MARYSVILLE I think we held our own, said Marysville Mayor Dennis Kendall.
Kendall was part of what many observers said was a standing room only crowd in a hearing room of the state Senate last week.
Led by State Sen. Paull Shin, D-Edmonds, the Senates Higher Education Committee had called a hearing to help determine the possible location of a new branch campus of the University of Washington.
Following the hearing, Shin said his committee could vote on a site recommendation some time this week. The issue would next go to the Senate Ways and Means Committee and ultimately the full Senate.
Were hoping they move quickly, Kendall said, adding that while he certainly supports a Marysville location, he does not want to loose what seems to be overall legislative support for a new campus.
The House Higher Education Committee will begin its hearings on the campus issue Jan. 28 and Kendall said Marysville supporters will be at that hearing in force as well. Ultimately, Gov. Christine Gregoire has the final say on where the campus lands.
Marysville, Everett and to some extent Lake Stevens are all in the running for the proposed campus. A state-hired consultant named a downtown Everett location as the preferred site, but Marysville backers have insisted that recommendation was only round one in the battle for the campus. The Marysville location was a close second in the consultants report.
Kendall and others said local leaders were allowed to make their case before the Senate committee, but got little or no feedback.
Obviously, there was no vote taken, so you dont know if your point was taken or not, said City Councilwoman Donna Wright who made the trip to Olympia.
According to Kendall, Wright and others, city officials and residents made many of the same points they have made in the past. Specifically, Marysville backers refuted consultant claims regarding groundwater problems at the location in the Smokey Point neighborhood. They sold the local site as having more room for expansion and being closer to the proposed campuses target population, which includes Skagit and Island counties.
We ran out of time on our side, said Becky Foster, a member of the UW North Tri-County Coalition, a grassroots group promoting the Marysville site. We would have liked to have had a few more minutes.
Foster added several Marysville speakers hit on the issue of train traffic at the potential Everett location, situated as it is near that citys transportation hub. While Everett backers point to that hub as a strength of the site, Foster talked about how up to 27 freight trains make their way through the area every day.
How well can you educate students when youve got that kind of noise? Foster said. This is not a good learning environment.
Despite all those trains, Foster also noted there is little mass transportation headed to the Everett location from the north.
Our kids are still going to be depending on the car, she said.
Regarding the campus, Marysville still very much has the support of Arlington officials.
I feel it would just add greatly to our quality of life, said Arlington Mayor Margaret Larson.
Even if the Senate committee did not take a vote last week, Shin has come out on the side of the Everett location.
Until a couple of weeks ago, I was neutral, he said. But he added he changed his mind after studying the consultants report, looking at transportation issues and visiting both sites.
All things considered, I decided on the Everett site, Shin said. Shin introduced a bill into the Senate calling for placing the campus in that city.
In response, Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen, D-Camano Island, introduced legislation backing Marysville. Similar competing bills are making their way through the Washington House.
Marysville supporters also are not getting much help from the Snohomish County Council, which voted last week to support the Everett location. County Executive Aaron Reardon did not return a phone call.