Last week, one of two groups that were originally vying to build the monorail, Team Monorail, held an unprecedented meeting with two members of the monorail agency’s inner circle.

One year ago, Bombardier-led Team Monorail announced that it was dropping out of the running to build the monorail, citing unreasonable financial requirements. After sole bidder Cascadia Monorail Company’s bid came in months late and $200 million higher than expected, Team Monorail asked to be let back into the bidding. Then-agency director Joel Horn insisted it would be “illegal” to reopen the process before negotiations were complete, and refused to even meet with Team Monorail representatives.

Since then, everything has changed: The SMP has scrapped its $11 billion financing scheme, Horn and fellow agency leader Tom Weeks have resigned, and interim board director Kristina Hill has announced that “every option,” including a rebid, is on the table.

Last week, TM representatives made their pitch to the agency to do just that, in a meeting with interim executive director Tom Horkan and legal director Ross Macfarlane. According to TM flack Blair Butterworth, the agency heads were “receptive” to TM’s pitch.

Butterworth says the monorail agency's board is now "newly empowered" to make its own decisions, rather than relying on staff - one change he credits for the SMP's sudden change of heart. (Horn's departure, of course, was a major reason for the board's newfound empowerment.) And, he notes, "We're going into an election season." If the monorail debacle isn't resolved quickly, "there's a real possibility that the monorail could become this year's Strippergate," Butterworth says. "Campaigns don't make issues easier to solve. Usually, they tend to polarize things." If the only options are: find a way to pay for the monorail or shut it down, Butterworth argues, voters will opt to shut it down.

TM says it offers a third way. And Butterworth says that for the first time, the SMP is listening. For more details on TM's proposal, see here.