SEATTLE – The two candidates for Seattle mayor participated in a debate Wednesday at the KING 5 Studios.
T-Mobile executive Joe Mallahan and community organizer Mike McGinn tackled issues ranging from the controversial waterfront tunnel and schools to taxes and the candidates' qualifications.
Questions were asked by KING 5's Jean Enersen, who moderated the debate, KING 5's Linda Brill, Jim Brunner of The Seattle Times and Kate Bergman of Myballard.com.
McGinn and Mallahan also got an opportunity to question each other.
A KING 5 News poll released Tuesday finds likely and actual voters give Mallahan a 7 percent margin over McGinn, but 21 percent of voters remain undecided.
The campaign took a dramatic twist Monday when McGinn, who has vowed to try and stop construction of the tunnel, said he would not block it after the city council voted unanimously to move forward with the project.
Light rail issue
Joe Mallahan touted his large business experience and was surprised when McGinn seemingly agreed with King County Executive candidate Susan Hutchison, who the night before called for change in planned light rail.
The Vice Chair of the Sound Transit board believes the issue is moot.
"You know, I don't know why anyone is talking about 520. It just blows my mind, we've studied and studied this for years," said Claudia Thomas, who is also a Lakewood City Councilwoman.
"We've already spent $30 million on engineering for the design we have, and the public has spoken. How do you honor what the public has said? You would delay the project, and spend money, it doesn't make sense."
Thomas also adds that a 520 link would not serve Bellevue, Mercer Island, or Issaquah, and would be difficult to link with the Central Link Light Rail Line.
"I-90 was picked because it has the capacity to handle light rail," she said.
Sound Transit's Web site also gives the following explanation of the difference between the two paths:
"There are several reasons why I-90 works more effectively than SR 520 for an initial cross-lake light rail line. I-90 was built for use as a High Capacity Transit facility, and already has a direct connection into the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel where it will connect with the Central Link light rail line.
The SR 520 alternative, on the other hand, presents both design and operating challenges. For example, there would be significant challenges connecting a surface rail line from SR 520 to the underground University Link light rail line that is being built from downtown Seattle north to the UW and eventually Northgate and into Snohomish County. The connections would have to be in an underground ‘merge’ of the rail lines or by building a separate right-of-way for the eastside line into downtown Seattle. Both of those choices would be very expensive and difficult to construct.
In addition, because the Link line between downtown Seattle and Northgate will carry a large number of passengers, riders from SR-520 would have to transfer to already crowded trains, creating crush loads. The I-90 route would bring passengers into Seattle to the International District/Chinatown Station where there is the capacity to continue to the north and south."
Anonymous said on November 2, 2009 at 11:33 AM
I voted for Mike McGinn in the primaries but I was not sure I'd vote for him in the General election. In the primary, I was mainly concerned with getting rid of that SOB Nickels and we did. I don't usually watch political debates because they are useless. They don't really give candidate adequate time to state their beliefs and many of the questions are loaded in favor of one candidate or the other. I was channel surfing one night and came upon what I believe was the first mayoral debate on the Seattle Channel. The subject was our traffic probam and McGinn, who I think is pretty much a whack job was saying that the people of Seattle voted to expand the trolley system on Lake Union and that is what we should do. Mallahan, who is nothing but a tax and spend liberal, responded by saying, and I quote, "Just because the people voted for something doesn't mean we should do it." Unquote.