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greenspun.com : LUSENET : I-695 Thirty Dollar License Tab Initiative : One Thread

Mass transit is a good thing. Why are Tim and his foolish supporters trying to take away it's funding? Go live in L.A. for a while and see what happens if all you have is freeways and no public transportation! I think people are beggining to see though Eyman and his brilliant ideas. Voting for taxes is one thing (and even that has flaws) but building more roads and cutting mass transit in an already overcrowded and over-polluted world is simply idiotic. I think in time people will realize this and Tim will be wearing a big dunce cap...

-- Gary Cleveland (bigdaddy@aol.com), December 31, 1999

Answers

Tacoma News Tribune

I-695 reaction creates a convert

MARILYN MARTINETTO; Steilacoom

I didn't vote for I-695, but two things have made me a belated convert.

First, the rush by local governments to increase taxes and fees to save highly paid administrative jobs at all costs. An example is tiny Steilacoom's $70,300 starting salary for a new administrator, and its grand public safety building, when simple work orders for storm drain catch-basin cleaning remain undone.

Second, the letter writers who have resorted to demonizing attacks on Tim Eyman. As a veteran initiative signature volunteer, I've learned this state's truism regarding initiatives: It is almost impossible to gather enough signatures to get an initiative on the ballot without using paid signature gatherers. But I-695 apparently used volunteers who probably shared my experience standing outside for hours, month after month, gathering signatures while listening to hundreds complain about bad government as their excuse for not voting.

Once the initiative was on the ballot, more than a majority of voters chose to vote for it. The process took hard work by many volunteers, not some evil demon who somehow hypnotized voters.

If anyone must be blamed, blame the state legislators who created our tax structure, or ourselves for failing to demand that legislators change that structure.

MARILYN MARTINETTO; Steilacoom

12/30/1999

-- Marsha (acorn_nut@hotmail.com), January 01, 2000.


Tacoma News Tribune

I-695 ushers in tragedies galore

DANA BOOTH; Tacoma

Thanks to Initiative 695, I will no longer be able to visit my 105- year-old grandmother, who most assuredly will fall terminally ill due to I-695. My little children will no longer be able to play anywhere, because the passage of I-695 prohibits them from doing so.

I'd been planning on weed-whacking my back yard sometime next year in order to find my 1962 Falcon, but there's no sense in that now; the price of the tabs will rise to $30. After putting up a Christmas tree this year, there were no lights or decorations available because of I- 695.

After the first of the year, I-695 will actually alter Nature herself; the trees will not grow leaves in the spring, and no salmon will return to our rivers and streams.

All a little guy like me can hope for is that the government acts responsibly and punishes all those wealthy people who voted for I-695 by cutting all the important stuff and leaving the bloated bureaucracy. DANA BOOTH; Tacoma

12/29/1999

-- Marsha (acorn_nut@hotmail.com), January 01, 2000.


So, Gary...

I was startled to find out that you fail to acknowledge that LA has both a massive bus system AND a light rail system... and their traffic is a nightmare. Since those things do nothing to relieve traffic congestion in LA, what delusion are you experiencing that makes you think they'll have any impact up here?

Insanity can be defined as doing the same thing, over and over again, even when it doesn't work. There is no guarantee that the expenditure of hundreds of millions of state and local funds will have even a negligible effect on Seattle's traffic problems. Or is the RTA going to guarantee it's now over $4 billion price tag; and offer to pay us all back when their experiment winds up doing, effectively, nothing for the people its supposed to help?

Your faith may be admirable, but its also wholey unsupportable.

Westin

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

-- Westin (jimwestin@netscape.net), January 01, 2000.


It is true LA has implmeneted some public transit over the years, but it came slowly over time because it was evident freeways alone don't cut it! The conspiracy by Goodyear to undermine public transit worked, but as a result, traffic problems there are terrible.

Public transit is not a silver bullet, but it helps, and would help more if people changed their attitude. Too many people think it is too inconvenient for them. If we don't change our tune, traffic and pollution woes will continue. The LAST thing we need is more gigantic gas guzzling SUV's to fullfil yuppie needs of power and status. I don't know how you can think buses, trains, ferries, etc. do not help, but if you really beleive this, you are part of the problem my friend.

I695 may have been born from a good concept, but it's impact stinks, and more and more people will come to this reality over time. And as for the son of I695, that's about as ignorant as you can get. Good luck with that one.

-- Gary (bigdaddy@aol.com), January 01, 2000.


bigdaddy aren't you supposed to be on a bus for Alabammy? Why do you people keep babbling your nonsense? Don't you know that many people are laughing at you behind their hands and the rest of us are rolling around on the floor laughing out loud. Maybe if washington had been blessed with two or three people with rains a few years ago. and maybe if it wasn't believed that all roads should lead to Seattle, then this state might have had some highways built that actually did some good instead of being storm drains for vehicles that alll empty out in ht eSeattle pond.

If we had ONE TENTH of the freeways that LA has we would be un congested... but NOOO we have babbling idiots..

Maybe Tim will wear a dunce cap but at least it will be on his head and not up his butt like yours.

-- maddjak (maddjak@hotmail.com), January 01, 2000.



Gary,

We have too many people, not too many vehicles. We need to stop making so many people. It would help if more couples limited themselves to 1 or less offspring. If we don't change our tune soon, traffic, pollution, hunger, poverty and violence woes will continue.

Wasting more money on mass transit is not the answer. You need to look at the big picture, not individual problems or ineffective solutions.

-- Marsha (acorn_nut@hotmail.com), January 01, 2000.


"The conspiracy by Goodyear to undermine public transit worked, but as a result, traffic problems there are terrible"

It wasn't Goodyear. It was the aliens from the Roswell Saucer. They require acid-rain to breathe and lay their eggs in asphalt. They intend to take over the whole world. Spread the word. We've got to stop them. Wait! There coming for me..... there at my door.... their breaking it dow........

-- Mark Stilson (mark842@hotmail.com), January 02, 2000.


Maddjak, you, my friend, are an idoit beyond imagination. Kiss my dunce cap buddy.

Mark, what drugs are you taking???

I'm not wasting the energy to respond to this forum anymore, it's overrun with egotistical morons...

Go ahead, fire one back at me, I'm sure it will be witty, I won't be here to read it...

-- ha ha (ha@ha.com), January 06, 2000.


ha-ha --

"Go ahead, fire one back at me, I'm sure it will be witty, I won't be here to read it... " Don't let the door hit you in the butt on the way out..................

-- (zowie@hotmail.com), January 06, 2000.


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