Thankfully, the legislature set rules to safeguard the GMA. Local governments, rather than bankrolled signature gatherers, were given authority to issue land-use permits. This ensured that special interests who don't dig things like urban growth boundaries, stream protection--or, more to the point, rapid public transit--couldn't dictate city planning.
That's why Seattle's monorail agency (joined by the Transportation Choices Coalition) is suing the group of property owners, Hummer drivers, and paid signature gatherers (who submitted a monorail recall initiative last week) on the grounds that this recall initiative violates 1990's enviro law. The monorail agency--arguing in King County Superior Court on August 13--has precedent on its side.
Last summer, the GMA was used to thwart a rabble-rousing crew of lefties who wanted to daylight Thornton Creek through an initiative that dictated land-use policy. At the time, this paper set aside our rabble-rousing lefty leanings and recognized the larger importance of the GMA. We supported City Attorney Tom Carr's fight against I-80, the Thornton Creek initiative. "Just think of what they'd do in the eastern part of King County.... You could have an initiative that increases the growth boundary, or one that removes buffer zones around salmon-bearing streams," we wrote at the time, calling Carr's reasoning "convincing."
It also convinced the King County Superior Court, which threw out I-80 before it got on the ballot. The court should throw out the monorail recall initiative, I-83, on the same grounds. I-83 seeks to override the GMA by nixing the city's authority to issue monorail right-of-way permits. The city already gave the monorail its right-of-way permits after exhaustive public hearings in the exact manner the GMA outlines.
Certainly, anti-monorail petitioners have a right to ask for a recall vote. But they should do it in a way that doesn't jeopardize environmental laws with reckless precedents. Voters, in fact, mandated a procedure for recalling the monorail. A straight-up recall vote (rather than a sneaky vote about right-of-way permits) is allowed if anti-monorail petitioners prove the project faces significant financial problems and get 15 percent of Seattle's voters to authorize a revote. The anti-monorail folks met neither standard, opting for a shortcut. Like most shortcuts, this one's a sham. The court should say so.
