Area legislators arrived in Olympia last month with carloads of confidence they could launch a new University of Washington campus in Snohomish County this year.
The objectives were clear — select a site and secure money for classes.
They knew two obstacles blocked their path — disagreement on Everett or Marysville as the home and colleagues convinced a new college is unnecessary and unaffordable.
Today, three weeks in and neither hurdle fully cleared, university pursuers describe their chances from doable to difficult to disintegrating and back to doable.
Here’s a status report:
Senate
Progress is occurring most rapidly in this chamber.
Wednesday, the Senate Ways and Means Committee will hold a hearing on a bill putting the college in Everett and promising it won’t get any huge sums for construction without the blessing of the state’s other universities.
Though this bill names only Everett, those wanting the campus in Marysville or Lake Stevens can come pitch their communities, setting up a potential brawl.
“I want to hear from everybody,” said chairwoman Sen. Margarita Prentice, D-Renton. “Then they can duke it out.”
If the bill passes, it would be one step from a vote of the full Senate.
Looming not so quietly is Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen, D-Camano Island. She wants the college in Marysville, yet her bill to achieve that is bottled up in a committee.
Strategically, she’s trying to discern how and when to make her move. And she will make one.
House
There’s trouble in this chamber.
Monday, the House Higher Education Committee should advance legislation naming Everett as the site for the college. This step was expected last Thursday, but support had not fully jelled among the panel’s ruling Democrats.
Wording will be added to make it read exactly like the bill moving in the Senate.
Meanwhile, the level of doubt wrought new challenges this week.
A House budget subcommittee took out money for the college’s first classes and put it into enrollment at community and technical colleges in Snohomish, Island and Skagit counties. And none of those schools asked for the dough.
College backers want to retrieve it while simultaneously assuring hesitant colleagues that they won’t grab for more. Instead, they are pledging to grow the new campus at a pace similar to UW branches in Tacoma and Bothell.
Hesitant lawmakers increasingly voice this question: Why take one small step to create a new UW if the state cannot afford to make the large investment to produce the graduates it needs?
Governor
Gov. Chris Gregoire is lying low these days, and her absence is getting a lot of notice.
Everyone expects that when she emerges, it will alter the dynamics of the debate.
Until she does, the area’s legislators are conserving as much of their supply of confidence as they can so it will last the session’s entire 60 days.
Reporter Jerry Cornfield: 360-352-8623 or jcornfield@heraldnet.com.
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