The Seattle Times

By Warren Cornwall

November 7th, 2008

The much-anticipated blueprint for reviving Puget Sound is a sprawling, costly and complex plan that would require the region to make changes big and small in how it grows.

Now, let the wrangling begin.

While the general outlines of the Sound's problems — and the solutions — have been known, the draft plan released Thursday offers a foundation for attacking the issues.

It's also a new script for the political debate that will accompany the plan as it becomes final and then moves into the 2009 state legislative session.

Weighing in will be developers, environmentalists, bureaucrats, scientists and citizens. Some already have.

A leading environmentalist expressed impatience Thursday, saying the region should move faster than the plan suggests.

"Let's get the money and let's make sure we don't wait for some magic moment to ask for it and find out that Puget Sound died in the meantime," said Kathy Fletcher, executive director of People for Puget Sound.

A representative for business, meanwhile, expressed qualms about increasing spending amid questions about how effectively millions of dollars have already been spent.

"We're looking at this saying, 'Hey, if $2 billion to $4 billion a year isn't working, before you guys start talking about new taxes, you need to start looking at what's not working,'" said Chris McCabe, governmental-affairs director for the Association of Washington Business.

Underlying the spending debate is uncertainty about how much the recovery plan would cost. Officials with the Puget Sound Partnership, the state agency that released the plan, said they expect to have cost estimates when the plan is finalized Dec. 1. But the 96-page draft, on which the public has until Nov. 20 to comment, comes without dollar figures.

Read the full article here.

See the plan and find out how to comment at www.psp.wa.gov.