Late on Friday afternoon, August 9, Seattle City Council Member Richard Conlin fired off an angry e-mail accusing the monorail campaign committee Rise Above It All of ignoring the monorail plan approved earlier in the month by the monorail board, or Elevated Transportation Company (ETC).
"Some zealous monorail supporters have... submitted a petition... [that] virtually ignores the work done by the ETC," Conlin wrote.
Who are these dangerous "zealous monorail supporters"? For starters, they include Mayor Greg Nickels. Mainly, though, it's Rise Above It All--the same group that saved the monorail back in November 2000 by passing I-53, the "second monorail initiative," after Council Member Conlin voted to kill the original monorail initiative that summer. Conlin's current e-mail attack is a response to Rise Above It All's latest plan to circumvent the council and circulate a petition that would put the monorail initiative on the ballot.
Conlin's e-mail threatened, "If this petition is filed, I believe that the Council would have no choice but to place an alternative on the ballot." (At a special late-afternoon city council session on Monday, August 12, the council moved the ETC plan forward for a future vote and possible amendments.)
Conlin's threat failed. Out in full force last weekend, monorail activists netted nearly 2,000 signatures, including a signature from Mayor Greg Nickels. Count Nickels among the "zealots."
Meanwhile, the ETC--the group that Conlin says Rise Above It All is ignoring--has actually sided with Rise Above It All: "The only way we can guarantee that our monorail plan will be in front of the voters is to put it on the ballot through petition," said ETC board chair Tom Weeks, who was out collecting signatures for Rise Above It All at Green Lake on Sunday, August 11. "The council votes are not there right now to put the initiative on the ballot. I-53 directed us to go to the ballot either through the city council or by petition to the voters," Weeks said.
(The special monorail legislation passed in Olympia earlier this year--legislation allowing Seattle to create its own monorail authority--contained a groovy loophole allowing the public to put the monorail plan to a vote without council approval. Doing so requires about 4,000 signatures.)
When Conlin got word of Rise Above It All's plan to collect those signatures, he sent out his e-mail. Specifically, he accused Rise Above It All of peddling a petition that didn't honor the plan created by the voter-empowered monorail board, or ETC. Certainly, the fact that monorail board members such as ETC chair Weeks, Cindi Laws, and Dick Falkenbury were circulating the petition last weekend at places like Green Lake, Alki Beach, and the Ballard Market proves that Conlin is wrong to say Rise Above It All's petition doesn't jibe with the ETC's work.
The bigger clues are found in the petition itself. Implying that the Rise Above It All petition ignored the ETC's monorail plan, Conlin wrote, "Their petition... never [mentions] Ballard, West Seattle, or downtown, and essentially would create the new Board as a private club that would have virtually unchecked control over $1.5 billion in tax moneys."
Conlin's statement is misleading. The ballot title that Rise Above It All circulated last weekend reads, "This proposition would create the Seattle Popular Monorail Authority, to build and operate the initial line of a citywide monorail system pursuant to the Seattle Popular Monorail Plan," adding in fine print, in the toughest legal language available, "The Seattle Popular Monorail Authority shall adopt the Seattle Popular Monorail Plan."
The Seattle Popular Monorail Plan is the 50-plus-page document that the ETC passed at its August 5 board meeting specifically laying out the 14-mile Ballard-to-West Seattle route. That plan put rigorous controls over monorail taxing authority--like stipulating exactly what the money can be spent on and capping how much can be spent. According to the city attorney's office, the petition is bound by the August 5 plan.
"This petition is entirely consistent with the plan that the ETC developed," Weeks said, stand- ing by a giant monorail map he set up at the southwest corner of Green Lake. Appropriately, Weeks--wearing sun glasses, shorts, and running shoes--was joined by Rise Above It All co-chair Peter Sherwin. They were netting about 100 signatures an hour. "If the voters approve this in November," Weeks says, "the new monorail authority will be completely bound by the August 5 ETC plan. Ask any lawyer." I asked the city attorney's office. They agreed.
As The Stranger went to press on Tuesday, August 13, Rise Above It All had collected about 2,500 signatures. And in an absolute show of disrespect toward Conlin's sham concerns, one of those signatures came from Mayor Greg Nickels. Tracked down at Pike Place Market by one monorail petitioner on Saturday, August 10, Nickels told The Stranger he would try to veto any council alternative that wasn't clearly in sync with the ETC plan. Then, Nickels whipped out his personal Mont Blanc fountain pen and signed Rise Above It All's petition--endorsing the group's efforts to build a monorail in spite of Conlin's continuing efforts to derail the project.
