For those incensed about ANOTHER vote on light rail, do you recall what the score is?

Yes 1

No 3.

http://archives.seattletimes.com/cgi-bin/texis.mummy/web/vortex/display?storyID=36d4de2222&query=RTA+vote

-- Craig Carson (craigcar@crosswinds.net), December 22, 1999

Answers

The interesting thing about looking at old new articles from the archives is that you can compare the promises of yesterday with the reality of today. For the citation given above, I note this interesting tidbit:

The commuter rail between Lakewood, Tacoma, the Kent Valley and Seattle is expected to be about two years away, and the service between Seattle, Edmonds and Everett three years away. Negotiations with the Burlington Northern Sante Fe railroad over use of the tracks must take place first.

Since the date was Nov. 6 1996, that would make Sound Transit over one year late ....right now. With at least another 9 months to go.

-- Mark Stilson (mark842@hotmail.com), December 22, 1999.

Yeah, when you look back, RTA had failed several times and even the proponents doubted it would pass on the third time. A huge majority of Democrats in Seattle powered it over the top. I wonder if they can do it again? Particularly if the vote is statewide?

http://archives.seattletimes.com/cgi-bin/texis.mummy/web/vortex/displa y?storyID=36d4de209&query=RTA+election

http://archives.seattletimes.com/cgi-bin/texis.mummy/web/vortex/displa y?storyID=36d4c80922&query=RTA+election

Local News : Friday, April 26, 1996

Panel urges delay in mass-transit vote Group fears November poll on $3.7 billion plan will fail

by Keith Ervin Seattle Times East bureau

Warning that a second mass-transit measure likely would fail at the polls in November, a high-powered advisory panel wants the Regional Transit Authority to consider delaying the vote until next year. That advice came as initial public reaction to the RTA's $3.7 billion draft plan ranged from lukewarm support to outright opposition. A one-year delay would allow transit supporters more time to solidify support and build an alliance with highway-construction boosters, members of the RTA outreach committee said. A second RTA vote could be promoted in conjunction with a statewide referendum on a gas-tax inc

-- (mark842@hotmail.com), December 22, 1999.

So does that mean that all school levies that fail to pass once or twice before being approved should be repealed after a few years? Pretty lame attempt at logic there Craig.

Those other attempts were VASTLY different proposals. I believe that the main reasons attributed to the failure in 95 was that it was too ambitious and expensive, which kind of makes sense since the voters passed a DIFFERENT proposal just a year later that was about half the size and cost. Sounds to me like the voters wanted a mass transit system, but just rejected that PARTICULAR proposal.

And Mark, it passed in BOTH King County (that's a little bit more than JUST Seattle) and Snohomish County, and was just narrowly defeated in Pierce County. It's not like Seattle brought everyone kicking and screaming into the deal.

There's the kicker though. You guys both know that a vote on this initiative in just the RTA district would FAIL. That's why you're itching to stack the deck in order to put you on the winning side.

I'm still waiting to hear a reasoned answer as to why the entire state should take a confidence vote on the RTA. So far all I hear is veiled "hey, this will let us cheat to get what we want" comments.

-- Patrick (patrick1142@yahoo.com), December 23, 1999.

Also, didn't a similar initiative to 695 fail to receive enough signatures last year to qualify for the ballot? And didn't another person submit another similar initiative in 1997 which also failed to gain the required number of signatures?

So by Craig's logic, the score on repealing the MVET is:

Yes 1 No 2

I guess we should vote to repeal 695 in about 3 years, and of course we should have the citizens of California vote on it too. They don't pay the tax or benefit from what it provides, but I guess that doesn't mean anything now.

-- Patrick (patrick1142@yahoo.com), December 23, 1999.

Why should the whole state get to vote?

Simple, really...

Two sessions ago, the RTA came down to Olympia and lied thru their teeth about how their little project wouldn't need state money.

Last session, they came down and told Olympia that they'll need $200 million. Heavey lit 'em up like a Christmas tree.

