Voters will have a clear choice in the Sept. 20 primary between incumbents who want to keep the Seattle Monorail Project going, and challengers who would close it down.

Cindi Laws and Cleve Stockmeyer, a pair of longtime monorail supporters, seek re-election to new two-year terms in the only elected positions on the nine-member board.

Beth Goldberg, trying to unseat Laws in Position 8, says the agency must produce a better finance plan or fold, while Jim Nobles, running for Stockmeyer's Position 9, says it's too late.

Also challenging Stockmeyer is Dick Falkenbury, the tour driver who founded the grassroots monorail movement but thinks SMP nearly wrecked the proposed 14-mile Green Line. Stan Lippmann, a frequent local candidate, filed in the other race.

Two candidates in each race will move on to the Nov. 8 general election.

The winners will join an agency determined to make a go of a project repeatedly popular with voters but now subject to intense questioning. As Seattle motorists continue paying a car-tab tax that averages $130 a year, the project's proposed $2.1 billion, 50-year finance plan has stalled, and the board is looking to outside consultants for a lifeline.

POSITION 8


Beth Goldberg, 36


Residence: Ravenna

Occupation: Budget supervisor, King County

Personal: Married, two children

Background: Former board chair of Hutch Kids Child Care Center

Top endorsements: Former Mayor Charles Royer; Alki Foundation

Campaign Web site: www.bethgoldberg.com

Cindi Laws, 46


Residence: Rainier Beach

Occupation: Public-affairs consultant

Personal: Single

Background: Has served 4 ½ years on monorail boards; elected to current post in 2003

Top endorsements: King County Democrats; Seattle/King County Building and Construction Trades Council; highest rating from Seattle Metropolitan Election Committee for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered Persons (SEAMEC)

Campaign Web site: www.cindilaws.com

Stan Lippmann, 46


Residence: Eastlake

Occupation: Attorney

Personal: Single

Background: Has lost seven races for elective office, including monorail board in 2003

Top endorsements: None

Campaign Web site: www.stanforcity.org

POSITION 9


Dick Falkenbury, 52


Residence: Greenwood

Occupation: Tour driver

Personal: Single

Background: Founded pro-monorail movement in 1994, has served on monorail boards; ran for Seattle City Council last year

Top endorsements: None

Campaign Web site: falkenbury.com

Jim Nobles, 43


Residence: Roosevelt

Occupation: Facility supervisor, Dutch Shisler Sobering Support Center

Personal: Single

Background: King County Mental Health Advisory Board member; ran for state lieutenant governor last year

Top endorsements: King County Republican Party says it will contribute $650

Cleve Stockmeyer, 48


Residence: Green Lake

Occupation: Attorney

Personal: Single

Background: Elected to monorail board in 2003; co-authored pro-monorail Initiative 53 in 2000

Top endorsements: Washington Conservation Voters; King County Democrats; King County Labor Council

A board shakeup will happen regardless of the election results. Members have been unable to recruit a replacement for Chairman Tom Weeks, who resigned July 4, days after the finance plan was widely criticized. Also, acting board Chairwoman Kristina Hill and Finance Committee Chairwoman Sue Secker intend to leave when their appointed terms expire in December.

Beth Goldberg

Three years ago, when voters approved a car-tab tax for the monorail, Goldberg already thought the project was a bad idea. Still, she didn't file for office until the last possible day — after she realized no anti-monorail candidates had signed up to challenge Laws.

Though she wouldn't take office until January, Goldberg said a vote for her would send a message now to the SMP, the city and state lawmakers, who can influence whether the agency continues.

"My candidacy is calling attention to the fact there are serious financial issues with the project," she said. If the agency cannot replace its 50-year plan with conventional, 30-year bond financing, she would opt to pull the plug.

A budget supervisor for King County, she says the current SMP board lacks expertise to either finance the line or oversee an orderly closure.

Former Mayor Charles Royer has contributed $100 to her campaign. "She would be a sober, objective, critically thinking member of the board. She wouldn't be part of the Kool-Aid drinkers," Royer said.

Cindi Laws

Earlier this year, Laws suggested the agency consider re-bidding the project to seek a less costly train system. Though that's still an option, she believes that for now, it's better to try to make the proposed contract with Cascadia Monorail Co. more affordable.

