Decision To Kill Bridge May Prove Expensive Had Lincoln Street Project Died On Its Own, City Wouldn’T Have To Repay $3.6 Million

On Feb. 14, the Spokane City Council voted unanimously to abandon the unpopular Lincoln Street bridge project.

The move was celebrated by Mayor John Talbott and other council members who had long fought the bridge.

But that moment of triumph may have have cost the city $3.6 million.

According to city and state officials, had the city let the bridge die a natural death in court, the state wouldn’t have required the repayment of federal dollars used for bridge design and engineering. By taking an active step in killing the project, the city ensured it would have to pay back $5.8 million instead of $2.2 million.

“If the judge said `no, you’re wrong’ what could have happened is that the city could have been forgiven the design dollars,” said Jerry Lenzi, eastern regional administrator for the state Department of Transportation. “It says very clearly in the contract, when you shut it off, you have to pay it back.”

City Manager Hank Miggins, whose first day on the job was one week after the vote, said that was his understanding as well.

“If it had been stopped by forces beyond our control, it’s possible that we wouldn’t have had to pay it back,” said Miggins. “There would have been a lot more sympathy (from the state).”

But Talbott calls that conjecture, and said “We’re just playing games. The Department of Transportation could have forgiven the payback if it wanted to. What’s the difference (if the council voted or not)?”

On Monday, the City Council voted to enter into a repayment schedule that would return the $5.8 million over two years to the Department of Transportation, which is handling the funds for the Federal Highway Administration.

The council resolution was a result of a May 31 letter from the state passing along a federal demand to be repaid in a year, and subsequent negotiations that extended the deadline.

The city has also pledged to seek alternatives to full repayment, including forgiveness of the debt from Congress.

The Lincoln Street bridge had been controversial since it was first proposed in the 1970s. In 1997, the City Council passed a resolution that kept the project alive without committing more city money to it.

The bridge also ran into legal roadblocks, including a refusal by the state Shorelines Hearing Board to issue a permit. The city appealed that decision in court.

In November 1999, Spokane citizens passed a charter amendment that called for a vote on any bridge that would cross the Spokane River gorge, essentially a referendum against the Lincoln Street bridge. Also, all six final candidates for three council seats said they opposed the bridge.

With the public’s view clear, a number of officials from the city and state entered into negotiations in late 1999 to find a way for the city to abandon the project without having to repay the state, said former City Councilman Jeff Colliton.

The plan would have applied the design and engineering costs to two related projects, improvements to the Monroe Street and Post Street bridges, under the condition that the city not violate the contract by officially canceling the Lincoln Street project, Colliton said.

No commitment was made by the state, but “that was the premise we continued to work on,” he said. “All of the council members (including incoming members Eugster and Steve Corker) knew we were in this mode.”

Lenzi, the state official, was present at the discussions and confirmed that there was talk of transferring the design costs to the other projects. The $2.2 million used for the acquisition of the old Salty’s restaurant site would not be forgiven under any circumstances, he said.

As a tangible asset, the restaurant building could have been sold and the money recouped by the city, he said.

Lenzi said he made it clear, in letters to the mayor and and in the negotiations, that an active move toward killing the bridge project would trigger the payment language in the contract.

“They had very ample warning that certain consequences could have occurred,” Lenzi said.

Despite the warning, the city voted to abandon its appeal of the shorelines decision.

Councilwoman Phyllis Holmes said she voted for the Feb. 14 resolution because she knew it had the votes to win and didn’t want to further fracture the already divided council.

She said she knew the vote could prove to be costly, and that it was politically motivated.

“There are people who have been campaigning on the issue of being against the bridge and they wanted to show people that they could indeed kill it,” Holmes said.

Holmes accused council members of simply ignoring the advice of staff and other council members not to kill the project. “There are folks with their own belief system,” she said.

But Talbott said that without officially killing it, there would still be interests pushing to build the bridge.

“It was just time to stop this nonsense,” he said.

Had the city not voted, the project could have died in a number of ways.

The simplest would have been losing in court, which would have upheld the city’s contractual obligation with the state to pursue the project.

“If they had lost in court, we’d be having a whole different conversation,” Lenzi said.

But even if the city prevailed, there could have been other ways to stop the bridge.

Former Assistant City Attorney Stan Schwartz, who handled the bridge case, said the city could have used the public’s clear displeasure with the project and its affinity for the river gorge as the basis of another environmental study, which might have recommended against the bridge.

Schwartz said there was language in the Federal Highway Administration documents that said “agencies receiving funds may be excused from payback if environmental circumstances warrant not proceeding with the project.”

“I think the vote of the people could have been the precipitating event for further environmental argument or changed conditions,” Schwartz said.

The costly ramifications of the council’s February vote is one reason Miggins pushed for a resolution last month that gives city staff time to analyze the consequences of council actions.

“I like to have more information for the council to make decisions with,” Miggins said.