This year, the number is up to $400 million dollars of STATEWIDE money... read, STATEWIDE CASH.

They get not, one, dime.

So... since they intend to put their collective hand out for that cash, in violation of their promises two sessions ago... then I say... let ME vote on it.

There. That was easy. Take them out, and the threat is removed. What could be simpler?

Westin

Have you emailed Rep. Fisher (fisher_ru@leg.wa.gov) to resign today?

-- Westin (jimwestin@netscape.net), December 23, 1999.

Patrick stated "So does that mean that all school levies that fail to pass once or twice before being approved should be repealed after a few years"?

We get so tired of those school levys don't we? Maybe if we got the opportunity to repeal one or two, they would stop asking a third time, if they got two NO's. (I think you picked a bad example)

Oh please please please, let me give you more of my money, so kids test scores will go down further, and Johnny still can't read.

Hey Patrick, if you really feel I-695 would fail another time around, put it to the test. File your own initiative. You could call it the $800 tab initiative!

-- Marsha (acorn_nut@hotmail.com), December 23, 1999.

[So does that mean that all school levies that fail to pass once or twice before being approved should be repealed after a few years? Pretty lame attempt at logic there Craig.] Pass once or twice before being APPROVED? And you call my logic lame?

[Those other attempts were VASTLY different proposals. I believe that the main reasons attributed to the failure in 95 was that it was too ambitious and expensive, which kind of makes sense since the voters passed a DIFFERENT proposal just a year later that was about half the size and cost. Sounds to me like the voters wanted a mass transit system, but just rejected that PARTICULAR proposal.] To borrow a phrase from zowie the original proposal was chopped back in scale from an $8 billion dollar VAST proposal to a $3.9 billion HALF-VAST proposal. And it basically was the same proposal, just busted up into smaller pieces. A relatively huge Democrat turn out in that election put it over the top. It got about 70% in Seattle.

[And Mark, it passed in BOTH King County (that's a little bit more than JUST Seattle) and Snohomish County, and was just narrowly defeated in Pierce County. It's not like Seattle brought everyone kicking and screaming into the deal.] Actually, Seattle has a long history of just pulling as many other people in as they can to spread the tax load, while still having the yes votes to get the project approved and invariably sited in Seattle. They did that with the KingDome, too. Thats why this proposal had specific restrictions on where the money raised could be spent, sub optimizing the performance of the whole thing. This is something the Seattle political people would now like to ignore (like they ignored the objective expert panel to determine the best place to site the KingDome) except they realize with Tukwila bolting, Rainier Valley suing, and downtown merchants upset, this would unravel the coalition and lose the whole project.

[There's the kicker though. You guys both know that a vote on this initiative in just the RTA district would FAIL. That's why you're itching to stack the deck in order to put you on the winning side.] Actually I dont think it would, but you may be right. Eyman may be gerrymandering the whole thing just like the DOT gerrymandered the Tacoma Narrows Bridge vote, kind of sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander. But when the RTA took their lobbyists to Olympia and said they wanted money from the state to make it work, they opened the door and set the precedent. If the RTA has now become an issue for the whole state then its because they reneged on their original deal.

-- Craig Carson (craigcar@crosswinds.net), December 23, 1999.

Please put this mass transit thing to a statewide vote. Since I can not not even get my local roads fixed in E. Wash., I would love to vote to help fund a train system , I would never see or use. You can count on my support, NOT!

As for teachers and test scores, I know teachers intimately. The kids are only in the schools to provide the teachers and their unions with employment. They have these Lengthy contracts explaining all their perks and days off. At the very end of these lucrative teaching contracts, is a small clause that states: By the way, if you have some time, Teach the Kids. Most teachers feel they have no control and are just baby sitters for someone elses problem. I have two words that will apply to my kids future: PRIVATE SCHOOL.

