Andrew Villenueve, over at the Northwest Progressive Institute Blog, did us all the public service of transcribing King County Executive Candidate Susan Hutchinson’s remarks at a candidate forum in North Bend last month. Money quote:
The Regional Transportation Commission that was set up by the governor with a bipartisan leadership – Norm Rice and John Stanton – presented a two… uh, a… a study… and, I’ve read it, it’s about a half an inch thick. And in it, after they conducted their study, they made this recommendation, that all of our transportation agencies needed to fall under one authority.
That information then went back to Olympia… and no one did a thing. Nothing has changed.
The 120-page 2006 PSRTC report is not the arch-conservative document it’s often made out to be, as it comes out pretty strongly in favor of congestion pricing and higher taxes. However, Hutchison is referring to its prescription to form a 15-person permanent commission, 60% elected, that would control all road and transit revenue and expenditure, as well as land-use decisions, in a four-county area. The 6 appointees would be appointed by the governor, and could not be a serving elected official. This report, obviously, was one inspiration for the infamous 2007 roads-and-transit ballot measure that failed, largely due to that very linkage. At any rate, this kind of reorganization is well beyond the powers of the King County Executive.
We’ve said bad things about governance reform in the past, and will do so again in the near future.
On another note, Hutchison’s website contains this under the subject of “Transportation”.
Traffic congestion robs King County residents of valuable time with their families every day. Susan will quickly implement simple changes to encourage transit ridership, such as expanded GPS-based bus tracking and a color-route system so public transportation is more accessible and user-friendly for visitors, commuters, and every day travel.
Metro, as many of you know, is already planning to institute full scale GPS tracking in 2010. The Hutchinson campaign did not reply to an email asking for details on these two items, as well as for confirmation of the quote above.
Full text of the question and response after the jump. And please, let’s keep the comments oriented towards transportation and land use.
QUESTION: Under the current transportation system, the Eastside is unconnected, and left dependent on their own private vehicles, or face an hour and half, thirty five mile bus trip from North Bend to Seattle. It’s not fun; I’ve done it. Under the current system, light rail, roads, and mass transit… bus authority… each have their own management and funding, and do not execute a plan for 5th District residents that includes light rail and mass transit support until the year 2020. Investing in infrastructure takes political courage. What specifically do you propose to solve our transportation needs to make sure these efforts are coordinated, strategic, and serve the East King County areas?
HUTCHISON: There is no more significant issue in this county than transportation, period. Uh… Last week, at, uh, our campaign launch, at a jobs fair, we had a fellow show up and hold signs with us who’s a… who’s a Metro bus driver.
And he said to me afterwards… the Metro bus drivers can’t stand the traffic. We’re so tired of the congestion.
[AUDIENCE CHUCKLES]
And… I quickly got his phone number. I said, I need to talk to you some more, I want to hear more of, uh, of uh, what you have to say and how you want to solve the problem. The people who live further out from the city have this long commute on our highways and then they have this excruciating commute on the byways. The… they sit in traffic for a half hour over a two mile stretch.
And, uh… and that takes time away from their families, their children, and it certainly affects their quality of life.
The Regional Transportation Commission that was set up by the governor with a bipartisan leadership – Norm Rice and John Stanton – presented a two… uh, a… a study… and, I’ve read it, it’s about a half an inch thick. And in it, after they conducted their study, they made this recommendation, that all of our transportation agencies needed to fall under one authority.
That information then went back to Olympia… and no one did a thing. Nothing has changed. And everyone in our region is so frustrated with the gridlock on the highways and the gridlock in the political arena when it comes to transportation that they voted an exorbitant tax increase for Sound Transit in our last election. And it has all the policymakers scratching their head.
And the reason why they don’t understand is that the voters finally said, Do something. And if it has to be Sound Transit, that’s what it’ll be.
This is a subject we could talk about all night, and I just want to tell you, that we have some initiatives planned from my campaign, and we’ll be announcing those in the next few weeks.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Susan Hutchison Unabridged: Transcript of her remarks at North Bend executive forum
Editor’s Note: The following is a transcription of Susan Hutchison’s entire remarks at the King County Executive candidate forum organized by Gary and Jennifer Fancher this past Thursday evening (and held in North Bend), which we liveblogged here on The Advocate and on Twitter.
We decided to transcribe Hutchison’s remarks because so far she has chosen not to appear at almost any of the many public forums on this race that have been held across the county since the beginning of May, and attendees of those events have thus not had an opportunity to learn her views on the issues.
