Sound Transit 3 campaign plunks down $800,000 for media advertising



less The campaign for more light rail is powering your way. Mass Transit Now has just made an $800,000 media buy to boost the 25-year, $54 billion Sound Transit 3 tax-and-rail package. Big corporations, construction unions and engineering firms are fueling the campaign. The campaign for more light rail is powering your way. Mass Transit Now has just made an $800,000 media buy to boost the 25-year, $54 billion Sound Transit 3 tax-and-rail package. Big corporations, ... more Photo: GENNA MARTIN, SEATTLEPI.COM Photo: GENNA MARTIN, SEATTLEPI.COM Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Sound Transit 3 campaign plunks down $800,000 for media advertising 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

The campaign for more light rail is taking on the aspect of a political bulldozer.

Mass Transit Now, which touts the "Sound Transit 3" ballot measure as a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," is taking to the airwaves with an $800,000 advertising buy. The campaign has plenty more to spend to persuade King, Snohomish and Pierce County voters to approve the 25-year, $54 billion tax plan to extend light rail.

A recent filing with the Public Disclosure Commission shows the outlay to Screen Strategies Media of Fairfax, Virginia, whose clients include a bevy of Democratic senators and U.S. Senate candidates, as well as the Washington Education Association and Planned Parenthood.

The Mass Transit Now campaign has invested heavily in polling to hone its message, with $74,250 paid to the California-based Fairbank Maslin polling firm -- long trusted by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. -- and $48,500 to EMC Research.

ST3 is the most ambitious, and costly, ballot proposition the Puget Sound region has ever seen, and likely will see for generations to come..

It proposes to build an additional 62 miles of light rail, extending Sound Transit lines south to Tacoma, north to Everett, west to Burien and Ballard, and northeast to Redmond.

The price tag is, however, steep. It includes a half-cent increase in the state sales tax in the Sound Transit service area, as well as a property tax hike of 25 cents per $1,000 of assessed valuation, and a 0.8 percent increase in the motor vehicle excise tax.

The pro-ST3 side is vastly better-funded than its opposition. It has raised $2.193 million, according to filings with the Public Disclosure Commission, with more than $1 million in the bank even after outlays to Screen Strategies and the region's leading Democratic political consultants.

By contrast, the "No on Sound Transit 3" campaign reports raising just $10,071.

The money to Mass Transit Now keeps pouring in.

Its recent filings include $50,000 from the Parsons Transportation Group of Washington, D.C., the latest big construction-engineering firm to give big.

The Seattle-based bicoastal Perkins Coie law firm, whose clients include President Obama and the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, has gone in for $25,000. CenturyLink has contributed $10,000. The BECU credit union has donated $15,000, as has Nucor Steel; Seattle Genetics has given $25,000.

Mass Transit Now kicked off its campaign in the last few days with Pierce and Snohomish County events, a central Seattle event and a kickoff in Bellevue.