Perfect timing for a big announcemenmt if you want to minimze attention

Gregoire calls for voters to decide future of viaduct.

the governor's announcement came as a surprise to several City Council members who said they expected a decision next week.

Crews battle to repair damaged system.

Hundreds of thousands of Puget Sound residents may have to survive without electricity and heat through the weekend.

And without radio/tv/newspaper.

Is it possible that the Governor moved her announcement (it's not a "decision") ahead to take advantage of public attention on staying warm?

Comments

[Gomez]

I am appalled at how impotent and weak Gregoire has been as governor. It almost makes me wish I had voted for Rossi. ALMOST.

But though her DQ of all other options sunk the retrofit, I'm glad she has silenced the absurdist surface transit movement. The PWC and their lobbyists got far more of an audience than they deserved.

[Gomez]

Also, if informal polls are an indicator, if put to a vote, the rebuild would win by at least 25 points (which of course is why Nickels refused to put it to a vote). Even the citizens know Nickels' Pipe Dream Tunnel is completely impractical and infeasible.

[David Sucher]

And what's sad is that even fairly bright people -- Stranger writers and editors -- are so in dream-land about the surface/transit option that they cannot think straight.

[Gomez]

Even in the face of reason, simple logic and facts. Naysayers don't hate the idea... they just see it for what it is: an idea that's a few decades and one major rail transit system too soon.