The following transcription is exact and provided without commentary… we’ll let others critique and parse it in detail. The transcription was produced not from notes, but of the complete audio recording we made of the forum, so what you’ll read is precisely what Susan Hutchison said.
Faithfully transcribing Hutchison’s answers was often difficult, as I had go back over and over again to accurately capture Hutchison’s stammers and faltering sentences. It’s much, much easier to transcribe something that is smoothly spoken, but that’s not how Hutchison’s responses were delivered, so as a result, it took extra time to type it all out and verify its accuracy.
Enjoy.
QUESTION: What sets you apart from the other Executive candidates?
HUTCHISON: Thank you. Good evening, everyone. What sets me apart from my opponents… I would first like to say, that, as you know, for the first time ever, this race is nonpartisan.
The voters decided in November that that’s what they wanted. Because they decided that the county issues did not have a D or an R next to them. And so I am a nonpartisan. I have never been part of the political process.
And uh… And I believe through the work I have done serving the people of this region for almost thirty years that the best way to get things done is not in a partisan way, but together, bringing people together, and working together to solve our complex problems. Since I am not a politician, I don’t, uh, operate from the point of view of, uh, partisan politics.
And many of you know me from my years as a TV newscaster. And in those days, for twenty five years, I was invited into many of your living rooms. And… I delivered the news and the issues of this region to you… every night. Some people said I was invited into their bedrooms, and uh, I put them to sleep at night.
[LAUGHTER]
And uh… I don’t quite know how to take that, but, uh…
Uh… For the last six years I’ve been the Executive Director of the Charles Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences. And we provide grants for arts, science, and education programs. And in that world, I have been deeply involved with so many of the not for profit organizations in this region. And it’s been a tremendous privilege to be part of the social fabric of what matters to the people here.
I am grateful for the opportunity to be able to run for King County Executive. I make executive decisions every day. And uh… And I look forward to bringing the changes that an only an outsider can bring. Because I am not deeply entrenched in the problems that this county faces. Thank you.
QUESTION: Our current job seekers are competing with a global marketplace of highly educated individuals. Washington State’s third largest institution of higher education, Bellevue College, has become a crowded four year school serving thirty five [thousand] students annually.
Do you agree with the need for a two year college here in East King County, and if so, what steps would you propose to take as Executive to encourage a community college campus development in this area?
HUTCHISON: I really am in favor of the community college system. I served on an advisory board for South Seattle Community College for several years. I took a course at North Seattle Community College in economics, uh, some years ago and I found that it was tremendously beneficial.
Uh… We get more value for, um, our education dollars in our community college systems and the ratios of student teachers are so much better, uh, for this, uh, entry level, uh, student, than you’d find at the University of Washington, for example. Um… This is… This is a great question and I think probably a number of the questions we’re going to answer tonight will have a lot to do with both local and state, uh, jurisdiction. And… Hunter is right. The college system in… in this region is controlled by the state.
[Ross Hunter looks up at the audience, puzzled, mouths his last name, “Hunter”, as if to ask, What’s the deal with using my last name?]
There are other alternatives to setting up a new college. We could have satellite, uh, campuses. The Green River system… uh, community college… has put in a few satellite campuses. And uh… One of the things that’s so outstanding about our community colleges is they are so agile and quick to respond to market forces.
For example, when we had a nurses shortage, uh, both Highline Community College and South Seattle were able to put in nurses programs very quickly to respond to the need. So as we look at our economic crisis, uh, there’s nothing like education, to help build, uh, skilled people with skills that can be used in the marketplace right now. So, uh, if it means adding another campus here on the Eastside somewhere that’s convenient to uh, a large number of students, I’m all in favor of it, and as I’ve said before at other forums, I see the King County Executive as someone who advocates for the citizens of this region. 1.8 million people have a voice in the Legislature through the King County Executive.
QUESTION: What changes would you propose to King County’s Critical Areas Ordinance to permit long term sustainability over stagnation of areas such as Snoqulamie, Fall City, and North Bend?
HUTCHISON: Since I announced that I was running for King County Executive, I’ve spent a lot of time, uh, out in the county, uh, not talking, but listening. And that’s what I prefer to do. And… And I’ve learned a great deal. And one of the things that comes out over and over again is… the way that our outer cities and, uh, and individual… citizens, feel toward county government.
Uh… there’s tremendous animosity towards the county government, and for good reason. Uh… I am told by the citizens that the county is arrogant and disdainful, does not respect them, doesn’t value their opinion, and moves in, in an arbitrary fashion. And… the Critical Areas Ordinance is, uh, a classic example of that.
