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Governor nixes C-Tran’s advice, names Harris to bridge council

Jeanne Stewart 'stunned' she wasn't appointed

By Erik Robinson
Published: March 20, 2010, 12:00am

Passing over the recommendation of C-Tran’s board of directors, Gov. Chris Gregoire has appointed Vancouver city Councilor Jeanne Harris to a high-level advisory committee on the Columbia River Crossing.

In doing so, the governor rejected the C-Tran board’s recommendation of fellow Vancouver city Councilor Jeanne Stewart.

Harris now will join other state and local officials struggling to nail down details of a project designed to replace the twin three-lane drawbridges over the river; improve four miles of Interstate 5 and extend Portland’s light rail transit line into downtown Vancouver.

Stewart, a light-rail skeptic, had heard nothing from the governor’s office or anyone else involved in the crossing project since C-Tran board members — including Harris — unanimously accepted her nomination to the sponsors council on Feb. 9. She called that slight “inexcusable,” and strongly suspects what she termed “sleazy political shuffling” by Harris, Mayor Tim Leavitt and other members of the city council.

“I’m stunned,” she said Friday. “I’m totally stunned.”

Filling city’s seat

Technically, Gregoire appointed Harris as the representative of the city of Vancouver. Leavitt, a former city councilor who had previously served as C-Tran’s representative to the sponsors council, had informally shifted to the city’s chair after he won the mayoral election against Royce Pollard in November.

Gregoire, in effect, is leaving Leavitt on the council to represent C-Tran rather than the city.

Harris said she did not contact the governor’s office regarding the appointment.

“I have learned to just go with the flow and wait until something happens,” she said. “I knew that the governor had several choices, and I knew that the governor can make whatever choice she wants to make.”

The day after C-Tran recommended Stewart, a spokesman for the governor indicated the appointment wasn’t a foregone conclusion.

Stewart has criticized the light-rail alignment in Vancouver and voiced strong opposition to tolling the new bridge. Nonetheless, Clark County Commissioner Tom Mielke, a project critic who nominated Stewart from the C-Tran board, said he was shocked that Gregoire had ignored the board’s advice.

“It’s just like the rest of the Columbia River Crossing,” Mielke said. “It’s made up of people who have the same mind-set. They don’t want anybody with a different vision or a better idea. They just want somebody who thinks alike.”

Leavitt said he accepts Gregoire’s decision.

“We serve at the pleasure of the governor, so it’s ultimately her decision to decide who serves on the council,” Leavitt said Friday, just before boarding an airplane home from Washington, D.C. “I’ve been there as a C-Tran representative and will continue to serve.”

The 10-member Project Sponsors Council includes Oregon and Washington’s transportation directors; the mayors of Portland and Vancouver; representatives of transit agencies on both sides of the river; regional planning organizations on both sides; and two citizen members who serve as co-chairmen.

The Washington citizen position has been vacant since Washington State University Vancouver Chancellor Hal Dengerink stepped down for health reasons earlier this year.

Wants voters to be heard

Stewart, who remains on the C-Tran board, said she supports a replacement bridge of at least 10 lanes — the current design.

However, she said she will remain adamant that voters get a chance to weigh in.

C-Tran is preparing to ask Vancouver-area voters as soon as next year to approve a 0.3 percent increase in the sales tax to support a potpourri of countywide transit projects.

A successful sales tax measure would allow C-Tran to refashion Fourth Plain Boulevard with a bus rapid transit line; boost C-Van service for disabled riders; and maintain and expand commuter and local bus routes throughout the county. Only about one-sixth of that increase — 0.05 of a percentage point — would generate the money needed to operate light rail on the Vancouver side of the river. (Planners anticipate the federal government will build the light-rail line.)

Stewart argues that the tax measure should be separated, so that basic bus service isn’t susceptible to a voter backlash against light rail.

“I’m going to have a real hard time supporting maintenance and operation for light rail before I support funding for current operations of the C-Tran bus service and C-Van,” she said. “It’s all a matter of priorities.”

Erik Robinson: 360-735-4551 or erik.robinson@columbian.com.

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