One on One with a Monomaniac

I had a surreal Monorail experience last night when I attended a community meeting and an elected member of the Seattle Monorail Project Board of Directors unwittingly sat down next to me. I followed his lead and introduced myself, but he gave no glimmer of recognition as in "Oh, so you're that Shark Blog fellow who wants to obviate my sinecure".

I didn't have the heart to tell him that I spend hours of my time hurling (factual) abuse at his pet organization or that I've been gathering signatures for a petition to vote the Moronorail out of existence. But I did open the conversation with a friendly

"So what do you guys think about the Department of Licensing backing down from their administrative rule that is the only source of your revenue?"

He stared back at me with an oddly disturbing leering grin

Oh they're not backing down. It will only affect a small number of people who are already registered at P.O. Boxes and nearly all of those are outside of Seattle.

In fact, the DOL's own announcement says:

DOL will enable citizens who want to get their vehicle-related mail at an address different than their primary residence to continue using their mailing address until DOL completes the computer system upgrades required to allow both a residential and a mailing address. ... DOL will encourage, but not require, vehicle owners already using a primary residence address to complete a declaration form required by the primary residence address rule.

The DOL has no way of knowing whether a particular address is a primary address or a mailing address, so the rule is inoperative. Clearly the gentleman responsible for delivering the Monorail was not in control of the facts. The One-Track Mind persisted:

Monoman: It's still the law that you have to register your car at your primary residence.

Me: It's not the law, it's an administrative rule. The legislature declined to pass it into law.

Monoman [who claims to be an attorney and should know better]: Rules are laws

Me: No they're not.

Monoman: It's a Class C felony

Me: Only the perjury part

[The whole point of this exercise is that the DOL no longer requires a declaration under penalty of perjury]

Monoman [leering with a sadistic grin]: Isn't that enough? You could still go to jail.

Maybe we should just hold elected officials to tell the truth at all times under penalty of perjury.

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at May 20, 2004 11:20 AM