You'd think a campaign with the vast monetary resources of Monorail Recall could afford to at least hire a professional treasurer. Instead, the anti-monorail group puts its financial faith in the not-overwhelmingly-capable hands of Recall leader Liv Finne, whose campaign disclosure forms are so rife with errors you might mistake them for a monorail story in the Weekly. The mistakes, though mostly benign, include one particularly glaring error: the omission of a $20,000 pledge from anti-monorail campaign patron Martin Selig, a downtown property owner who has already lavished $175,000 in cash and in-kind contributions on the monorail-killing measure. Selig's latest pledge brings the amount the "grassroots" campaign has spent on signatures to nearly $57,000. Put another way, that's more than $3 for each valid signature.

The recent disclosure propelled monorail activist Peter Sherwin, who has sat virtually (and uncharacteristically) silent as the recall campaign has barreled forward, into action. Last week, Sherwin hiked down to the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission to discuss forming a new, revitalized pro-monorail campaign to combat Monorail Recall's well-financed spin.

With the recall initiative in temporary limbo (the council won't discuss putting the measure on the November ballot until next Monday, after a court hearing on the lawsuit against the initiative this Friday), the main business on the council agenda this week was the proposed South Lake Union streetcar. On Tuesday, after a week of lobbying by the mayor and council president Jan Drago (who recently sponsored a fundraiser for the Vulcan-backed Build the Streetcar campaign), the council rejected a proposal backed by Drago and Jean Godden that would, in Nick Licata's words, "unlock the door" to the use of city general-fund dollars to help pay for the streetcar. "No one is emotionally opposed to streetcars," Licata said after the vote. "We just don't necessarily want to end up owning one."

Refund anticipation loans, or RALs, are boring and complex and mostly affect poor people, who use them to pay for necessities like rent and groceries instead of waiting for their tax refunds. That's exactly why Tom Rasmussen, a quiet council champion of the sort of issues the well-to-do rarely think about, is up in arms about the loans, which companies like H&R Block issue--at annual interest rates as high as 800%--to people who want their refunds right away. This Tuesday, Rasmussen introduced legislation that would require companies that issue RALs to disclose the interest rate and terms of the loans, and inform customers that they can receive their refunds just as quickly by filing electronically, with no interest payments. The legislation, which groups like the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) have been pushing for months, has teeth, though perhaps not as sharp as ACORN would like: a fine of between $250 and $750 per infraction. The council will take comments on the legislation in a public hearing on Thursday, August 12, in council chambers at 5:30 p.m.

barnett@thestranger.com