Southwest District Council members had been looking forward to talking with Mayor McGinn on Wednesday night … till the matter of hiring a police chief got in the way. So instead, Deputy Mayor Darryl Smith filled in, while his boss presided at a chief-candidates public forum downtown. When it was all over, in a discussion ranging from The Viaduct to park-n-rides to stalled developments to the city budget, SWDC co-chair Chas Redmond told Smith, “You took our heated questions very gracefully.” See why he said that – ahead:

With the SWDC itself falling one rep short of a quorum, city employees in the room almost outnumbered council members for the first part of the meeting – besides Deputy Mayor Smith, there was Southwest District Coordinator Stan Lock, Emergency Management Director Barb Graff and one of her deputies, mayor’s office liaison Marco Lowe, and senior planner Susan McLain, there for a Triangle-planning update (which’ll be in a separate forthcoming story updating where that process stands).

Smith spoke, then entertained questions, which had been prepared with the expectation the mayor himself would be answering. It was a lively discussion just the same. Highlights (not necessarily in the order they were discussed):

IS THE MAYOR TRYING TO DELAY THE ALASKAN WAY VIADUCT TUNNEL? The latest twist in this is the mayor’s voiced concern over the “city property owners should pay for cost overruns” component of the state legislation that was passed. Smith said the city is talking with Governor Gregoire about it today. He fervently denied this was being used as a delay tactic, and insisted it’s a serious concern: “We want some resolution. … It’s a state highway. If there are cost overruns, they should be borne by the entire state.” He was pressed on the issue again later in the meeting by Fauntleroy Community Association‘s Vlad Oustimovitch, who served on the original Viaduct Stakeholders’ Group and is now on the South Portal Working Group reviewing other project components. Oustimovitch said the biggest risk he saw was in the city possibly losing the billions committed to the project by the state, if things drag on too long. Smith retorted, “I think you should be clear, the mayor is NOT holding up this project – the (latest) one-year delay didn’t come from us, it came from the Washington Department of Transportation.” And regarding overruns, he repeated that he’s never heard of a “megaproject” that came in under budget: “Fine, let’s build it, but let’s just not be responsible for the inevitable cost overruns – it’ll bankrupt this city.” Admiral Neighborhood Association‘s Jim Del Ciello then noted there’s a contingency for cost overruns that never seems to get mentioned; he considers the mayoral concern “a red herring.” Smith pointed out the mayor had offered to debate City Council President Richard Conlin on the issue but been rebuffed.

BUDGET PROCESS: The deputy mayor briefly alluded to the expected-soon announcement of midyear cuts to make up at least $11 million that this year’s budget turned out to be missing – “We don’t think it’s going to be as painful as we were originally thinking,” he said, describing the next two years’ budget as “the real challenge,” with up to $60 million to be made up: “That’s a really big deficit.” Smith didn’t anticipate an “all-cuts budget” but said “we’re trying to look at the budget holistically – we’re out of short-term fixes and don’t have any Band-Aids left. ”

LIGHT RAIL TO WEST SEATTLE? He says Mayor McGinn is still serious about this, though when it will go to voters – with a funding mechanism “so it’s not pie in the sky” – is not yet known. “I don’t think it’s going to be a Cadillac type of service, it might just be a hardworking Chevy truck.”

PARK-N-RIDES? Smith affirmed that the city is not supportive of freestanding parking structures but says there’s nothing that says a developer can’t combine park-n-ride elements with some other sort of development. He also mentioned the vacant lots in parts of South Seattle that have been approved (after a bit of a fight) for temporary use as parking lots.

“ENGAGED SEATTLE”: The Youth and Families Initiative is just one example of what Smith says is a new attempt at getting citizens involved in discussion, not just coming to meetings and listening to proposals. (This Saturday is its next step, the Youth and Family Congress at Seattle Center.) According to Smith, “city departments spend $62 million supporting youth and families each year.” But bigger than that, he said there’s a new “civic-engagement initiative” brewing in the mayor’s office, with the working title “Engaged Seattle,” focusing on “how the city works with community” and recognizing “that outreach and engagement are not the same thing.” As part of this, Smith says, a City of Seattle Service Plan is in development.

NEIGHBORHOOD PLANNING: Smith said McGinn’s philosophy is to look at neighborhood plans as more than “the built environment” – structures and zoning – but to also look at elements like “health disparities and urban agriculture” in neighborhoods. He didn’t have any new information on a possible time frame for updating additional neighborhood plans (such as perhaps the West Seattle Junction).

STALLED PROJECTS (like “The Hole”): What can be done with something like West Seattle’s Fauntleroy Place pit? Smith noted the aforementioned temporary use of flat sites in South Seattle as parking lots, and also talked about “looking at a policy right now” that sounded like the “Holding Patterns” project that the Design Commission has under way.

OTHER NOTES: He also had Barb Graff say a few words about disaster preparedness – lauding the West Seattle Be Prepared/Emergency Communication Hubs effort as a “poster kid” for the rest of the city – and saying a project is under way to figure out how quickly transportation challenges could be conquered in case of catastrophe – even using waterways. And Marco Lowe talked briefly about a South Park meeting coming up on June 9 to “engage” with business owners and community members regarding ways to be sure the dead end that’ll be created by the June 30th closure of the South Park Bridge doesn’t turn its business district into a dead zone.

The Southwest District Council meets the first Wednesday of most months, 7 pm in the South Seattle Community College board room.