-- Rolex Hoffmann (rolex@innw.net), December 23, 1999.

and Rolex, therein lies the problem that is a threat to us all. By putting the emphasis on the politics (paying off special interest groups) rather than the RESULTS, our politicians are eroding away the consensus that things like the schools and parks and major public works projects are WORTHY of support.

The voters have no particular love of big government, but no particular hatred for it either. But they do demand government THAT WORKS. The school system in many areas has stopped working effectively, and the politicians, for political reasons, are unwilling to fix it. The price they pay is a gradual withdrawal of support for schools, and all government programs. Same goes for congestion. Voters will accept the overhead of government if the results are adequate. If the results are inadequate, any amount of overhead whatsoever begins to look onerous. Just human nature.

With regard to education AND congestion, if the politicians won't fix it, other leaders and ideas will emerge. Like the transportation improvement initiative.

-- Craig Carson (craigcar@crosswinds.net), December 23, 1999.

And the state sends funds to public schools in Vancouver. By your logic Westin, I should be able to vote on school levies there. My money goes all over the country too. Maybe I should be able to vote in EVERY election in the country. How much of that $200 million did the RTA get Westin? You try to get a lot of mileage out of that, but since they got squat...

Marsha, no I didn't pick a bad example. SCHOOL LEVIES EXPIRE AT A MAX OF 4 YEARS!!! You don't need to repeal them, they repeal themselves. That's why schools have to go to the ballot every few years. Most of them are just extensions of the existing tax. Learn about the system before you complain about it Marsha.

Craig, the fact is that the people liked the proposal that they were presented with in 96. If we didn't want a mass transit system at all, WE WOULDN'T HAVE VOTED FOR THAT ONE EITHER! Seattle might have a history of pulling others in their direction, but that was NOT the case with the RTA. And do two wrongs make a right? Hey, the DOT rigged the Narrows election, so why don't we rig one! Just like Callaghan said, Eyman is quickly becoming a politician. And once again, the RTA may have asked, but the state has not provided money to them.

You all are going to pull something if you keep reaching so far in really pathetic attempts to justify a statewide election. The fact is that you all claim to want to give power to the people, but when the people do something that you don't like you quickly try to stammer out a reason to override that decision. What a bunch of hypocrites.

-- Patrick (patrick1142@yahoo.com), December 23, 1999.

Thank you for the insults Patrick. Do you feel better now?

Patrick stated "So does that mean that all school levies that fail to pass once or twice before being approved should be repealed after a few years"? Only responding to your idiocy Patrick.......

-- Marsha (acorn_nut@hotmail.com), December 23, 1999.

"Craig, the fact is that the people liked the proposal that they were presented with in 96. If we didn't want a mass transit system at all, WE WOULDN'T HAVE VOTED FOR THAT ONE EITHER!"

Yes, and they liked prop 49 until something better came along. Then they went for I-695, which undid much of prop 49. I think the voters deserve another shot at a vote on the RTA, now that they better realize the benefits (?) and limitations of it. I'd have no difficulty signing an initiative that allows for another vote by the RTA counties, if you want to draft such an initiative. IF you can get it on the ballot go for it. Until then, I'll be content to go with Eyman's proposal.

"How much of that $200 million did the RTA get Westin? " Last I heard, Sound Transit had not a clue how they'll get Sounder going without $60 million that they were hoping to get from WA DOT for their now morted-by-695 proposed improvements to the BNSF tracks, they still haven't addressed the Seattle train tunnel safety inadequacies, and they are behind schedule and over budget on both Sounder and Link. Both tacitly admit that they are plunging on spending money on a non-executable program so they will get enough spent that they can use the old reliable program manager wail, "We've got to spend the extra money to finish it, or WE LOSE WHAT WE'VE ALREADY GOT INVESTED".

All of the future options will require either megabucks from the state, or another vote to AT LEAST EXTEND THE DURATION OF THE RTA TAXES BEYOND WHAT WAS APPROVED IN 1996, most likely BOTH. So who's kidding whom, and who're the hypocrites here.

