the money doesn't go to this project that somehow the money stays in Seattle to spend on what ever they want to spend it on. Let me assure you should we blink at all there are plenty of legislators who are determined to get that money back and spend it on a project in their local area. This has been a fight by these folks (here) to maintain that budget and to be patient when we went through he process to make sure there was citizen involvement."

"Nothing happened today," countered Elizabeth Campbell of Seattle Citizens Against the Tunnel, or SCAT, after the press conference was over. She and three other SCAT members attended the press conference and defiantly held up signs that read "No Tunnel."

"In July when they get the 'record of decision' is when they can legally say they are building the tunnel, said Campbell. "The Governor has unequivocally said that today. At the last press conference they were playing semantics (by hinting) the project was a done deal. It's gone past all that now. The new narrative is, 'The people saying things against the tunnel are misinformed."

The two bidders are Seattle Tunnel Partners, a joint venture of New York-based Dragados USA, a wholly owned subsidiary of Dragados, S.A., the construction division of ACS Group of Spain. The other is the Tutor Perini Corporation, based in Sylmar, California. Subcontractos include Frank Coluccio Construction and Mowat Construction for construction and HNTB Corporation and Intecsa for design.