Support The Wire

Why Such a Fuss Over a Power Line in Okanogan County?

Article by Erik Smith. Published on Thursday, September 23, 2010 EST.

If Goldmark Wins on the Power Line, Seattle Mayor Could Win Battle of the Bridge – Two Big Issues for Seattle’s Green Groups

 


The Evergreen Point Floating Bridge

By Erik Smith

Staff writer/ Washington State Wire

 

OLYMPIA, Sept. 22.—What does a power line in Okanogan County have to do with a new Highway 520 bridge in Seattle?

            Maybe everything.

            There’s a link between two of the biggest and highest-profile battles being waged by green groups in Washington state. Both cases have taken some mighty curious turns, and you might say they’re among the state’s biggest political mysteries.

            But if you connect the dots it might answer some of the questions that have baffled observers for months.

            Questions like:

n      Why is state Lands Commissioner Peter Goldmark going to extremes to block a power line in the Methow Valley?

n      Why doesn’t Attorney General Rob McKenna want to take his case?

n      Why does Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn want to renegotiate a deal for city-owned museum property at the west end of the 520 bridge – even though the state’s offer exceeds the city’s wildest dreams?

Here’s one answer. If Goldmark wins the power line battle, he’ll set a legal precedent. That precedent might give the Seattle mayor’s office the leverage it needs to block the state’s plans for a six-lane bridge across Lake Washington. And for the strategy to play out, the mayor’s office needs to delay a contract with the state Department of Transportation for the museum property, while the power line case makes its way through court.

A master plan? Or a wild coincidence?

You won’t find anyone saying it’s all part of a grand scheme, but it certainly could work out that way. And it seems less of a coincidence when you consider that Seattle-based environmental groups are behind the two fights. Their players are among the biggest supporters of Lands Commissioner Goldmark and Seattle Mayor McGinn.

Says state Rep. Joel Kretz, R-Wauconda, “I don’t believe in coincidences like that.”

And on the other side of the issue, Attorney General McKenna’s carefully worded statements strongly hint that he sees a connection.

 

            Eminent Domain is the Issue

 

What the two cases have in common is a matter of public domain. Can one public agency condemn land that belongs to another?

In the power line case, Goldmark is trying to block a power line that the Okanogan County P.U.D. has been planning for more than two decades. The route crosses 12 miles of state-owned grazing and forest land. Green groups, led by Seattle-based Conservation Northwest, have been battling the power line for years as a way to keep development out of the Methow Valley. But the last legal battles were resolved shortly before Goldmark took office; the state permits were all set to go – and then Goldmark put his foot down. Frustrated P.U.D. officials sued to condemn the land for an easement.

The state Department of Natural Resources, which Goldmark manages, has been arguing in court that the P.U.D. doesn’t have the right. That hasn’t worked out very well. A Superior Court judge in Okanogan County ruled that the agency didn’t have a leg to stand on. Goldmark wanted the state attorney general’s office to appeal. McKenna said no, the judge was right.

And in one of the strangest turns in any legal case in state history, Goldmark has escalated the battle to the highest level. He is now suing McKenna to force him to take the case. The state Supreme Court has scheduled a hearing Nov. 18.

So what does that have to do with the bridge?

 

            City Land Stands in the Way

 

There’s another battle brewing in Seattle over the new 520 bridge, and eminent domain enters that picture as well. The current Evergreen Point Floating Bridge, one of two routes across Lake Washington between the eastside suburbs and Seattle, is four lanes in width and is choked with commuter traffic morning and night. At nearly 50 years old, its time is about up. The state Department of Transportation wants to replace it with a six-lane bridge.

Environmental groups, led by the Sierra Club, have been waging a fierce legal battle to restrict car traffic to two lanes each direction. They want to make the third lane transit-only. They say that if you make it easier for cars to enter Seattle, it means more traffic congestion on city streets. McGinn, a former Sierra Club leader, has taken their side.

The hitch is that the city owns land on the west end of the bridge that the state needs for the bridge project. For the last 58 years, that land has been occupied by the Seattle Museum of History and Industry. The Department of Transportation could condemn it, but chose to negotiate instead.

If the state didn’t have the power to condemn city property, the city could dictate its terms on the bridge.

 

            Seattle Mayor Would Throw Deal Out

 

In the last three weeks, there’s been an odd turn of events in Seattle, every bit as strange as Goldmark’s suit against McKenna. Before McGinn took office, the city council told the museum to negotiate with the state. The museum could keep all the money it got for the building and 40 percent of the money it got for the land. The museum struck a deal better than anyone in city government imagined – $40 million for the building, up to $7 million for the land.

