OLYMPIA -- The earthquake-damaged Capitol could remain closed to the public until 2004 under a new proposal that was winning favor Tuesday with legislative budget writers.
About 500 state employees and legislators who were forced out by the Feb. 28 earthquake also would have to wait until 2004 to return home, although they could return during the summer to get gear and organize their materials, said Sen. Darlene Fairley, D-Lake Forest Park, who wrote the Senate's capital budget plan for 2001-03.
The Senate proposal, which is similar to a proposal emerging in the House, would combine about $20 million of earthquake repairs with $92 million for renovations into a single project. As much as $15 million in federal disaster aid would be used to pay for part of the quake damage.
One dispute yet to be settled is whether to require a union labor agreement on the rehabilitation work, a requirement which Gov. Gary Locke backs.
Requiring all union workers could disqualify the state from receiving quake damage reparations from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. An order bars federal funds from being used for projects that use project labor agreements.
The plan to close the building and get the project going right away has support of people in both parties, said Rep. Gary Alexander, R-Olympia, co-chairman of the House Capital Budget Committee.
"We are in agreement that we should proceed with the project as soon as possible and we should do it as one project," Alexander said Tuesday.
"I view them as a seamless project," agreed Rep. Ed Murray, D-Seattle, co-chairman of the Capital Budget Committee. "I just think it probably makes sense financially. You've got the people out of the building. You might as well do everything at once."
Most Senate members would rather stay out of the building and see the work done by 2004, Fairley said.
The other option is to re-enter the building sometime in April, then either move out again for the rehabilitation project, which could continue into 2005, or have some of the work go on around them, Fairley said.
"I haven't met a member who wants to wait that long," Fairley said.
An estimated 500 people who work in the Capitol were dislocated by the quake and have been holed up in temporary quarters scattered throughout various state buildings in Olympia, Lacey and Tumwater.
GA's different plan
The state Department of General Administration, meanwhile, is making repairs to the structure. Until it gets clear notice from lawmakers, it is preparing to let state workers return to the Capitol as soon as mid-April.
"What we're saying to tenants is that after the middle of April they might want to move back into the building," said Pat McLain, project coordinator for the Department of General Administration. "It will be their decision about whether to move back in there or to wait for two weeks."
Marsha Tadano Long, director of GA, "has cautioned everyone that we are taking this one day at a time," McLain added.
Despite the looming agreements between budget writers, House staff members still were proceeding Tuesday with the assumption that the quake-repair and renovation projects will be separate.
They are assuming that staff can move into the west end of the Capitol beginning in mid-April if they want, said Tim Martin, Republican co-chief clerk of the House.
Even if that holds up as an option, the House, which has been holding its floor sessions in a cramped committee hearing room, might decide to stay put until the scheduled April 22 end of session, Martin added.
Crews already have completed work to make the House chambers habitable, including repairs to plaster that fell from ceilings, attaching a marble facing behind the speaker's rostrum that fell and replacing broken lighting.
Work on the Senate side will have to wait until mid-April, when five large facing stones loosened on the dome's exterior colonnade are removed, and pillars knocked slightly out of place are moved back into vertical alignment, McLain said.
The delay is due to the danger of falling stones.
Work to protect state employees from another quake also is under way. Crews this week began installing collars on pillars that hold up the dome. About half of 16 structural columns were knocked out of vertical alignment, but once they're put back using hydraulic jacks, they'll be pinned to the rest of the dome structure, according to Andy Stepelton, senior project manager for GA.
Work to remove five huge sandstone facing blocks on the east side of the dome also is getting under way. The blocks pose a safety hazard, according to Stepelton.
The Capitol survived the 6.8-magnitude earthquake quite well, Stepelton and McLain said. Planned work is designed to bolster the structure against the biggest quake expected in a 500-year period.
"We're designing for a 500-year event," McLain said, "and people will be able to get out of the building safely."
Brad Shannon and Patrick Condon cover the Capitol and the Legislature for The Olympian. They can be reached at 753-1688.
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