But you are right, there is a polarizing of the electorate going on here. For a long time the liberals (AKA Democratic Party) has pushed the state to the left. The Republican Party (such as it exists in this state) was content if they cut the best deal they could for their buddies in big business, while losing the battle against big government slowly. Huff (R) in Gig Harbor is kind of the Bob Dole of Washington, never found a deal he didn't like, as long as he got HIS piece of the action.

But people appear to be getting tired of the "What's mine is mine, what's yours is negotiable," attitude of the liberals. They do indeed appear to be saying that they aren't going to be any more moral or fair than the other side, that two wrongs may not make a right, but at least they give you the satisfaction of knowing that you've retaliated. I really kind of think it comes out of the James Carville "Whatever it takes to win," campaign of 1996, but that's just my bias. I am somewhat afraid of the Balkanization of Washington politics, eternal tit for tat, increasing spite, poisonous rhetoric, and a general failing of the comity necessary for a democracy to work effectively. I'd sure like to avoid that. I know how.

Why don't you liberals just give up?

-- Craig Carson (craigcar@crosswinds.net), December 23, 1999.

Patrick, you wrote:

"And the state sends funds to public schools in Vancouver. By your logic Westin, I should be able to vote on school levies there. My money goes all over the country too. Maybe I should be able to vote in EVERY election in the country. How much of that $200 million did the RTA get Westin? You try to get a lot of mileage out of that, but since they got squat..."

Of course you overlook a few simple facts:

1. I didn't want the RTA... and I wasn't asked. 2. My school levy vote doesn't task the state to pay a dime. 3. Light rail systems aren't like schools, which is to say that the only LR system in the state is supposed to be in the Puget Sound region, whereas schools are everywhere. 4. You asked "Why?" and I answered. 5. The fact that they didn't get squat last time doesn't mean anything about their next effort... or the one after that, or the one after that. They'll keep trying... unless the system is taken out. 6. The permission given by the state to put the RTA together was predicated on the promised financing which wouldn't need state money. 7. And of course, even the RTA staff knows that it wouldn't survive another vote, RTA region OR state wide.

If you're going to attempt to make a comparison, Patrick, at least try and make one that's relevant. Westin

Have you emailed Rep. Fisher (fisher_ru@leg.wa.gov) to resign today?

-- Westin (jimwestin@netscape.net), December 23, 1999.

The simple, and undeniable fact of the matter is that the RTA was voted on by a specific region of voters, is paid for by those voters, and is therefore held responsible to THOSE voters. If it is a multi-billion dollar boondoggle, then the voters in the RTA district are responsible for either eliminating that boondoggle, or living with it. There is no rational excuse for why people outside the district should have a say in how that money is spent.

Has the RTA asked for state money? Yes. The key concept there is that they DO have to ask. Who do they have to ask? The legislature, which is made up of a lot of people from outside the RTA who can and have said no to their requests in the past. IF the RTA received state money, then I'd agree that the citizens of the entire state should be able to say yes or no to the use of THAT money. But the fact remains that the people in the RTA district voted to tax themselves for a specific reason, and there is NO reason why anyone other than those people should have a say in how THAT money is spent.

Want to vote again on the RTA? Fine. Bring it to a vote of the people who voted on it before. That's the fair way to go. Otherwise it's nothing more than an attempt to override a democratic and fair election by an outside force.

And Westin, when a local school district passes a construction levy it receives state matching funds. It has to request it (much like the RTA did), but more often than not, it gets some state funds. Go read the column by Callaghan. His example of the Yakima school district is exactly like what this new proposal is.

Again, it's a simple concept. If it's your tax dollars, then you have a right to say where it goes. If it isn't your tax dollars, then you don't have that right. Anyone want to argue with that?

-- Patrick (patrick1142@yahoo.com), December 24, 1999.