It might have been a wildly favorable deal for one of Seattle’s most cherished cultural institutions, but McGinn says the city ought to throw it out. He says the city government ought to get a bigger cut. He wants the museum’s $3 million share of the land sale, and he says it’s worth holding up the $40 million deal to get it.

His argument? The city faces a $67 million budget shortfall and it can use every cent it can get. He’s painting it as a battle between well-heeled museum patrons and the poor. “All I am saying to MOHAI is that everybody’s taking a cut, you got $40 million, make it work,” he told the Seattle Channel. “It gives us a little more room to help people who really need it.”

The matter goes before the city council next week. If McGinn wins, it’s certainly going to slow things down – maybe even long enough for a certain Eastern Washington power-line case to be resolved.

 

            A Bad Precedent

 

McKenna isn’t drawing the connection directly. Because he is the state’s top legal official, he enters a minefield if he gets too specific.

But ever since Goldmark made the power line an issue and hauled him into court, McKenna has been making two arguments. The first is that Goldmark is wrong about the law. And the second is that if he manages to overturn it, the power line case could set a dangerous precedent that might be used against state agencies. That includes the Department of Transportation, of course.

In an interview on KUOW-FM earlier this month, for instance, McKenna said, “Going in and making strenuous arguments against the face of the law would actually hurt the state’s interest in a general sense, because we don’t like filing appeals that don’t have merit. And secondly, because the state also exercises eminent domain sometimes over other publicly owned property, and we have to be careful to not make arguments that undercut other state agencies’ ability to exercise that very power.”

Making the argument on behalf of Goldmark might not be enough to set a precedent – but McKenna’s staff points out that any time his office brings a case to court, there’s going to be a ruling. They say that makes Goldmark’s case mighty risky for the state.

 

            Curious Arguments in Seattle

 

Whether the other side sees the connection is another story. There’s been no public talk of a coordinated strategy. Tim Gould, volunteer chair for the Sierra Club transportation and land use committee, said the implication of the power line case is news to his group. Though if you look at it the other way it makes sense. “Certainly that would explain why the attorney general’s office is reluctant to pursue an appeal,” he said.

But the mayor’s position is hard to understand any other way. If McGinn’s plan is to ease the city’s immediate budget crunch, he could be waiting for that check quite a while. There’s no telling when the state money for the bridge will come through. The project is still $2 billion short.

And why on earth would he take on the museum in the first place?

“Without getting too diabolical about it, it’s hard to see why the mayor raised the issue,” said state Rep. Judy Clibborn, D-Mercer Island. “You would think it’s a constituency the mayor would not want to alienate. Knowing that he is against the bridge in principle makes you want to look at, why does this come up now?”

Museum director Leonard Garfield says the whole thing has him stumped. The mayor’s stand not only threatens the $40 million deal, it also threatens the survival of the museum. Cost of the move is estimated at more than $80 million. “We couldn’t understand it,” he said. “It all just goes completely over my head.”

 

            Strange Arguments in Eastern Washington

 

The arguments seem just as strange in Okanogan County, where the Department of Natural Resources reversed its position on the power line without explanation. Goldmark has said little about his reasoning. “I really don’t want to get into the details of this particular case, because it is still active and I in no way want to compromise it,” he said in an interview with TVW.

So the best explanation comes from DNR’s response to the condemnation suit. It maintained that the value of the state lands would be diminished if they are “bifurcated” by the power line. Right now the state gets $3,500 a year from grazing rights on nearby lands. If the power line goes through, DNR gets nearly ten times that amount – $31,000 a year – and it still can lease the land for grazing. There are no competing proposals for land development.

The legal brief raises a concern that rocky outcroppings would have to be blasted to dig foundations for power poles, but doesn’t explain why that is a problem. And it suggests construction might spread noxious weeds. But cattle do more to spread weeds than any power line ever would, points out PUD general manager John Grubich. “I wish I could understand it,” he said.

There’s a strong case to be made for the line, he said. There is only one power line to the valley right now, he said; it’s old and not in good shape. A forest fire last year burned through the line and cut off power to Twisp for 19 hours. If the wind had blown the other way, five or six miles of line would have been lost and repairs might have taken three months. “Imagine if this had been in wintertime,” he said.

Goldmark’s critics say his stand is a reflection of an environmental agenda whose purposes remain obscure. Look at his list of political contributors and you can see his support came largely from people active in environmental organizations, said Todd Myers, who campaigned for Goldmark’s predecessor and political opponent, Doug Sutherland.

“I would be surprised if he put the dots together,” Myers said. “I would be less surprised if they put it together and then pushed Goldmark to do this for their purposes. If you want to find a political motive, look at the people who contributed to his last campaign.”

 


Your support matters.

Public service journalism is important today as ever. If you get something from our coverage, please consider making a donation to support our work. Thanks for reading our stuff.