As the Seattle Monorail Project board prepared to decide whether public agencies like Metro could bid to operate the monorail, public employee unions accused the SMP of stacking the deck against public contracts by hiring the same law firm that recommended private operations in July '01 to perform a January '04 "independent evaluation" of public vs. private operations.

SMP board members had some accusations of their own, claiming that Metro employees were lobbying against the private-contractor option by sending missives from county e-mail addresses, an ethics no-no.

In other monorail news, opponents launched a drive to "recall the monorail" through a new website, monorailrecall.com. Those who are behind the campaign are trying hard to conceal their identity: An e-mail to the site's "contact" got a vague--and anonymous--response. ERICA C. BARNETT

Blethens Feel the Love

The Seattle Times announced last week in an internal memo that it is launching an advertising campaign in which employees will provide ostensibly voluntary and "unstructured" public "testimonials" praising the paper's owners, the Blethens, for their warmth and kindness in fostering a sense of "family and community connection" at the Times. The first installment of the series ran in the Friday, February 6, editions, and featured Chito Trias and his daughter Kristine, both Times staffers. The elder Trias shared his heartwarming story of having risen from snow shoveler to "central stores clerk" during his 23 years at the paper. "It's a good paper run by a good family," he concludes. SANDEEP KAUSHIK