Patrick,

You wrote:

"The simple, and undeniable fact of the matter is that the RTA was voted on by a specific region of voters, is paid for by those voters,"

The even simpler fact is that as the lies by the RTA mount, and they desperately try to get state money that they knew they were going to need from the beginning, money they solemnly assured the legislature that THEY WOULD NOT NEED, it becomes clear that it will not JUST be "paid for by those voters."

That's all I need to know. And that is more then enough reason to allow a state-wide vote. In fact, it's 400 million reasons to allow it.

If the RTA wasn't trying to take cash out of my pocket for their colassal waste of money, I would care less.

So, since the RTA insisted on lying to the legislature (thereby lying to the people) in order to fund the set for a gigantic brochure pictue ("Look at us! See how 'with it' Seattle is?"), you need to take up the risk of their project disappearing due to their lack of truthfulness with them.

You want my money for YOUR project? I will be getting the right to vote on that next November. You want to vote on my school levy? Get your butt down to the SecState's office and file your own initiative.

Westin

Have you emailed Rep. Fisher (fisher_ru@leg.wa.gov) to resign today?

-- Westin (jimwestin@netscape.net), December 24, 1999.

"Again, it's a simple concept. If it's your tax dollars, then you have a right to say where it goes. If it isn't your tax dollars, then you don't have that right. Anyone want to argue with that? " If you look at the Sound Transit budget for 1999:

(http://www.soundtransit.org/investor/budget.html)

you will find that it states that Sounder is dependent upon WA DOT assistance in paying for improvements to train tracks within the RTA district. In fact, representatives have indicated that due to the passage of I-695 and the loss of $60 million of this money, they are now unexecutable.

So let's quit with the argument that general state tax dollars aren't involved. Even spokespersons for Sound Transit aren't claiming that.

Also, if you notice in the budget, Sound Transit is paying about $5 and 1/2 million a year for governmental liaison, essentially lobbying efforts to the state and federal government (as well as some coordinating with local cities and counties).

The Craigster

-- Craig Carson (craigcar@crosswinds.net), December 25, 1999.

Heres the citation and excerpts of the quote:

Increasing volumes of freight trains already cause paralyzing traffic jams in the Kent Valley and nearby cities like Auburn, as cars wait for 100-car trains to rumble by. This congestion will be exacerbated next year, when Sound Transit plans to send 18 commuter trains a day over the same tracks, exactly at the peak commuter hours when motorists need to cross those tracks. But those commuter trains may not roll as planned, because I-695 also threatens the state Department of Transportation's $60 million contribution toward a planned $322 million track and signal improvement program between Seattle and Tacoma. Sound Transit spokesman Clarence Moriwaki said the system will "absolutely not" be able to operate the full set of commuter rail trains unless a way is found to fund the project. http://www.amcity.com/seattle/stories/1999/11/15/story5.html

-- (craigcar@crosswinds.net), December 25, 1999.

As I said, if you don't want state money to be used in the RTA, then fine, write an initiative that prohibits the use of state funds for it. That sounds like something everyone in the state should have a right to vote on.

I voted to spend some of MY money on a specific project. Now this initiative will allow someone who DOESN'T pay this tax to tell me how to spend my money. That's the basic concept here. You can try to distract the issue by coming up with fake explanations as to why you should be able to tell me how to spend my money, but the end result is that you are still saying that YOU want to tell me how to spend my money. Funny how you all can't stand it when someone plays with your money, but you'll knock over your own grandmother for the opportunity to play with someone else's money.

And Craig, I'm a little confused here. You said that there is state money being used for the RTA, but then go on to cite evidence that 695 corrected that. So the problem here is....

-- Patrick (patrick1142@yahoo.com), December 26, 1999.

"And Craig, I'm a little confused here. You said that there is state money being used for the RTA, but then go on to cite evidence that 695 corrected that. So the problem here is.... " The problem here is that a Sounder spokesperson said that they MUST have state money to finish it. The problem here is that LINK does not appear to be executable either.

-- (craigcar@crosswinds.net), December 27, 1999.