From the Aug 8 – Aug 14, 2002 issue

News

Monorailing

Anti-Monorail Campaign Secretly Tests Fine-Tuned Speaking Points

by Josh Feit

Both pro- and anti-monorail advocates started their motors last week. The pro contingent got the campaign going more formally--popping bottles of sparkling cider at City Hall chambers on Monday evening, August 5, after the monorail board, the Elevated Transportation Company (ETC), approved the final 14-mile Green Line plan that will go to voters in November. Those in the anti contingent kicked things off more stealthily--and maybe even unethically, as they seemed to go awry of campaign rules.

Indeed, the anti-monorail campaign hasn't officially registered with the Public Disclosure Commission yet, but it seems to be up and running.

Last week, a memo of finely tuned anti-monorail sound bites and speaking points surfaced. A political consultant familiar with the anti-monorail memo said the sound bites had the feel of being "poll-tested," meaning the folks who put the memo together may have already spent serious dough on their efforts. (Political campaigns are required to file with the city and state within two weeks of deciding to raise and spend money. The Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission says the anti-monorail group was expected to file by August 2. As of August 6, the group had not registered.) "When they do file," says Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission Acting Director Steve Gross, "we will look at dates of deposits, expenditures, and contributions to determine if they filed in a timely manner."

Former Port Commissioner Henry Aronson is reportedly the man behind the memo, and according to Ethics and Elections, Aronson is going to be the anti-monorail campaign treasurer. Former Ron Sims aide Tim Hatley had been carrying the anti-monorail banner, but he reportedly bowed out, telling the Ethics and Elections Commission in an e-mail note last week that he had met with people and decided he didn't want to be involved in the campaign. Given Hatley's relationship with Sound Transit leader Sims, anti-monorail campaigners may have wanted to dissociate their campaign from Sound Transit and asked Hatley to take a lower profile. While Hatley officially took his name off the campaign, he was in attendance at the city council's monorail hearing on Monday morning, August 5.

As to the six-point anti-monorail memo, The Stranger nabbed a copy. Let's take it item by item.

1. The anti-monorail folks want you to believe "the cost of the monorail is un- limited." The planned sound bite reads, "If the ordinance passes, the ETC will be granted a blank check without expiration date."

Not so. At the August 5 monorail board meeting, at the urging of ETC member (and co-author of the original monorail initiative in 1997) Dick Falkenbury, the board put a $1.5 billion cap on the project's bonding capacity and put strict guidelines on the use of the 1.4 percent monorail tax--locking the tax to the proposed 14-mile Green Line.

2. The anti-monorail folks say, "The monorail tax will be the largest single tax increase in the history of Seattle."

Nice try. Here's the deal. The monorail tax is a 1.4 percent motor-vehicle excise tax (MVET). Given that the recent Tim Eyman-inspired car-tab rule erased the previous MVET from 2.2 percent to zero, the 1.4 percent monorail MVET simply brings voters back to a reasonable level of taxation for a needed public-transportation fix. Oh, and unless Aronson and company measure past projects (like building the hydroelectric dams or leveling Denny) in modern dollars, the tax-increase assertion seems meaningless.

3. The anti-monorail memo says, "The monorail will not reduce congestion."

Twenty percent of the monorail's 20-million-person ridership is projected to come from current motorists. By giving commuters the monorail option (through downtown), the monorail will offer downtown commuters a choice to ride above congestion.

4. The anti-monorail folks say the monorail will impact views.

Sure will. No one at the ETC ever claimed otherwise. But the monorail will also provide some of the most stunning views in town. Imagine zooming over Second Avenue, looking out over the Puget Sound.

5. The anti-monorail folks warn that the ETC will not commit to a route.

Here's the deal: The ETC plan lays out a precise route from 15th Avenue NW in Greenwood to California Avenue SW in West Seattle. The model does allow enough flexibility along the route to accommodate technical snafus during construction, so the line can shift, say, from one side of the street to the other. The proposal also specifically designates tricky areas--like Seattle Center--where the ETC needs greater flexibility to maneuver. But there's hardly enough ambiguity to deviate from the mandated Green Line. Even in the Seattle Center instance, for example, the ETC is wedded to cruising down Harrison from the north and Fifth Avenue from the south and connecting those to streets either through or around the Center.

6. The anti-monorail folks say the ETC isn't democratic.

Good point. Even the monorail-drunk Stranger agrees. In fact, we wrote a column bashing the ETC for its appointed-governance model. However, thanks to I-53 frontman Peter Sherwin, the ETC governance model was amended to include two elected positions and now mandates that an all-elected governance model be put to a vote by 2007.

At a Monday morning August 5 city council meeting, the ETC got a chance to shoot down most of these assertions. Council members fired away: Is the ETC's taxing authority unlimited? Does the ETC have too much flexibility to alter the route from voter expectations? Monorail board guy Tom Weeks had a host of good answers. As to the ETC's taxing authority, Weeks cited Falkenbury's "unprecedented" budget controls: The monorail tax can only pay for the current Green Line proposal; the tax will sunset when the Green Line debt is paid off; there's a $1.5 billion cap on the taxing authority. As for the Green Line's "elusive" route, the ETC has committed to a specific street-by-street line from Ballard to West Seattle. Oh, and by the way, the monorail initiative passed by the voters in 2001 (I-53) gave the council no authority to mess with the ETC's plan.

Despite Weeks' answers, the council didn't vote to refer the monorail plan to the ballot. (The council has until September 20 to do so.)

In response to the council's holding pattern, the monorail campaign can bypass the council and collect the estimated 4,000 signatures necessary to put the monorail plan to voters without council approval. (This option doesn't usually exist for initiatives, but when the state gave the city the right to create a monorail taxing authority, it also gave the people the right to send the issue to a vote without council approval.)

josh@thestranger.com