Monorail still awaits ballot placement

The City Council failed to come to agreement yesterday on an ordinance to place a proposal to expand the monorail on the November ballot, and a skeptical and impatient Elevated Transportation Co. said it would put its own version before voters by petition.

The wrangling, which didn't end until 8 last night, illustrated the continuing prickly relationship between the council and the monorail, which originally was conceived as a grass-roots movement in defiance of elected leaders. Despite the failure to reach total agreement, the council and the ETC, the company that has been planning the expanded monorail service, did manage to narrow their disagreements to a single issue -- the 75 words that would go on the ballot to explain to voters what they are voting on, known as the ballot title.

Council members asked city staff and lawyers to come up with acceptable language for a vote at a meeting Sept. 9.

But ETC Chairman Tom Weeks said the ETC does not want to wait any longer.

"We want to get it on the ballot," he said.

Peter Sherwin, executive director of the monorail campaign, said, "What happens if in September they decide there's some issue?"

The campaign filed a petition with the city last week to put its version on the ballot and already has gathered 2,000 signatures, Sherwin said. Weeks said last night that the signature gathering would continue and the measure submitted for the ballot once the 4,000 total signatures needed are collected.

The council's and the ETC's current versions are almost identical except for the ballot title. Both now include a $1.5 billion cap on the bonds that can be issued to build the 14-mile Green Line that would run from Ballard through downtown to West Seattle. And both forbid the ETC from using any motor-vehicle excise taxes to pay operating and maintenance expenses after 2020.

But Weeks made it clear that the ETC does not want two separate measures on the November ballot, because it would confuse voters and possibly mean defeat. It was unclear last night which measure will give way, whether they will end up being identical or whether there will be two on the ballot. Nick Licata, one of the strongest monorail supporters on the council, said he opposes having two measures on the ballot.

If the ETC puts its measure on by petition, there is no further need for the council to act, he said.

But council members Margaret Pageler and Richard Conlin indicated they plan to continue working on a council measure for adoption at the council's Sept. 9 meeting.

"If they (the ETC) don't want two measures on the ballot, then stop doing petitions," Conlin said.

Earlier in the day, Licata said that the "endless questions" from council members could be interpreted by the public as an attempt to undermine the monorail. Conlin, Pageler and council President Peter Steinbrueck said they are simply doing their duty in carefully examining an important issue.

The dispute over the ballot title, which legally can't be more than 75 words, concerns whether to identify the neighborhoods that would be served by the Green Line. The ETC does not wish to name neighborhoods but wants rather the ballot title to refer to the monorail's Phase 1 plan. Conlin and several others want to name neighborhoods. After yesterday's meeting, Steinbrueck said, "It's doubtful we would insist on a separate ordinance if the only difference is the ballot title." He said he was confident an agreement would be worked out by Sept. 9, but that appeared less than certain.

P-I reporter Jane Hadley can be reached at 206-448-8362 or janehadley@seattlepi.com

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