She predicts SMP's new interim director, John Haley, and financial adviser Kevin Phelps will find savings. "I don't think we're at that stage yet where we need to walk away," she said.

Elected with 71 percent of the vote two years ago, Laws has often tried to conduct monorail business more openly than many other members. She tipped newspapers to a planned $8,789 merit raise for now-resigned Executive Director Joel Horn, then voted against it. She opposed a failed attempt last winter by the staff to change state legislation so bonds could be issued for longer than 40 years.

In her zeal for the project, Laws sometimes vilifies the opposition. A year ago, she described contributors to the failed "Monorail Recall" Initiative 83 as "Eyman-loving, anti-tax people and greedy downtown developers." (Tim Eyman has sponsored statewide anti-tax initiatives.)

Recently, she told labor officials that opponent Goldberg, who is Jewish, could "get that money more easily" for her candidacy from some downtown developers who are Jewish and against the monorail. Afterward, Laws apologized and promised to seek anti-bias training.

"Cindi Laws confronts intolerance, including her own," her campaign Web site says.

Stan Lippmann

Lippmann tried for a seat on the monorail board in 2003. He describes himself as a pacifist and opposes the monorail's tentative contract because Fluor, the lead partner in the deal, is making money from U.S.-funded construction projects in Iraq.

He supports a re-bid of the contract.

Dick Falkenbury

The godfather of the monorail has dreamed of an inexpensively built system paid for by throngs of riders and by profits from coffee sales and other businesses at the stations. Falkenbury's promise in the 1990s of tax-free transit never panned out. He says board member Stockmeyer and SMP have blown opportunities to conserve money.

"The first thing out of his mouth is, 'Fix the finances,' " Falkenbury says. Falkenbury compares the agency to a middle-class homeowner who says he can afford a million-dollar home just by spreading out the payments long enough, when the real problem is the high price.

He argues that lowering tracks from 40 feet to 22 feet would shave $100 million off the contract, and that using a single, standardized column type would save $100 million more.

Cascadia's entire estimate for columns plus foundations is only $179 million, but Falkenbury counters that simpler column designs would save money by drastically reducing the time it takes to build the system.

"It doesn't take an engineer or a genius to know what's wrong," he said.

Jim Nobles

Nobles said he would immediately attempt to dissolve the SMP, and encourage state lawmakers to do so if the agency is still going in January.

Station properties should be sold off to pay back the monorail's $110 million debt, he said.

Nobles said he doesn't own a car, and commutes by bus from his Roosevelt home to work just north of downtown, where he supervises a center for street alcoholics.

Instead of a monorail, Nobles would back "bus rapid transit," a concept that gives buses their own lanes so they move more quickly. He hasn't devised a specific strategy for Seattle. Last week, the state Transportation Performance Audit Board raised the idea of adding a bus lane to the elevated Spokane Street Viaduct to link the West Seattle Bridge and the existing busway in Sodo in lieu of the monorail. Nobles said he would agree.

Nobles serves on King County's mental-health board. Last year, he ran on the Republican primary ballot for lieutenant governor.

Nobles is counting on Falkenbury and Stockmeyer to divide the pro-monorail vote, "and hopefully, I will pick up the disaffected people who are tired of the monorail."

Cleve Stockmeyer

Stockmeyer has been working full time lately to save the project. He led an effort to recruit transit veteran Haley as interim executive director and John Eastman from Vancouver SkyTrain to lead an expert review panel.

Despite all the controversy, he says monorail at $150 million a mile is a bargain compared with Sound Transit's proposed light-rail tunnel from Westlake Center to Roosevelt.

On June 20, when the financing costs were revealed, Stockmeyer said it would be fair to spread the burden of interest payments to future generations that will use the monorail. He now advocates that a new finance plan last 40 years or less.

Falkenbury has criticized Stockmeyer for his role on the board during nine months of contract talks, when SMP withheld news about rising costs.

Stockmeyer has apologized for what he admits was weak board oversight in releasing a flawed finance plan. He called the episode "a misdemeanor, not a felony," and no reason to abandon the monorail vision.

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