From the Jun 19 – Jun 25, 2003 issue

News

Ironic Meeting

Monorail Board Discusses Public Access--70 Miles Away

by Erica C. Barnett

Last Friday, June 13, the nine-member board of the Seattle Monorail Project (SMP) held one of the most informative, productive, and candid meetings ever. Too bad it took place 70 miles outside Seattle, at a hotel meeting room in La Conner, Washington.

The monorail board's first official "retreat," which stretched over two days last week in this overgrown but still remote Skagit Valley town, was full of little ironies. Irony 1: The retreat was announced less than 48 hours before it occurred, belying the agency's promise to be the most transparent and accessible public agency ever. Only three members of the public turned out for Friday's meeting, and only one--monorail activist Peter Sherwin, whose agitation with the board led to a confrontation in which Sherwin invited meeting facilitator Margaret Norton-Arnold to "kiss my ass"--decided to hang around until the meeting wrapped up late Friday afternoon.

Irony 2: The retreat proved fertile ground for a discussion of one of the most contentious topics for the SMP board: public access to board deliberations, an issue that has split the board and unleashed a firestorm of controversy between board member Cindi Laws and the board's chair and vice chair, Tom Weeks and Kristina Hill. "One of my goals is transparency.... We should not try to keep things a secret" from the public, Laws said. But others on the board argued for even less public access to the board's inner machinations. Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles asked, in all seriousness, if she could be warned by staff before getting calls from the media; and Hill, turning to Laws, said she would prefer that disagreements between board members be discussed in private, over the phone, rather than on the record. "I would prefer people would call when there's an issue," Hill said pointedly. "It's very painful to have that disagreement happen... in the board meeting."

Board members reached at least one concrete decision during their two days of deliberations: The board will hold a vote as soon as possible on whether to allow public comment on all topics at the beginning of its meetings, rather than forcing people to wait until 9:00 or 10:00 at night before letting them address subjects not covered on the board's agenda. Which brings us to Irony 3: Because it held the retreat in lieu of its regular monthly board meeting in Seattle, the SMP canceled its upcoming meeting, meaning no major decisions will be made until its August meeting, seven weeks away.

barnett@thestranger.com