ON JULY 31, seven city council members killed Initiative 41--1997's voter-approved monorail initiative. Rather than risk an outright repeal of I-41, however, disingenuous City Council Members Jan Drago, Jim Compton, Richard Conlin, Richard McIver, Judy Nicastro, Margaret Pageler, and Heidi Wills voted to overturn the will of the people by enacting an ordinance that gutted 41's guidelines. Even more insulting, the bill's sponsor, Wills, would have you believe that her ordinance actually saved the monorail. "Seattle can ride the sky," she beamed after her council bill, 113304, passed 7 to 1, with Council Member Peter Steinbrueck absent.

"They destroyed it," said livid I-41 chief author Dick Falkenbury, who was surrounded by radio and TV microphones outside council chambers immediately following the vote. "This was an outright repeal. I-41 is dead."

Wills' ordinance--opposed only by Council Member Nick Licata--guts I-41 by doing away with the Elevated Transportation Company (ETC), the public development agency created by voters to oversee the construction of a citywide monorail system.

"This is a repeal of the initiative," says ETC co-chair Tom Carr. Indeed, rather than giving the ETC the dollars necessary to do its work (like an alternate Licata proposal would have done), Wills' ordinance simply provides $50,000 for five of the 12 former ETC staffers to regroup as an "advisory panel" serving the infamously anti-monorail Strategic Transit Initiative. (The STI, a partnership between Seattle, Sound Transit, King County, the state Department of Transportation, and the ETC, was created by Mayor Paul Schell in 1998 to develop a regional transportation plan based on the $2-billion light-rail plan.)

Wills' new monorail advisory panel's name? The Elevated Transportation Committee, or--conveniently enough--the ETC. Wills' Orwellian word play allows her to claim that, despite the corpse at her feet, the "ETC" is still alive.

And don't expect Schell's STI to welcome the advice of Wills' half-baked alternative. The previous ETC had already been working with the STI, which exists to promote Sound Transit's light-rail line as the "spine" of any transit system, and got treated--as ETC chair Carr put it--"like a sub project." "The STI has a different charge than the ETC does," Carr told The Stranger last week. "Our charge is to build a monorail. It's a different focus. It's important that we exist to focus on what the voters asked us to do."

Evidently, King County Superior Court Judge J. Kathleen Learned agrees. In her weighty June 7 ruling, Judge Learned ordered the council to either build the monorail or repeal the voters' mandate outright. "I-41 clearly required the establishment of the Elevated Transportation Company for the purpose of building the monorail," Learned wrote last month. "There is, therefore, an urgency to prevent its demise. If the ETC is 'dead,' the Initiative's purpose cannot be furthered at all.... "

Appropriately enough, monorail supporter and attorney David Huber (whose original lawsuit against the city led to Learned's ruling) hand-delivered a letter to the city council as the hearing began, threatening to sue the city for contempt of court. "By turning the ETC into an advisory panel, disemboweling the ETC, this is a de facto repeal," Huber said. Learned's ruling explicitly says that the council "may not 'de facto' repeal [I-41]."

According to Wills, however, her bill doesn't buck Learned's ruling or I-41. By providing funds and reserving five seats on the new and improved (read: lesser) ETC for original ETC members, Wills claims her bill preserves the "spirit of I-41." In fact, Wills touts herself as a monorail savior. "I'm keeping the monorail alive," Wills told The Stranger after her proposal passed. Wills is proudest of a last-minute amendment to her council bill that would send the "ETC's" monorail proposal to a vote of the people within a year of formulating its plan to feed and support the 22-mile light-rail line with some monorail corridors.

Wills' optimism, however, should be tempered by a reality check. There's a fundamental flaw in her plan. The new ETC is not the old ETC. Wills' Elevated Transportation Committee lacks the cash and authority guaranteed to I-41's voter-approved Elevated Transportation Company. In short, the old, voter-approved ETC had the mandate to build the monorail. The new ETC simply serves as an advisory panel that can only make recommendations to the STI and the city council. In turn, the STI and the city council can whittle and tinker with those recommendations before a council-approved monorail plan goes to voters. Asked repeatedly to explain the necessity of turning the old ETC into a new one, Wills drew a blank.

Members of the old ETC were understandably angry after the council vote. And being asked to serve on Wills' ETC Lite only added insult to injury.

"They murdered us and asked us to serve as our own pallbearers," said Falkenbury, who, as I-41's chief author, sits on the original Elevated Transportation Company board.

Now, the only hope voters have of seeing the monorail built--the only transit option on the table that would actually serve Seattle's neighborhoods--is the new monorail initiative known as I-53. According to I-53 frontman Peter Sherwin, in the four weeks since filing with the city, the campaign has gathered 12,000 signatures. "I-53 is rolling," Sherwin said outside of council chambers right before the vote. "We need 24,000 by August 15, which we're on track to do. I-53 will be on the [November] ballot." (Otherwise, they'll have a chance to force a special election if they can round up 37,000 signatures by January.)

I-53 would revive the voter-created Elevated Transportation Company, effectively overturning Wills' bad bill, and make $6 million available to the real ETC. The Elevated Transportation Company would use this money to formulate a monorail plan and funding package, which would then automatically be submitted to the voters to accept or reject.

"I think the council's action will guarantee that I-53 activists get the required signatures," said Licata.