Watch at: http://video.soundtransit.org/stream

3:33: Julia Patterson continues to create doubt about the proposed Sims/Hammond amendment – it would negatively impact Sound Transit’s debt equity, and nobody’s studied by how much. It’s a raw deal, it would essentially fund King County Metro’s Transit Now to the detriment of the other subareas.

3:34: Reardon just brought in a question as well. He’s pointed out that Sims/Hammond would affect Snohomish County’s bus service as well, and that makes him worried.

3:36: Joni Earl has stepped in. She’s pointing out that the two waves of bus service, 2009 and 2014, are staged the way they are because we’ll need until 2014 to have space available at our bus bases – we’re maxed out on base capacity. She’s essentially saying that this amendment has other problems.

3:38: Reardon is right back saying “Hey, so not only does this just benefit King County, but it wouldn’t be possible to get this service in Snohomish that fast anyway, because we don’t have enough maintenance base space!”

3:40: Patterson wants an amendment to the amendment, that if planners found any subarea’s debt equity ratio would be 1.5 or lower, the amendment for faster bus service at a whole would be removed. Financial guy (I did not get his name, Brian maybe?) points out that some subareas are lower than 1.5 in the plan already! Note that other areas are far over 1.5 to account for that.

3:42: Sims is coming back acting a bit confused. He started out originally talking about how these projects have a lot of play built in – he’s saying “We can add some risk, don’t worry, add some risk!”

We need to replace Sims next year.

3:46: Financial guy comes back sounding unsure if this is a good idea. Dawson mentions she doesn’t like it. Nickels says it doesn’t fit with Sound Transit’s policy or goals. More boardmembers weighing in saying “We need to be at 1.6 – not okay with 1.5″.

4:00: Reardon, Earl ask Desmond Brown (chief attorney at Sound Transit) whether it would be legal for Sound Transit to fund Transit Now service. At this point, that’s all anyone is talking about. Sims wants Sound Transit to make up his funding gap for RapidRide service. This isn’t happening.

4:08: We’re moving toward the end of debate on the silly Metro amendment.

4:19: Hammond would like to frontload all the ST2 bus service earlier. This would reduce the debt equity ratio from 1.67 to 1.65, and earns her vote. This wouldn’t change where bus service goes, just make it sooner. I’d go for it.

4:28: And I just went to get a drink of water and missed an amendment. Did we get the bus frontloading? Was Dawson happy with it? (I know now – Dawson is speaking at 4:34 about her desired language)

4:31: Larry Phillips wants to add language saying that Sound Transit is looking for opportunities for other sources of funding. Hammond whines that she does not support tolling on state highways as a source of Sound Transit revenue. Yes, that’s right, because you couldn’t figure out that you needed a percentage based tax on fuel when you had the chance!

4:33: More discussion about how uneven our tax burdens are. This is true, and we need to fix it. That’s a legislative issue that Sound Transit can’t change (thankfully, Dow Constantine actually says that). This new funding sources amendment is solid. It’s passed.

4:34: Dawson is discussion how to keep Everett to Seattle and Bellevue service level increases at 30 percent. This would be a friendly amendment to amendment 3, on bus frontloading. Ladenburg is okay with it too.