 FRONT PAGE Archive Index Feedback |
|
|||||
|
|||||
|
| |||||
Despite City Council Vote, Monorail Will Go On
By Dick Falkenbury
Over three hundred monorail supporters packed a City Council hearing on July 27. |
The Council abolished the ETC and converted it to a "citizens advisory committee."
This move wouldn't fool a small child. They voted to kill it.
Nick Licata was the only one to stand with us and support the monorail proposal.
The city council voted to "fold" the monorail into something called the Seattle Transportation Initiative. Do not be fooled by the title: they have not initiated anything. It is just another bureaucracy full of planners with the same old tired ideas. In three years of existence, these guys have announced that they now know where there are five corridors of congested traffic. Of course, any cab driver could have done this, while making change. But that wouldn't have cost over $400,000. And now they've hired Parsons-Brinkerhoff, an engineering firm of Orson Welles-ian size, to do the study.
You know, I was stuck in that traffic downtown a couple of weeks ago and thinking, "Why doesn't someone spend some more money and study this?"
As for Judy Nicastro insisting that this is "good for the monorail," I suggest that rent control issues be given to an advisory committee and that they would report to the Mayor. That should accomplish that goal.
Nicastro should re-read her brochure, where monorail building was at the top of her "to-do" list. Now it is on her "to-kill" list.
But the weirdest part is, this vote to kill the monorail will not stand and the city council knew it.
Initiative 53 is circulating the city. It is circulating Seattle like Hurricane Andrew moved across Florida. People want to sign this one. Even people who don't particularly like the monorail want to sign I-53. After what the city council did to the monorail and democracy, they are rushing to sign this.
The sequence of recent events is scarcely believable: The city council holds a hearing on changing a voter-approved law that tells them to build a monorail. A judge tells them to obey the law. Several of the members like Jim Compton, Judy Nicastro, and Heidi Wills speak up during last year’s election campaign at a transportation forum hosted by the Conservation Voters of Washington and in response to a direct question about the monorail, say that they are for it. One candidate speaks against it—Cheryl Chow—and she's defeated. After all this, the Council votes to kill the monorail.
They voted to break their campaign promises, violate common sense, and go against the will of the people.
I didn't want Peter Sherwin and Cleve Stockmeyer to file Initiative 53, which has to gather 18,000 signatures to win a place on the November ballot. I-53 would reinforce the original monorail initiative, fund it to the tune of $6 million to come up with a good plan that would be put before the citizens of Seattle for a vote, and it will undo all that the city council just did.
I didn't want them to file it; we already had a law. I just never imagined that the city council would do what they did.
The city council went out of their way to kill the monorail proposal. They did so in spite of their promises, they did so in the face of overwhelming public support and they tried to hide it with protestations that this was what was best for us—the only way to help the monorail. (By the way, I will never forget that Nick Licata was not part of any of this and he did everything that he could to help us. Nick Licata has been there for us every step of the way and will remain a friend and supporter.)
They are fooling no one. But we will have the last laugh. The monorail idea is so good that, with or without them, it will be built.
I would rather have the entire city council against us and the people of Seattle for us, than the other way around.
Reader Comments
Discuss this article in the forums!
No comments yet!