SEATTLE – An anti-monorail campaign is getting most of its financial backing from a prominent property developer in the city.
In the past month, Martin Selig has donated more than $175,000 to the campaign for city Initiative 83, which aims to ban the 14-mile Green Line linking downtown to Ballard and West Seattle. The money represents 91 percent of I-83’s total funding – $192,337.
Selig’s donations will likely surpass the $200,000 mark this month, he said Wednesday.
Recent disclosure reports also show increased payments to professional signature gatherers, a departure from the group’s normal volunteer effort.
“We couldn’t do it in six months with volunteers, because everybody has jobs,” said Liv Finne, I-83 treasurer. “We are grateful to him (Selig), because he has created this opportunity for Seattle citizens to pass judgment on this deeply flawed project.”
Martin Selig Real Estate paid $73,380 to Citizen Solutions of Lacey, one of two firms hired, and paid travel and lodging for out-of-town signature gatherers.
Selig donated attorney fees, parking, clerical help and time that security guards in one of his buildings spent collecting signatures.
Peter Sherwin, a sponsor of two previous pro-monorail campaigns, said the I-83 campaign is a distortion of the political process.
“I think you should treat a bought-and-paid signature campaign differently from one that relies on grass-roots volunteers,” he told the City Council on Monday.
Before reaching the November ballot, the measure, nicknamed “Monorail Recall,” faces a lawsuit by the Seattle Monorail Project, several businesses, organizations, former Gov. Dan Evans and other supporters. They’ve asked a King County Superior Court judge to toss out all signatures gathered before June 18, the day a judge rewrote the ballot title to make the wording more clear.
I-83 volunteers and paid firms have collected a total of 37,542 signatures.
The measure needs 17,229 valid signatures from Seattle voters. King County election workers, however, have found enough invalid signatures that the measure would not qualify for November’s ballot if the Seattle Monorail Project lawsuit prevails in September.
If that happens, Finne said opponents would have to seek a ballot spot early next year.
Selig predicts that if the initiative reaches the November ballot, more downtown businesses will donate money to support it.
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