State Supreme Court won't block anti-monorail Initiative 83

By Mike Lindblom
Seattle Times staff reporter

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A court commissioner yesterday decided against giving the Seattle Monorail Project an emergency hearing it sought this week. The agency had made a last-minute attempt to keep the initiative, which would forbid city permits to construct new monorails in public rights-of-way, from reaching the Nov. 2 ballot.

The Seattle City Council assured I-83's place on the ballot this morning, taking a unanimous vote to forward the measure to King County elections officials, as prescribed by the city charter.

Monorail backers on the council said they were following the law and not their own wishes.

"I don't want to be a member of another generation that fails to provide this growing city and region with an appropriate transit system," said Council President Jan Drago. I register my vote today with deep regret and I hope Seattle citizens spend a good deal of time looking at the future of this region before they cast their vote in November."

Councilman Nick Licata lamented that "we'll watch both sides of the issue spend large sums of money to try and convince the public they're right-for the fourth time."

In addition to the campaign spending, the city government will spend another $890,000 in taxpayer funds to cover election fees and voter information.

Voters narrowly approved a monorail tax for the 14-mile Green Line in 2002, after passing planning initiatives in 1997 and 2000.

Project opponent Geof Logan commented: "We're going to have the first monorail election where we have a real vote, instead of voting on a fantasy." Since the last election, the monorail's income from a car-tab tax has come in far short of expectations, and the agency has proposed that some parts of the 14-mile line have a single track where northbound and southbound trains would take turns traveling -- instead of a faster dual-track corridor.

Dick Falkenbury, the cab driver who founded the city's monorail movement ten years ago, said he'll get involved with the campaign. "We are delivering a great transportation system that is not perfect, but is better than anything else out there," he said. Falkenbury also predicted that the sole construction bidder, supplying Japanese trains by Hitachi, will propose a better system than what the SMP has advocated. The contents remain secret, one month after the companies submitted the bid to the monorail officials.

Even if voters then pass the initiative, known as "Monorail Recall," state judges could eventually declare it illegal.
 
Among other points, the monorail agency argues that I-83 — which needed only 17,229 valid petition signatures to qualify — circumvented a more-stringent repeal process in state law, meant to guard the project against constant political turmoil.

In court affidavits, monorail officials said that as long as I-83 remains alive, it would be more difficult to sign a proposed billion-dollar-plus construction contract or sell bonds for the 14-mile Green Line, approved by voters in 2002.

Opponents say the core issue is whether voters may "step into the shoes of the city and withhold consent for the use of city right-of-way," said Monorail Recall co-Chairwoman Liv Finne.

Supreme Court Commissioner Geoffrey Crooks, a gatekeeper for the nine justices, said in his two-paragraph ruling yesterday that because of looming election deadlines, "there is insufficient time to engage in the deliberations that a case of this magnitude demands."

Earlier this week an appeals panel voted 2-1 to let the measure proceed, dissolving an injunction from a King County judge who deemed it illegal.

Yesterday's move by the high-court commissioner clears the way for a seven-week campaign fight over whether Seattle should continue its effort to build the nation's longest monorail line.

Mike Lindblom: 206-515-5631 or mlindblom@seattletimes.com