Now, there are two things that I believe about all of you who live… out here. One is that you live out here because you love the natural beauty and uh, and resources, that you enjoy, every morning when you wake up, the… the hills, and the valleys, and the streams, and the mountains, and the fresh air, and everything that a rural environment gives you. And then the other thing that I believe about you is that if you own property here, you believe you own that property, and, uh, and you have some say over how you’re going to use that property.
What has happened with the Critical Areas Ordinance is… it’s a… it’s a… a… a blanket ordinance that does not take individual, uh… properties into… in… as it analy… it doesn’t even analyze at all.
Uh… it’s… it’s been arbitrarily, uh, enforced, and so many of you have spent a great deal of your time and energy fighting it that we’ve had critical sections of the ordinance shot down by the courts. So, uh… we need to go back to the drawing board. We need to ensure that we have good development… and it… or no development, as the case may be, in some places. But we also need to make sure that property rights are restored.
QUESTION: Under the current transportation system, the Eastside is unconnected, and left dependent on their own private vehicles, or face an hour and half, thirty five mile bus trip from North Bend to Seattle. It’s not fun; I’ve done it. Under the current system, light rail, roads, and mass transit… bus authority… each have their own management and funding, and do not execute a plan for 5th District residents that includes light rail and mass transit support until the year 2020. Investing in infrastructure takes political courage. What specifically do you propose to solve our transportation needs to make sure these efforts are coordinated, strategic, and serve the East King County areas?
HUTCHISON: There is no more significant issue in this county than transportation, period. Uh… Last week, at, uh, our campaign launch, at a jobs fair, we had a fellow show up and hold signs with us who’s a… who’s a Metro bus driver.
And he said to me afterwards… the Metro bus drivers can’t stand the traffic. We’re so tired of the congestion.
[AUDIENCE CHUCKLES]
And… I quickly got his phone number. I said, I need to talk to you some more, I want to hear more of, uh, of uh, what you have to say and how you want to solve the problem. The people who live further out from the city have this long commute on our highways and then they have this excruciating commute on the byways. The… they sit in traffic for a half hour over a two mile stretch.
And, uh… and that takes time away from their families, their children, and it certainly affects their quality of life.
The Regional Transportation Commission that was set up by the governor with a bipartisan leadership – Norm Rice and John Stanton – presented a two… uh, a… a study… and, I’ve read it, it’s about a half an inch thick. And in it, after they conducted their study, they made this recommendation, that all of our transportation agencies needed to fall under one authority.
That information then went back to Olympia… and no one did a thing. Nothing has changed. And everyone in our region is so frustrated with the gridlock on the highways and the gridlock in the political arena when it comes to transportation that they voted an exorbitant tax increase for Sound Transit in our last election. And it has all the policymakers scratching their head.
And the reason why they don’t understand is that the voters finally said, Do something. And if it has to be Sound Transit, that’s what it’ll be.
This is a subject we could talk about all night, and I just want to tell you, that we have some initiatives planned from my campaign, and we’ll be announcing those in the next few weeks.
From above:
“…And in it, after they conducted their study, they made this recommendation, that all of our transportation agencies needed to fall under one authority.”
Exactly. Put an end to several layers of duplicated management, increase interoperability, decrease a few instances of duplication, get everybody on the same page. Take the best of the managers and planners from each agency, and put them under ONE UMBRELLA. We live in a great area to do this. Include Thurston county from Olympia on up to Everett, we have our major trunk lines (rail and express buses) our feeder lines, our local routes. Make everything FLOW from one end to the other. Make it work in any direction at any time. Why is this so hard?
Nathan, I think this is a terrible idea, for reasons I’ll explain in a post next week.
One issue is those who are pushing agency consolidation usually want to do one or more of the following:
1. Stop Link light rail, or at least any further expansion.
2. Use transit agency revenue for more road building (though they may sugar coat it by saying they want to spend it on HOV lanes and HOV ramps, never mind this is one of the few transit related things the gas tax can be spent on).
3. Tie transit system expansion to more taxes for road building (see roads+transit).
I’d be right there with you if I thought the governance reform people were actually interested in achieving economies of scale, reducing duplication, and increasing interoperability.
The other issue with creating a super-agency is the possibility it will be seen as being out of touch with the people and cities it serves. This is a perception that lead to the Metro merger with King County. Unfortunately having the County Council as Metro’s board has led to many decisions being made on a political rather than an objective basis (20/40/40 for starters).
