Stop Rail Now, which collected 49,000 signatures to get an anti-rail measure on the November ballot, sued the city yesterday for rejecting the petition.

Also yesterday, the City Council kept alive its own version of a rail referendum on the proposed $3.7 billion commuter transit system.

Stop Rail Now is asking the court to place its measure on the ballot, and the City Council is likely to watch what the court does before making a final decision on its version.

"How a court handles this particular matter with Stop Rail Now will have a direct impact on how the Honolulu City Council handles these Charter amendments," said council member Charles Djou. "If a court orders the Stop Rail Now petition to go on the ballot, I think there's a good chance the Honolulu City Council will then not act to do anything with regard to the Charter amendment question. The pressure is off."

Stop Rail Now claims it has collected 49,041 signatures to put the issue on the November ballot. Honolulu City Clerk Denise De Costa refused to accept the petition earlier this week, arguing it was delivered too late to make the November election.

Stop Rail Now's petition calls for a special election, which De Costa maintains cannot occur until sometime after the November election. Stop Rail Now said its petition was filed in time to allow the anti-rail ordinance to be placed on the November ballot.

Stop Rail Now is asking for a preliminary injunction forcing the city clerk to accept the petition while the issue is litigated.

"We're saying she had no right to refuse to file the petition and no right to refuse to process it according to the (city) Charter," said Stop Rail Now attorney Earle Partington, after filing the suit yesterday. "The question is, does the city Charter permit us to file this petition and have this voted on in the general election?"

"Under the law we should win," Partington said.

De Costa was unavailable for comment following the filing of the lawsuit yesterday afternoon. City Deputy Corporation Counsel Diane Kawauchi, who is representing De Costa, said the city was in the process of reviewing the lawsuit yesterday.

"Please know that we look forward to a court ruling on this issue," she wrote in an e-mail. "We are firmly of the position that the interpretation and application of the relevant Charter provisions by the City Clerk is the correct one."

Other plaintiffs in the lawsuit include the League of Women Voters, Honolulutraffic.com and state Sen. Sam Slom, R-8th (Kahala, Hawai'i Kai).

Stop Rail Now's proposed ordinance reads: "Honolulu mass transit shall not include trains or rail." The current proposed amendment to the city Charter states that the city shall "establish a steel wheel on steel rail transit system."

So far council members only agreed to continue to discuss the amendment, which is being paired with a separate Charter amendment authorizing the creation of a public transit authority, which would oversee design, construction and operation of the commuter rail that would link East Kapolei to Ala Moana.

Council members remain at odds over how to craft a rail question and how much autonomy to give the new transit authority.

Both measures would die unless six of the nine council members vote in favor by an Aug. 20 deadline.

If the Charter amendment is placed on the ballot and voters approve it, Stop Rail Now's petition becomes irrelevant. That's because a voter-based ballot initiative cannot override the city's Charter.

"Voting for this (Charter amendment) does not mean that we do not see the importance of that (ballot) initiative petition because it certainly is the voice of the people," said council member Ann Kobayashi, who's also a mayoral candidate. However, "this single question would just negate everything they did."

Planning for the 20-mile elevated commuter rail project is well under way, and Mayor Mufi Hannemann hopes to start construction in late 2009 or early 2010. The project is expected to cost an inflation-adjusted $5 billion and take nearly a decade to complete.