Contributors Seek Light-Rail Contracts Special-Interest Money Upsets Some, But No Illegal Donations Found

Some of the major contributors to last year’s successful regional transit campaign are hoping for a piece of the business.

Nearly a third of the $890,750 pumped into the campaign in King, Pierce and Snohomish counties came from engineering and architectural firms, contractors, railroads, transit equipment suppliers and providers of other services related to the project.

Many of those companies are bidding for contracts with the agency that is putting together a $3.9 billion rail-bus network. The bulk of the project will be paid for by increases in the local sales tax and motor vehicle excise tax.

“If these initiatives don’t get passed, we don’t have any work,” said John Bergerson, an ICF Kaiser International senior vice president. The Virginia-based engineering firm contributed $20,000 to the Regional Transit Authority campaign and is negotiating a large joint-venture contract with the agency.

A finalist for the light-rail preliminary engineering contract, worth about $25 million, is a joint venture of firms and subcontractors that individually donated $75,500 to the campaign, state records show.

The apparent winner of a contract to study environmental effects of the light-rail line is a group of mainly regional firms that donated a total of $26,000. That contract, still being negotiated, is worth between $3 million and $5 million, said Paul Bay, Regional Transit Authority light rail director.

Bob White, RTA executive director, says contributions are “absolutely not” a criteria in the selection process.

The selection committee looks for a “good proposal and an excellent team” that includes firms from the three-county RTA taxing district, White said.

But some critics are dismayed at the role special-interest money is playing.

“One way you can characterize our campaign finance system is that it is set up for special interests to finance our campaigns,” said Chuck Sauvage, state director for the public interest group Common Cause.

No donation appears to have violated state election laws. Yet, compared with special-interest contributors, “my small contribution doesn’t mean anything,” Sauvage said.

Doug Hurley, vice president of Bellevue-based CH2M Hill engineering, cautions that “it is easy to sully good intentions” when companies make contributions. But, he added, major public works projects won’t be approved if not supported by business leaders.

CH2M Hill contributed $20,000 to the campaign organization, Committee for Regional Transit, and Hurley was a campaign steering committee member.

Two weeks ago, his firm was part of the joint venture that won the multimillion-dollar environmental study.

The biggest of the Regional Transit Authority projects is light rail - a system of electrified cars that will run on new rights of way, tracks and power lines. Bay says design, engineering and construction management costs for this project will run from $200 million to $300 million.

The choice for preliminary engineering on the light-rail line in King County and in Tacoma was the Parsons Brinckerhoff, ICF Kaiser, BRW joint venture, which edged out a group headed by Bechtel Infrastructure of San Francisco.

Bay said the selection was based on tunnel and overall transit experience, urban design and technical approach and human resources.

“The people counted more than the firm,” Bay said.

Parsons Brinckerhoff’s project manager, Dave Donatelli, received high grades for work on light-rail lines in New Jersey and Pittsburgh, Bay said.

A subcontractor on that team, Shannon & Wilson Inc. of Seattle, will do soil studies related to tunnel construction. BRW designs rail stations that serve different modes of transportation from bicycles to buses.

Parsons Brinckerhoff gave $20,000 to the 1996 campaign; BRW’s parent corporation, Dames & Moore, $21,000; and Shannon & Wilson, $7,500.

But there are no guarantees a donor will get a piece of the action.

HDR Engineering, an Omaha-based firm that donated $15,000 to the Committee for Regional Transit, competed for the preliminary design contract and placed a distant fourth.

“We had a good technical proposal,” said HDR Executive Vice President Jim Suttle in Omaha. “But we were not pleased with our presentation. Nobody likes to lose.”