A single transport agency? Controlling transportation other than roads from Blaine to Vancouver west of the Cascades? Charged with the efficient movement of people and goods?
One governing body — fully elected, not appointed.
The power to tax, including congestion tolling.
Coordination of all transport modes — water, air, land (bus and rail) in a single system.
First just the elimination of massive duplicate overheads of staff and management would result in a major savings. Next the smart way to pay for things — fixed assets (improvements to infrastructure paid out of property taxes by those who most benefit from those improvements — the land owners), operations paid by short term financing (sales tax) — and overhead (management) paid by a combination of sources.
Next long term area wide planning — decide on an approach to the region’s transportation needs, file a single environmental impact statement, then answer those needs.
Finally be responsive to the needs of the people of the region. Move them and their goods as efficiently as possible and we’ll all benefit.
Quit playing around — this is a very serious long term survivability issue that needs to be answered by the region as a whole.
The problem is that despite the fact that Seattle is a large city, it and its more liberal suburbs make up less than half of Western Washington. People in Blaine and Centralia would vote down any tax increase, leaving Seattle with the same amount of bus service as Centralia. You cannot put an area with such different densities and cultures under one umbrella; you shouldn’t even combine CT, KCM, and PT, because Snohomish and Pierce county have much less demand for bus service than King County. Even within King County, if Seattle had a separate bus service from the rest of the county, we would probably have much more and better service.
Susan is simply repeating the policies of the Discovery Institute again, which has been trying and failing to establish a single transit agency for years. The real goal of all of this was to attack Sound Transit and defeat a Phase II ballot measure to better assure that sales tax dollars were directed to roads, not transit. Game over.
Time for a new idea. In fact, The Regional Transportation Commission did not recommend consolidating all the transit agencies. It punted on that despite encouragement from the Discovery Institute. It did end up recommending a new four county directly elected government which would be tasked with exploring the idea.
The idea was so flawed, and so poorly executed by John Stanton and Slade Gorton, that it actually lost more support the more they worked on it. Prior to their active involvement, it actually had some steam. But it is ancient history now, because the bulk of remaining support for the idea evaporated when Sound Transit successfully captured the sales tax last fall.
Stanton and Rice wanted to share that sales tax with state highways. And their whole plan hinged on a one percent increase in the sales tax, which seems like a belly laugh now. Is Susan for that tax increase? When she’s already tagging Sound Transit’s sales tax as “enormous.”
“color-route system”
1: Blue
2: Yellow
3: Green
…
30: Light fuscha
31: Dark fuscha
32: Burnt umber (my favroite crayon color)
…
If we were to have a single transportation agency, the state should have at most one appointment — if any.
If the single transportation agency idea worked so well, why isn’t WSDOT running the show? Last time I looked they are WA state’s single transportation department.
I’m unclear on the bloggers posting of “GPS by 2010 with Metro.” I asked Metro if they can post real-time information at the Transit Centers linking buses to lightrail. For example, if take the Light Rail from downtown and then want to catch a bus at the Rainier Beach or Mt Baker stations, it would be helpful to have information posted realtime that says “bus #xyz arrives in 4 minutes” Metro told me that this may be piloted by SoundTransit but do not Metro. Do you know differently?
There won’t be real-time signboards at every stop, of course, but there will be a centralized location tracker accessible through a website, probably like onebusaway.
That’s too bad. The BART system had it and it was very helpful. Number of cars, destination, time of arrival at the station. If you have a smart phone and a busview app running you can get this information for the buses.
I think Martin meant bus stops not Link stations. Every Link station has real-time train arrival info.
Yes, bus stops.
The UW did this years ago with TransitWatch displays at several transit centers and in the UW HUB. They have fallen into disrepair and don’t work much of the time, now.
Sound Transit has a milestone this year for “Variable message signs at Sounder south stations begin including next bus schedule information”.
The one agency idea would be a good idea if the one agency was dedicated to moving people and not cars. Typically the highway lobby wins when they have only to bribe/elect a small group of people to control the region.
But yes, this idea was cover for the folks that wanted to kill LINK and the ST2 ballot. They lost it’s over.
Both Translink (Vancouver) and Metrolinx (Toronto) recently changed from an all-elected board (of mayors and councillors of the regions cities/towns) to an all appointed one, of “experts”, a lot of planners and ex-business people. I can’t say either of these have been a success, as all it has done is further remove these boards from the one thing that keeps officials in line: public opinion.