Conlin's Con
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: When the rubber meets the road, you can't support both the monorail and Sound Transit. That's the reality. The massive funding each project needs to build a working system squarely locks monorail and Sound Transit in opposition over public dollars.
Oh, I know--people, especially politicians, say they're for both, but actions speak louder than words. Last May, for example, Mayor Greg Nickels, who's supposed to be just wild about monorail, signed off on anti-monorail legislation that prohibited the monorail from tapping city funds. The legislation just happened to simultaneously dedicate tons of dough to Sound Transit--$50 million, to be exact.
The latest hypocrite is Seattle City Council Member Richard Conlin. Chair of the council's Transportation Committee, Conlin recently sponsored and passed what he termed "routine" legislation. Since when is handing over the downtown bus tunnel to Sound Transit routine?! Last time I checked, Sound Transit hadn't secured its crucial $500 million federal grant, and isn't getting to Northgate--which makes the tunnel transfer illogical.
Conlin is a hypocrite because while he's busy shirking his responsibilities as transportation chair, snoozing through light-rail oversight, he's simultaneously playing the role of monorail-oversight hawk. At the last minute, according to ETC guy Tom Weeks, Conlin proposed an unprecedented public hearing for solely anti-monorail voices and an 11th-hour independent budget review. All this reevaluation could siphon away a month's worth of valuable monorail campaign time ["Conlin's Monorail Con," Amy Jenniges, July 4].
It's not clear what Conlin wants to evaluate. And never mind that I-53 didn't give the infamously anti-monorail council a say in the plan. The members of the Elevated Transportation Committee (ETC)--the group created by voters to come up with a monorail plan--have been diligently taking public input for a year and a half now, and, quite frankly, they've been reevaluating the plan themselves every time a neighborhood group coughs. (Go to www.elevated.org to see all the proof of public input.) Meanwhile, the city council has already been closely involved in monorail oversight. Nick Licata's ad hoc monorail committee has been holding hearings for months.
There's no question that people should be putting hard questions to the ETC. The Stranger slammed the ETC for its aversion to democratically electing its future board ["Elected? Appointed?" Pat Kearney, May 16], but damn if Conlin should be doing Sound Transit's bidding (on the public) Conlin, by the way, is the same guy who killed the ETC in 2000 when he co-sponsored legislation to repeal the first monorail initiative passed by Seattle voters.
I-53, the second monorail initiative, didn't give the city council power to tinker with the ETC's plan. The council's only responsibility at this point is to send the plan to the voters.
