Monorail "Mandate"

The Seattle Times reports today that our esteemed City Council is charging forward to build the Moronorail under the illusion that it has a mandate:

The voter-approved monorail tax passed in 2002 by just a few hundred votes, but the council is treating it as a mandate: "We're living in an era of close margin when it comes to votes," Councilman Peter Steinbrueck said.

I actually testified at a City Council public hearing about the Monorail later yesterday afternoon. The specific topic of the hearing was the "Transit Way Agreement", in which the City Council grants permission for the Monorail to use public rights of way in exchange for certain conditions and guarantees. The single most astonishing thing to me about the TWA and that I mentioned in my testimony, is that the TWA permits the City to rely on the Monorail Project's own financial analysis, without requiring any independent financial analysis or audit.

As I said in my testimony, this is like trusting the fox to guard the chicken coop. I also added, unaware of the earlier statements purporting a "mandate", that the Monorail has no mandate. Not only did the Monorail win the last vote with only a tiny margin of victory, it inspired fewer than 22% of registered voters to show up and vote for it. These votes were concentrated in a narrow corridor along the proposed route and in one other region of the city known as a hotbed of liberal and environmental activism. The vast majority of the city that is far from the proposed route voted strongly against it. It is inconceivable that a vote taken today would be any more favorable to the Monorail. Those who live far from the proposed line aren't going to be any happier about paying hundreds of dollars a year in increased car registration taxes for a train they can't use and that won't reduce traffic along their commutes. At the same time, there is now much greater opposition to the Monorail along the proposed route, as neighborhood residents begin to understand the serious downside of having the train in their neighborhood. A vote held today would lose. I encouraged the Council to hold off on giving the Monorail any new permissions until after the recall vote in November.

There were bursts of applause from the audience as I made my comments.

The Mysterious Green T-Shirts

Nevertheless, there were plenty of One-Track-Mind Moronorail supporters in the audience and giving testimony. A mysterious group called "Monorail Now" had set up a table in the lobby and was giving away green T-shirts with a pro-Monorail slogan. The Morono-Raelians were all wearing these, giving the impression that they were part of a strange space-age cult that was trying to take over the city. These were not cheap T-shirts either. They were the highest quality 100% cotton. And they were free! I asked the lady at the T-shirt table to tell me who was paying for them. She wasn't able to say.

The Monorail Now! website gives no detail about its funding source. Its WHOIS database entry gives a contact at the Gallatin Group, an expensive-looking lobbying and political strategy firm. There's obviously some big bucks behind the "grassroots" facade of Monorail Now. I suspect the prospective monorail builders and the Monorail Project itself are behind it.

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at June 15, 2004 10:52 AM